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Is this the year Daniel Bryan finally gets the one big win that's not on his Hall of Fame resume?
We are a little over a week away from the 2021 Royal Rumble. The highly-anticipated kick-off to WrestleMania season always brings with it hope and intrigue. Who will be the surprise entrants? Will there be any big returns? Will my favorite win it all?
That was the hope of nearly every WWE fan back in 2014 - that their favorite, Daniel Bryan, would get that coveted WrestleMania main event match. While that did eventually happen, it wasn't because Bryan won the Royal Rumble Match. In fact, Daniel Bryan didn't have a chance of winning that match. He wasn't in it.
Fans that night were going crazy for the leader of the "Yes Movement." He lost a singles match to Bray Wyatt that night, and from that moment on, the crowd went into full hijack mode.
Daniel Bryan chants rang out during the WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and John Cena, and things got worse during the rumble match itself.
When Rey Mysterio was revealed as the No. 30 entrant - thus eliminating Daniel Bryan from contention - the future WWE Hall of Famer was met with a chorus of boos and subsequent cheers when he was eventually eliminated.
Speaking to Alistair McGeorge of Metro.co.uk ahead of this year's Royal Rumble, Bryan recalled how he felt watching one of his hero's get booed on account of him.
"So actually, I felt really bad for Rey. I was actually watching the match, I was sitting with my soon-to-be wife – we were engaged at the time. We were sitting backstage watching the monitor and I could feel the temperature of the audience. I was like, 'ooh!' I didn’t know exactly what was gonna happen in the Royal Rumble or anything like that. And then when Rey came out and he got booed because he wasn’t me, I felt so bad because Rey is one of my heroes and he’s also one of the best wrestlers of all time, and one of those guys who still – despite having wrestled for as long as he has – still puts everything out there, constantly working hard and all of it. That’s the last person you should boo! So, really there was this weird sort of, “Yeah this feels good that people want me, but I feel so bad for Rey!'” (h\t MetroUK)
The man who won that Royal Rumble that year was Batista. He was also met with resounding boos from the crowd in Pittsburgh that night.
Winning the Royal Rumble is on Daniel Bryan's bucket list
Daniel Bryan would go on to have his moment at WrestleMania XXX in 2014. He would defeat Triple H in singles competition and then go on to win the triple threat main event for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
There isn't much that Daniel Bryan hasn't done in his WWE career. Winning the main event of WrestleMania is the dream for any pro wrestler. However, Bryan still has a desire to win the match that could get him back to the top of the WrestleMania card now seven years later.
"I’m always interested in trying to accomplish new things and new goals and that sort of thing. To me, winning the Royal Rumble would just be the cherry on top of my career."
Daniel Bryan is one of the favorites to win this year's Royal Rumble and is likely to face Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. We'll all find out together when the big event goes down Sunday, January 31st, on the WWE Network.
