20 Awesome WWE Royal Rumble Moments

17. Pittsburgh Turns On The Rumble (2014)

CM Punk
WWE.com

If you’re employed by WWE, then this moment absolutely would not make your list. But if you’re someone who fully bought into the underdog story of Daniel Bryan and felt that him winning the Royal Rumble and headlining WrestleMania was the perfect wrestling storyline, then you probably agree with this selection.

The crowd that crammed into Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center for the 2014 Royal Rumble very clearly wanted to see Daniel Bryan succeed, so after he lost the opening match to Bray Wyatt, the fans began to turn on the PPV. But when it came to the Rumble match itself, the crowd took it to a new level. Things reached a crescendo when Batista entered at #28. Knowing that conventional wisdom said that the Animal was going to win the match, fans began turning on him and nearly everything in the match.

While Batista was heavily booed, Rey Mysterio probably drew the most venom, simply for entering at #30 and thus dashing the fans’ hope for a D-Bry miracle. Fans ultimately would get their wish, but it only came after crowds did like Pittsburgh and vocally showed their refusal to accept WWE’s planned storyline.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.