Fans Unsubscribe to the WWE Network in Droves Following the 2015 “Royal Rumble”

Social media has exploded with posts as fans unsubscribe to the WWE Network in droves following the 2015 “Royal Rumble” on Jan. 25. The event featured three tag team bouts, a Triple Threat Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, and the annual Royal Rumble bout.

However, the crowd at the event, and many fans watching, were not happy with the program presented to them in its entirety. The crowd, and fans, praised the “Kick-Off” match, which saw Cesaro and Tyson Kidd defeat Kofi Kingston and Big E of The New Day, and the Triple Threat WWE Title Match, where current Champion Brock Lesnar retained his gold.

Although these matches were well received, the main event was the 28th annual Royal Rumble. As previously reported and rumored, Roman Reigns overcame the odds of 30 men and was deemed the No. 1 Contender for Lesnar’s title, and will meet him in the main event at WrestleMania 31. However, this is undoubtably not what fans in the arena, and many fans online, wanted.

Following the elimination of Daniel Bryan, Twitter, Facebook, and the Philadelphia crowd present for the “Royal Rumble,” all begin to show their concern towards Reigns being deemed the victor. As Reigns finally emerged from the back to enter the arena, the crowd began booing him, and would not stop for the remainder of the night.

This happened during the 2014 Royal Rumble bout, when fans were smart to WWE’s plans to making Batista the Rumble winner, effectively keeping Bryan out of the WrestleMania XXX main event. However, fans would protest this decision, and force WWE to change their Road to WrestleMania script altogether. Bryan would go on to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at the 30th WrestleMania.

Following Reigns winning, WWE sent former WWE Champion, and Reigns’ cousin The Rock out to the ring in order to try and sweeten the win and get the fans behind the former muscle of The Shield. However, this also failed, as the Philly crowd would soon turn on both The Rock and Reigns.

After the event went dark, many fans online began canceling their subscriptions to the WWE Network, posting images of their cancelation notice on Facebook and Twitter, all-the-while tagging WWE, Triple H, and Vince McMahon in their posts. Fans seem to be mad after feeling like the company has turned a blind eye to them two years in a row, and now they’re going to stop investing in the product.

The following image (NSFW: Language) features some of the posts tagging WWE with cancelation notices attached.

 

The hashtag”#CancelWWENetwork” also began trending on Twitter.

httpss://twitter.com/WrestleRumors/status/559580245552922624

Following this trend, and the number of people trying to cancel their subscriptions, WWE’s cancelation service page through their website officially crashed around 12:00 a.m. on Jan. 26.

Monday may shine light on another day for the company, but this situation looks like it may turn out to be worse than the fallout from 2014’s “Rumble.” Time will tell the real story.

Editor’s Note:
Welp, we all knew Reigns was going to win, right? Everyone at WrestlingRumors.net picked him to win. However, it seems as if fans are finally going to start doing more than just complain, they’re going to act on their word and stop investing in a product that they feel is unattached from them. Interesting to see what more develops here.