Everybody hated the fact that Roman Reigns entered as number 30 at the Royal Rumble. Even many of the Roman Reigns fans criticised WWE for putting Roman Reigns at Roman Reigns at no 30.

After the introduction of Brock Lesnar, Goldberg and The Undertaker quite late in the match, and with only one surprise entrant i.e. Tye Dellinger, fans were hoping to see some big name returning or debuting at number 30. Fans were rooting for the like of Kurt Angle, Finn Balor or Samoa Joe, instead of them they got Roman Reigns.

But was not that done on purpose? I mean, didn’t they know how much hatred they would receive for putting Roman Reigns at number 30? And the very next night Samoa Joe made his main roster debut. So the million dollar question is, why would they do it? Why didn’t they put Samoa Joe in the Rumble?

This question was finally answered by Wrestling Observer; as we said, they knew they were going to get hated for making this decision, and that what they wanted.

After the failure of Royal Rumble 2014 and 2015, the creative team was a little concerned about the reaction after Randy Orton winning this year’s Royal Rumble. So they needed someone who could generate all the heat on himself to help Randy Orton getting cheered after the win. Enter Roman Reigns; the most hated WWE superstar right now.

They knew if they put Roman Reigns at such an anticipated entry number, fans would go mad, and they would have anyone winning the Royal Rumble except Roman Reigns.

Their plan worked. Fans were mad at Roman and they were happy that Roman did not win, they were not happy because of Randy Orton, they were just happy because Roman did not win. And that is what they wanted, they wanted Randy Orton to get “the biggest face reaction as possible.”