5 times WWE changed the Royal Rumble winner

#4 WWE Men's Royal Rumble 2020

Roman Reigns was the first choice to win the Royal Rumble in 2020

Original choice: Roman Reigns, Ultimate winner: Drew McIntyre

Roman Reigns has become the MVP of Royal Rumble matches in the last few years. The Big Dog has always been booked strong at the PPV. Continuing the trend, WWE had selected him as their prime pick to win the men's Royal Rumble match.

However, they changed the plans just a few weeks before the event as Drew McIntyre took his position. As per Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, the now-former Executive Director of RAW, Paul Heyman, played a significant role in this change. Here's what Meltzer had to say about this last-minute alteration:

So obviously, one main event at WrestleMania, perhaps the main event of WrestleMania is going to be Brock Lesnar vs. Drew McIntyre and they went all the way to build that and Drew McIntyre is the guy. Obviously this is a Paul Heyman decision that was made sometime back, I presume Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns is the other main event. They could have had Roman Reigns win the Royal Rumble because McIntyre was made when he eliminated Lesnar, but it was one of those things where Heyman probably got the main event and everything for that main event.

Since Roman Reigns was the last man to be eliminated from the Royal Rumble this year, one can presume that WWE would have planned to give him another massive win. Reigns even received a WWE Universal Championship match against Goldberg at WrestleMania 36, though the match didn't take place after The Big Dog opted to pull out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.