The boos were deafening on Sunday night as Roman Reigns was revealed as the 30th Royal Rumble entrant and as Reigns eliminated Bray Wyatt, Chris Jericho, and The Undertaker.
Heading into this year’s Royal Rumble, several huge names were rumored as possible surprise entrants; two strong contenders were Finn Balor, who would be returning from his SummerSlam injury, and Samoa Joe, who would be making his main roster debut after several years on NXT. As the Royal Rumble match rolled on, the crowd in San Antonio seemed increasingly underwhelmed by each reveal of an unannounced superstar. One of those slots was filled by Apollo Crews, who was met with total silence. Other unannounced entrants included Kalisto and James Ellsworth.
So as the clock ticked down for the final entrant, viewers at home and in the Alamodome assumed this last spot was being saved for someone amazing. After all, the person would be following Goldberg and The Undertaker, so this had to be some incredible surprise, right?
Instead, out walked Roman Reigns, and the Alamodome completely revolted and began to chant “bulls–t!”
The fans only grew more hostile as Roman Reigns eliminated Bray Wyatt, Chris Jericho, and finally The Undertaker. Once again, “bulls–t!” chants echoed through the stadium, as attendees simultaneously realized that the show would end with no noteworthy surprise appearances other than Tye Dillinger and that Roman Reigns might actually win the Royal Rumble again.
A few minutes later, though, Randy Orton delivered an RKO and eliminated Roman Reigns, becoming the winner of the Royal Rumble match and earning a massive pop from the Alamodome crowd. All, at least for that moment, seemed to have been forgiven.
Still, online reactions to the Royal Rumble event were quite brutal as a direct result of these Roman Reigns shenanigans. Mere minutes after the event ended, the top post on Squared Circle, the official professional wrestling subreddit, was simply information about how to cancel your WWE Network subscription.