WWE Royal Rumble 2015: Biggest Missed Opportunities with Show's Booking

The 2015 Royal Rumble event is one that fans will one day look back upon and recognize as one of the worst in the 28-year history of the show, thanks in large part to a myriad of missed booking opportunities.

Daniel Bryan was eliminated early in the Royal Rumble match, creating great unrest among fans and ensuring that Roman Reigns' entry into the match would be met with a deafening chorus of boos. Damien Mizdow, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler and even Ryback were eliminated nonchalantly and, thus, further infuriated the audience.

Add to that the fact that WWE managed to put together one of the most uninspired undercards in company history and you had a show that, from top to bottom, was one of the most poorly booked of all time.

Now, days removed from the event, relive the kickoff to the 2015 pay-per-view schedule by taking a look back at the biggest opportunities with the show's booking.

Credit: WWE.com

The Undercard

Any time a Royal Rumble match fails as miserably as the one did this past Sunday night, it becomes imperative that the undercard is good enough to help the show overcome its largest deficiency.

Unconcerned with that, WWE Creative compiled an undercard of matches that was as lackluster and uninteresting as ever. The Ascension and the New Age Outlaws kicked off the show with an uneventful tag match. The Miz, Damien Mizdow and the Usos followed that up with what felt very much like their millionth meeting in the last three months.

Natalya and Paige battled the Bella Twins in a Divas tag bout that was really just an eight-minute squash match.

Were it not for Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Seth Rollins delivering a legitimate Match of the Year contender, the show would rank easily as one of the worst ever produced by WWE.

Considering that the Royal Rumble event is the start of the Road to WrestleMania, and a major determinant in some fans' decision to stick around and see what happens heading into the biggest show of the year, it was a huge misstep and an even bigger missed opportunity to give fans something to get excited about after months spent in the booking doldrums.

Credit: WWE.com

Dolph Ziggler

When Daniel Bryan was eliminated early in the Royal Rumble, it completely sucked the life out of the arena. Fans in Philly may have understood that this was not his year to win the match, but they did not understand the handling of his elimination, as the bearded Superstar was tossed as if he was midcard fodder in the same vein as Sin Cara.

The audience rained down on the rest of the contest with a chorus boos, stopping briefly to ignite a passionate "we want Ziggler" chant.

Entering at No. 30, Dolph Ziggler earned one of the night's biggest pops. He immediately eliminated both Bad News Barrett and Cesaro with outstanding super kicks and appeared poised to make a run of it.

Instead, he was knocked out by Big Show and tossed like a piece of garbage over the top rope and to the arena floor.

Every chance the crowd had of one of their favorites surviving until the very end of the bout disappeared.

Ziggler's elimination was an exclamation point on a night in which it felt very much like WWE Creative was attempting to troll the audience by completely mishandling the booking of their favorites.

After two months of picking up huge wins and looking very much like he may finally break through the proverbial glass ceiling, Ziggler was tossed after mere minutes of competition in a move that still has fans scratching their heads.

Credit: WWE.com

Paige

Paige is the future of women's wrestling in World Wrestling Entertainment. At only 22 years old, she has the talent and pedigree to be the face of the Divas division for years to come. Sunday night, a strong performance could have made her the central figure in the story to dethrone Nikki Bella as Divas champion and ascend to the top of the female roster.

Instead, she hardly stepped foot in the match, watching from the apron as the twins dominated Natalya, then she was pulled to the arena floor by Brie to prevent a hot tag.

By night's end, she and her partner looked every bit the glorified jobbers, as they had been beaten and dominated by their opponents for all of eight minutes.

Nikki and Brie are marketed and protected thanks to their status as the stars of WWE's Total Divas reality show. They are the faces of that brand and have a considerable fanbase.

But Paige is the type of performer that will be with the company, delivering great matches and restoring credibility to the Divas division long after reality shows are over and the Bellas are at home, enjoying time with John Cena and Daniel Bryan, respectively.

Continuing to mishandle Paige's booking the way WWE did Sunday night will only help deteriorate her effectiveness, much in the same way Vince McMahon and company have managed to ruin every member of the NXT roster to get called up over the last year.