10 WWE PPVs That Couldn't Follow Their Opening Match

3. Royal Rumble 2014 - Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt

Daniel Bryan seems to have a habit of putting on great opening matches. Alright, more accurately, Daniel Bryan seems to have a habit of putting on great matches, full stop - but when those gems come along at the beginning of a PPV, it can set up the entire card for a fall. If you book Bryan against a half-decent opponent at the top of the show, you'd better have some worthy matches to follow it up with. The 2014 Royal Rumble match was not a worthy match. In perhaps their most egregious ignoring of the fans' opinions, WWE didn't even book Byran as a contestant in the match, despite everybody and their mother clamouring for a big D-Bry title win at WrestleMania 30. Bryan's main event no-show would have been greeted poorly regardless of the rest of the card, but the fact that he tore the show down only a few hours beforehand surely made the crowd reaction all the more vitriolic. Credit to Bray Wyatt too, who enjoyed perhaps the best singles match of his career. The bout's centrepiece spot - a suicide dive countered into a Sister Abigail against the crowd barrier - was pulled off to perfection, and can be seen as a microcosm of the match as a whole; two men throwing absolutely everything at one another in a breathless, hell-for-leather showdown.