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The upcoming Royal Rumble event will emanate from Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last time this city hosted the Royal Rumble event was in 2015, a Royal Rumble that was marked by the negative reaction of fans in attendance. This year's event will be the 30th anniversary of the event and will officially kick off the road to Wrestlemania 34.
The Royal Rumble is one of WWE's "Big Four", along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, and is one of the most anticipated shows of the year due to its unpredictability, and surprise returns, that has been synonymous with the event. However, the show sometimes does not meet the expectations of the fans and has had its share of controversies.
Vince McMahon is the ultimate decision maker in WWE. At times, his vision for the company is not commensurate with what the fans want. A few times the show has not gone as planned and the results have sparked controversy as a result. The aftermath of these contentious moments have always taken Vince and his writers back to the drawing board, to sort out the messes brought about by such occurrences.
Here are the five most controversial moments in Royal Rumble history.
#5 Royal Rumble 2014: Batista booed out of the building
Batista made his return to the WWE after nearly four years on January 20, 2014. Upon his return, It was announced that he would be participating in the 2014 Royal Rumble match. He was a man on a mission as he vowed to win the Royal Rumble match and become the champion at WrestleMania 30.
The 2014 Royal Rumble took place at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attracted an estimated crowd of over 15,000 people. Prior to the Rumble match, Randy Orton and John Cena squared off for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. During their title match, fans booed both men and chanted for Daniel Bryan, amongst other chants such as "this is awful".
The fans continued to chant for Bryan during the Royal Rumble match despite his absence. When the number 30 entrant was revealed to be Rey Mysterio, the fans booed him since they realized Bryan was never scheduled to participate in the match. They chanted for Bryan and cheered Mysterio's eventual elimination.
The crowd continued to boo even as only three wrestlers remained in the match. When Batista eliminated Roman Reigns to win the match, he was booed out of the building in one of the loudest negative response ever given to a Royal Rumble winner. The decision by WWE not to include Bryan in the match despite his overwhelming popularity at the time made this contest a controversial one.
#4 Royal Rumble 1994: Two Rumble winners
The 1994 Royal Rumble is the only Rumble match that had two wrestlers simultaneously declared winners. These wrestlers were Bret Hart and Lex Luger and both were being pushed as the top stars of the company at that time.
Luger was initially poised to be the next Hulk Hogan after Hogan's departure from the company in mid-1993. It was, therefore, no surprise that he was strongly booked heading into the Royal Rumble in 1994. Bret Hart, on the other hand, was voted "WWF Superstar of the Year" in 1993 by fans, as well as the greatest wrestler of the year by Pro Wrestling Illustrated readers. The two top stars were, therefore, favourites to win the Royal Rumble match to earn a place at the main event of Wrestlemania 10.
The Rumble match ended when Lex Luger and Bret Hart simultaneously eliminated each other.Two referees argued about who had landed first while several inconclusive camera angles were broadcast. Eventually, WWF President Jack Tunney came to the ring and told Finkel to announce that both men were winners. Instead of restarting the match to decide the winner, the WWF found it fit to declare both men winners in one of the most controversial decisions ever made at the Royal Rumble.
#3 Royal Rumble 2005: Batista and John Cena in a botched finish
The 2005 Royal Rumble was the eighteenth annual Royal Rumble and was the first stop on the road to Wrestlemania 21. Going into the match, Batista and Cena were huge favourites and the WWE already had big plans for the two megastars that year.
During the Rumble match, Cena and Batista were the final two wrestlers in the ring. Cena represented SmackDown whereas Batista was from Raw and thus this was a once in a lifetime encounter that the fans were excited to witness firsthand.
During the final phase of the action, Cena went for the FU, but "The Animal" fought out of it and went for the Batista Bomb. Cena's force took them both into the ropes, he flipped over and Batista went over as well. As a result, they both fell out at the same exact time.
This was in total contradiction of how the match was planned to finish as Batista was supposed to hang onto the ropes during the Powerbomb spot. He did not and thus fell out. The match was restarted by Vince and Batista quickly threw Cena out after hitting a Spinebuster. However, it is the finish that did not go according to plan that people always remember this match for.
#2 Royal Rumble 2000: Did The Rock deserve to win?
The 2000 Royal Rumble was special since besides being held at the famous Madison Square Garden, it was the first WWF pay-per-view event to air on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom. On January 10, 2000, The Rock announced his participation in the match and a week later guaranteed victory.
Also, The Big Show, not to be left out, declared his intention to win the match and be in the main event of Wrestlemania. It was clear that the two men to watch for at the Rumble match were Rock and Big Show.
On January 23, 2000, the event was live at Madison Square Garden. The final four participants in the Royal Rumble match were The Rock, The Big Show, Kane, and X-Pac. X-Pac eliminated Kane before being eliminated by Big Show leaving behind the final two participants, The Rock and Big Show.
The Big Show had The Rock on his shoulder and attempted to toss him over the top rope, but The Rock hung onto the rope and pulled The Big Show over. However, in the true sense, Rock's feet actually touched the ground first and thus Big Show was technically the winner. Everyone wanted The Rock to win the match since he was in the midst of one of the biggest babyface runs of all time.
The spot was used in storylines as Big Show produced evidence to indicate that he was the true winner. Perhaps this botch explained why The Rock did not get his one on one championship match at Wrestlemania that year. The WWE would instead go with a fatal four way including The Rock, Big Show, Triple H and Mick Foley.
#1 Royal Rumble 2015: Roman Reigns wins the Rumble
After performing incredibly well in the 2014 Royal Rumble match by eliminating a record 12 people, Roman Reigns was heavily pushed as a singles wrestler and was inserted into world title contention in June that year. It was clear that he was being groomed to take over from John Cena as the face of the WWE. He was poised to have an even bigger impact in 2015 by winning the Royal Rumble match.
Unlike in 2014, Daniel Bryan entered the 2015 Royal Rumble match at number 10 and eliminated Tyson Kidd before getting eliminated by Bray Wyatt after 10 minutes 36 seconds. This agitated the audience and they went on to boo most of the remaining entrants especially Roman Reigns who entered the match at number 19.
Reigns went on to eliminate Rusev to win the match amid boos from the Philadelphia crowd despite being a babyface. The very negative reaction of the fans attending the event in Philadelphia towards the Royal Rumble match and its winner was described as being even worse than the 2014 event.
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