5 Royal Rumble winners who put their title opportunity at stake
We are less than two days away from the 2019 edition of Royal Rumble. The atmosphere for welcoming the first PPV of 2019 is ecstatic. A lot of speculation about the winner has been up in the air for the past few weeks, and a lot of superstars from the likes of The Rock to the likes of Seth Rollins are in the fans' discussions. After all, the winner of the Royal Rumble match could head on to challenge the champion of his or her choosing at Wrestlemania.
Most Royal Rumble winners tend to play it safe by just having a few matches between the Rumble and Wrestlemania. However, some superstars took the extra step to put their "title opportunity" at stake - to give themselves and the WWE Universe a feel of an adrenaline rush. In this list, we will take a look at a few superstars who put their title opportunity at stake.
#5 Roman Reigns
Roman Reigns won the 2015 Royal Rumble to a chorus of boos from the WWE Universe. The backlash was so hard that the "Cancel WWE Network" was trending on twitter for a few weeks. Daniel Bryan's unceremonious elimination was the catalyst for this negative crowd reaction.
However, in the coming weeks, the Authority persuaded Reigns to defend his Wrestlemania title shot at Fastlane. To the fans' surprise, Daniel Bryan won the qualification match against Seth Rollin to earn that spot. Fans expected Bryan to defeat Reigns and fight for the title he never lost against Brock Lesnar.
Reigns and Bryan had a brilliant match. Reigns even kicked out of Bryan's running knee - a finisher that was never kicked out before in WWE. In the end, Reigns speared Bryan to retain his opportunity to challenge Lesnar at Wrestlemania.