WWE’s Royal Rumble 2016 ended with a surprise appearance by Triple H, who was revealed as the 30th entrant, and saw him overcome Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose to win his second Royal Rumble and a 14th Championship, but things could have been very different.
Ambrose wasn’t supposed to be in the final two, with Roman Reigns the original wrestler that WWE officials planned to pit against HHH, but the crowds reaction to Reigns caused WWE to tweak their plans and chose Ambrose instead.
Vince McMahon envisioned Reigns as the underdog, but everyone shared the belief that Roman would either win or fight until the end. Reigns outlasting everyone until the final two was a far fetched idea.
Reigns was hauled off right after Luke Harper entered the competition at number 13. More than half of the match went by without him. The crowd soon grew fed up of Reigns, as he never got tossed around much and was booed regularly by the crowd.
WWE officials then decided that they’d seen enough and went ahead and took Reigns off, pitting Dean Ambrose against Triple H instead so that Reigns wouldn’t have become the heel and Triple H the babyface.
