Rewatching the royal rumble. There was a pop when Batista entered, then it's like people realized he was number #28 and that he was going to get his free pass to wrestlemania and there were some boos, but still, legit mixed reactions, people cheered when he eliminated Rowan.
Then Big E entered at #29 and there was zero reaction, positive or negative.
Then weak chants of Danyel Bryan began and it kind of died, as the number #30 started to come, yes chants, not really strong chants.
When Rey got in, tho, there were boos, and there were Daniel Bryan chants, and the crowd oscilates between dead and boos, but by now they are either not reacting or booing stuff.
Roman Reigns eliminates the Shield and Cesaro and huge pop, people at this point rallied behind Roman Reigns, there were some boos when punk got eliminated (from his career), but nobody look really upset about it. Daniel Bryan chants again as soon as Punk got through the table.
Sheamus, Batista and Reigns, now, crowd booing nothing in particular, just the match, Batista takes down Reigns, people start "no no no" and now are definetly against him. Sheamus getting that mixed reaction.
Roman Reigns eliminate Sheamus and the crowd pop big time. People are totally behind Reigns. Still, every time the pop calms down, the boos take over. It's noticeable because Batista is basically dead and stay down a long time between spots.
Roman Reigns chants. Batista spears, boos, Reigns spears, cheers. Batista wins, crowd riot. Nobody is happy. On the internet people are vowing to never watch WWE again. Batista's can barely stand while looking shook at the boos. Someone tried to start a "you still got it" chant, but boos drowned it. Sadness everywhere. Puppies and kittens are crying. A homeless man watching on the streets shed a tear as this was his last hope at ever being happy again. The world is horrible. People wish for WWE to bankrupt. Rednecks are calling to the Steve Austin podcast to say they think Orson and Batista is going to be terrible. It's the bad times before the good times. By the end of the show, the crowd can't even boo anymore, they're getting up and leaving, they don't want to be a part of this anymore.
Bean breath is happy that maybe, just maybe, WWE will sink to TNA levels.
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Not really relevant, I guess, but since we talked so much about crowd, the story isn't exactly that the crowd hijacked the show in the name of Daniel Bryan, that's actually what the narrative became after HHH came out the following day with the "somebody did not get what they wanted" line. A Roman Reigns win would have pleased people just fine, even if he isn't ready for a singles career, much less main event wrestlemania. After Roman Reigns eliminated the three other internet darlings at the same time, the crowd was into it, not 100%, but they regained a lot of people with that spot.
Conclusion to yet another brilliant essay: The narrative that the crowd tried to shove Daniel Bryan down poor WWE throat is an exageration made by WWE themselves so they could salvage a wrestlemania doomed by the lack of Punk and the presence of Batista.