10 WWE Royal Rumble Eliminations More Significant Than You First Thought
3. Alex Reily (2011)
The 2011 Royal Rumble gets a lot of (admittedly earned) flak because of its size and winner, but it had some truly memorable moments. Among them, the Nexus running rampant for much of the match, the return of Diesel and... Alex Reilly's infamous botch.
It's since been confirmed that Reilly was booked to play a massive role in the ending of the match (and likely in the elimination of John Cena) but that all went to sh*t when Reilly was accidentally eliminated by Cena ten whole minutes before the contest was to end. Everything ended up being alright, however, when Cena was eliminated by an interfering Miz instead - but what was supposed to happen?
When the topic of Royal Rumble screwups arises, this is probably the first one that comes to mind, but this elimination could really place anywhere on this list because no one knows exactly how much damage it caused - beyond the growing dissent between The Champ and A-Ry that we later learned of.