WWE Royal Rumble 2015: 5 worst moments in the pay-per-view's history

Royal Rumble is hands down one of the marquee pay-per-views in WWE’s arsenal. It has played host to some of the most memorable moments in the WWE’s history and at the same time has seen some over the top booking decisions as well.The complacency of WWE coupled with some good old botched booking from the WWE creative team gave a lot of face-palm moments for the fans over the rich archives of Royal Rumble.As the WWE Universe prepares itself to witness another edition of the Rumble in just a couple of days’ time, here is a look at those worst moments in Royal Rumble which will always haunt Vince McMahon in his dreams.

#5 The entire 1999 Royal Rumble

So this is not technically one moment but a string of moments. The entire 1999 Royal Rumble was a botch due to various bad booking decisions by the company. Vince wanted to do everything to avoid Steve Austin win the Rumble and it was a promising storyline to be frank.

However, WWE screwed things up big time. First of all, they filled the 3 to 17 positions with jobbers while the first two were Vince McMahon and Steve Austin. Austin was taken out after being ambushed and Vince just sat out during a major part of the match.

Kane eliminated himself, Viscera was abducted by the ministry of darkness, Austin then came back from the hospital in an Ambulance only to lose to Vince in the match. And to make matters worse, Vince never headlined WrestleMania.

#4 The Daniel Puder case

Daniel Puder came out victorious in the fourth edition of Tough Enough and was expected to make it big in the business thanks to his amateur wrestling career. When he entered the Royal Rumble at the third spot, Puder was destined to make an impact.

That destiny would’ve been fulfilled if it wasn’t for a rookie mistake that he committed three months prior to the rumble. Puder almost legitimately broke Kurt Angle’s arm in a match and that apparently proved to be the nail in his coffin.

Puder was jobbed out of the Rumble match by Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Hardcore Holly and the Tough Enough Winner was never seen in the WWE ring again.

#3 Savage forgetting the rules

Royal Rumble has a simple rule set. You are eliminated if both your feet touch the ground but at times; superstars tend to forget even this simple rule. Randy Savage belonged to that category not once but twice.

In 1992, he was involved in a feud with Jake Roberts. During the Rumble match, Savage jumped over the top rope to attack Roberts and in turn eliminated himself. It might’ve been a good thing on storyline aspect but nothing can explain what Savage did in 1993.

He was in the last two alongside Yokozuna and after he delivered his trademark elbow, Savage tried to pin Yokozuna. The only problem was, there are no pins in the Royal Rumble. To make matter worse, Yokozuna just threw Savage out of the ring while lying on his back.

#2 Scott Steiner vs. Triple H 2003

This might look like a great match on paper and it had all the hype as well. Steiner joined WWE a year after WCW sank and was immediately put into a feud with Hunter. The writers booked these two as though they were some cartoon characters and the buildup fell flat.

But they gave out an even worse performance when the match started in the pay-per-view. It lasted nearly twenty minutes and the crowd was dead the entire time.

And if that was not enough, both the veterans didn’t make any effort to uplift the arena and ended up giving one of the worst matches ever in Royal Rumble history.

#1 The Animal triumphs 2014

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No point for guessing this one as it was one of the most recent and memorable botches from the WWE writers. Batista came back after his four year hiatus and was immediately put into the main event scene as Vince McMahon expected the Animal to pick up from where he left off.

Making him the Royal Rumble winner was part of that belief but things soon backfired for Vince thanks to the rustiness that Batista brought with him. The fans pounced on his weakness and jeers showered on the babyface.

After the Rumble win also, Batista failed to make a big impact as he had to share his WrestleMania headlining opportunity with Daniel Bryan and eventually tapped out to the flying goat in an embarrassing manner.