FanPost

Royal Rumble 2014 Review: BOOOOOO-tista

Event: Royal Rumble 2014

Date: January 26, 2014

Place: Consol Energy Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Attendance: 15,715

If you want the definition of a trainwreck, there are a few shows I will point you to: WrestleMania XI, Survivor Series 2013, and this one: the 2014 edition of the Royal Rumble. Sure, it starts promising with an excellent match between Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt, but after that, pretty much EVERYTHING goes to hell in a handbasket. However, if you want to think about it this way, this show could be responsible for saving WrestleMania XXX.

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Bray Wyatt defeats Daniel Bryan

This was an excellent match featuring some excellent storytelling and excellent back-and-forth offense from both wrestlers. At this point, this was definitely Wyatt's best match (until Payback). There were some awesome spots, culminating in Wyatt giving Bryan the Sister Abigail into the barricade.

Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) defeats Big Show

This wasn't at match at all; it was more of a beatdown. Before the match, Brock Lesnar absolutely unloaded on Big Show with lots of chair shots. After the match started, Show got some offense in, but was ultimately stopped by Lesnar. The beatdown continued after the match ended.To me, this was a waste of a Lesnar match.

Randy Orton defeats John Cena to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

This was the rematch that no one wanted to see, but we got anyway. No one cared about this match at all. In fact, the crowd in Pittsburgh completely hijacked this match with numerous chants including "Daniel Bryan", "Randy Savage", "Y2J", and "We want Divas", among others. In fact, I do think it got to the point where both Cena and Orton were completely rattled by the negative response, so they tried to do ANYTHING to get the insanity to stop.

If you were to ignore the crowd (and it was almost impossible not to), this match was actually painful to watch. You knew that these two could have a better match, so it feels like they mailed it in. The ending (before The Wyatt Family interfered) felt like a video game match due to stolen finisher after stolen finisher.

Batista wins the Royal Rumble match

This Royal Rumble match is definitely one of the worst Rumble matches ever. Like with last year's Rumble, you knew who would win from the get go. However, this Rumble was pretty much devoid of exciting moments, except for Kofi Kingston saving himself from elimination by jumping from the barricade to the ring apron. Also, Roman Reigns broke Kane's elimination record with 12 eliminations, a record that stood for 13 years.

However, the big story here is Batista's victory. Sure, when WWE was hyping his return, we were fairly excited. However, when he returned, we were kinda turned off by his skinny jeans, nose ring, and bad Batista Bomb on Alberto Del Rio. However, our disappointment (as well as the rest of the Pittsburgh fans' disappointment) quickly turned into unequivocal hate when Batista entered the Rumble. After about two minutes in the match, Batista was clearly gassed. Although we all knew he would win, we knew that he never deserved the victory. The Pittsburgh crowd let him know that as well, as they mercilessly booed Batista both during and after the Rumble.

The first two entrants were CM Punk and Seth Rollins, the first man eliminated was Damien Sandow (eliminated by Punk), the Iron Man was Punk (lasting for 49:11), and the surprise entrants were Alexander Rusev, Kevin Nash, Sheamus, and JBL.

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This Royal Rumble event sucked pretty hard, and there were some huge consequences due to this show. First and foremost was CM Punk walking out on WWE before the next day's Raw (I know that there is more to his leaving, but the Rumble's booking could have contributed to it). The second consequence had to do with the main event of WrestleMania XXX. No one would even consider Batista and Randy Orton main eventing WrestleMania, especially in the physical state Batista was in. The fans wanted Daniel Bryan, and they eventually got their wish (and also the greatest single-show performance ever).

Although the 2014 Royal Rumble changed the course of WWE history, it cannot change the fact that (save for Bryan/Wyatt), it was a terrible show, and one I am glad that I didn't attend live (although being part of the crowd would have been awesome).

Grade: D+

Tune in tomorrow for Roya...wait! That's it for the Royal Rumble series! To those who read all of these, I give you all my thanks, and I hope that you tune in tomorrow as I begin the SummerSlam series!

In that case, tune in tomorrow for SummerSlam 1988!

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.