WWE Royal Rumble 2015 Review: Fan's Experience from Inside Wells Fargo Center

Yours truly was lucky enough to attend the 2015 WWE Royal Rumble event, which will undoubtedly go down as one of those pay-per-views where big things happened and not everyone walked away happy.

Being from the Philadelphia area, one gets used to the type of crowds filled with passionate fans who will bite someone's head off from the opposition and sometimes follow through with the threats of a riot.

The elephant in the room for the entire event surrounded the idea that since this year wasn't as predictable as some others from the past, everyone had their favorites they were rooting for.

From my own perspective, I saw plenty of happy faces leaving the arena despite how they were still chanting that they wanted refunds.

Here are some specific aspects of the show from section 115.

The Parking Lot

Even beforehand while hanging out in the parking lot, there was plenty of animosity from the "Reject Roman Reigns" fanbase in particular.

Unfortunately, there was nowhere near as much camaraderie as I had witnessed from WrestleMania XXIX at MetLife Stadium in 2013.

A big hindrance on this aspect of the event was the weather, as it was rather cold, and everyone was paranoid about the inclement snow that could come at any time as well as the drizzling rain that would spit from time to time.

Still, as with any WWE event, there were interesting fans to meet and chat with at varying lengths who would share their predictions for later as well as their thoughts about the product in general.

Pre-Show Organization

A big disappointment came from how the start of the evening was scheduled.

For some reason, the Wells Fargo Center staff didn't seem to let the line into the building until the last minute, resulting in many people trying to watch the pre-show on their phones while still waiting outside.

By the time the people that were halfway in the line had entered the arena, the match between The New Day and Tyson Kidd, Cesaro and Adam Rose was ready to begin.

This forced everyone to decide whether they should shop for merchandise, grab some food or just abandon all hope of that for the evening and head to their seats.

In an illogical move, the match was over by the time a good portion of the line had entered the building, and those who had opted for the former two options over going straight to their seats had nothing in front of them for what felt like an eternity.

You were rewarded with relative silence while the audience at home could watch the panel discuss things, so if you missed the match in favor of food or merchandise, you then realized your mistake.

Then again, nobody who watched the match seemed to care, and the response to it was a resounding "meh" at best.

Oh, You Didn't Know? You Better Pick Up the Pace!

The match between the New Age Outlaws and The Ascension wasn't as energetic as a lot had hoped although everyone had a lot of fun chanting along with the entrance, per usual.

If anything, this started to make the crowd a bit nervous that it could be in for a long night where everything was mediocre.

Credit: WWE.com

We Want Mizdow

By far, one of the most anticipated people of the night was Damien Mizdow, so the Tag Team Championship match was very entertaining—if not just because of what he was doing.

For the most part, everyone's eyes were glued on Mizdow although that did not take away from the fun that happened in the match that didn't necessarily involve him, either.

Total Divas are a Total Bummer

Things then took a turn for the worse with the Divas.

Although few will be shocked, some may be disappointed to hear that being surrounded by a predominantly male section meant that almost nothing was chanted about during this match other than things about how attractive the women were.

To be fair, Paige—who was above and beyond the fan favorite of the four women involved—had a lot of support from the fans who wanted to see her wrestle and complimented her ring work even at the expense of Natalya, who is oftentimes considered the best in-ring performer for this division.

The Brie Mode chant was met with laughter, which is of course not the reaction WWE wishes to receive.

By then, the audience wanted to move on and get to the meat of the card with the two matches that actually sold the event.

"This Is Awesome!"

Whenever that chant is echoing through the arena, something is going right, and during the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match, the crowd certainly let that be known.

In terms of support, John Cena was a distant third. Still, there were a few kids who tried hard to get chants going in favor of him but failed miserably while being drowned out by nearly every grown man around them.

Seth Rollins was sometimes equal to Brock Lesnar as far as fan support but mostly second place behind the champion.

Hypocritically, the repetitive German suplexes were cheered heavily while Cena received boos and complaints about him only performing the same few moves, but that should come as no surprise.

What most likely didn't air on television is that the fans expressed their gratitude toward Rollins after the match by giving him a standing ovation for a job well done—quite the opposite from how Cena had bolted to the back with no fanfare, positive or negative.

A Royal Pain to Many

As previously mentioned, there was a wide variety of names being mentioned when asked who everyone was hoping would win.

For the most part, it boiled down to a lot of Daniel Bryan answers along with some Dolph Zigglers and Dean Ambroses to round out the top three picks.

At the same time, some people were just too concerned with whether or not The Rock would appear to make a decision on whom they wanted to win the match while others chalked it up to a hopeful showing and speculated about who else might be a surprise entrant.

Once in a while, someone would suggest another name like Rusev or Big Show, but the biggest topic of discussion was Roman Reigns.

Talk of him not being ready and getting "the John Cena treatment: version 2.0" ran rampant and could have really weighed down the mood even before he won if someone wasn't willing to suspend his or her disbelief and go along for the ride.

Having The Miz and R-Truth start the match off was a dud but was thankfully followed by a huge pop with Bubba Ray Dudley's appearance, who probably received the biggest response out of all those returning stars save for The Rock.

The crowd had a lot of fun with The Boogeyman and Diamond Dallas Page—much more the latter than the former—and Zack Ryder was welcomed back with open arms as well.

A dark cloud formed when Bryan was eliminated, and things never really recovered after that, as far too many people were far too upset to just move on—although Ambrose and, even more so, Ziggler helped turn that tide a bit.

However, for all the people complaining about the outcome of the match, you can still see a lot of arms in the air mimicking Reigns as he posed on the ropes to celebrate.

Credit: SmarkOutMoment.com

Exiting the Arena

Due to the possibility of snow and the lingering disappointment in a lot of eyes, fans poured out rather quickly and just went home.

There wasn't a huge celebration afterward where the WWE Universe banded together to sing Fandango's theme or talk about how pumped everyone was for WrestleMania.

While I personally had a blast overall, there were indeed some flaws in the show that, if fixed, would have made it significantly better.

Nonetheless, it appears as though there were two types of fans that left the Wells Fargo Center.

On the one hand, you had those who had a good time with some ups like The Rock's appearance and downs such as the Divas match.

On the other hand, you had people who were far too upset with Reigns winning, and nothing else mattered because this apparently doomed 2015 to be the worst year ever in WWE.

Hopefully, those watching at home had as much fun as at least some of the crowd did!

Do you have any questions about what went down at the event? If so, leave a comment below.

Anthony Mango is the owner-operator of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment as well as the host of its podcast show, Smack Talk, on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.