Match Spotlight: Randy Orton Vs. Batista Vs. Daniel Bryan, WWE WrestleMania XXX

Randy Orton will be taking part in his third WWE WrestleMania main event this year when he challenges Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 42. It's something that he richly deserves given the near 24 years of service he's given to the company, and after seeing the final year of John Cena's career where he won his 17th world title, Orton wants to make some history of his own by winning his 15th world title, which would take him to third on the all-time list behind Cena and Ric Flair, while breaking away from Triple H who he is currently tied with on 14.

Due to Orton being such an integral part of WWE programming over the past quarter of a century, you would think that his last WrestleMania main event would have been fairly recent. However, get ready to feel old ladies and gentlemen, because Orton's most recent WrestleMania main event was 12 years ago. For context, Roman Reigns has wrestled in five times the amount of WrestleMania show closers than Orton has since 2014. But with Orton's third main event on the horizon, we thought we'd shine a spotlight on his last main event, one that is still seen as one of the best in the show's history, and the culmination of WWE actively giving in to its fanbase and giving them what they want.

Unless your name was Daniel Bryan in 2014, the fans didn't really want anything to do with you. The entire audience was on his side, from the young fans who saw his overwhelming positivity as inspiring, to the weekly WWE watchers who had grown to love his character, to the long-time supporters of the man they once knew as "The American Dragon," who had long believed that Bryan was one of the best wrestlers of his generation. Despite all of that, WWE thought that an Evolution reunion between Orton and Batista was the way to go. The fans responded by saying, "We'll take it from here," and they didn't stop revolting until Bryan was in the main event. He did have to go through Triple H earlier in the show to make it happen, but when he got to the main event, he had "The YES! Movement" on his side and nothing was going to stop him from reaching the top.

We've already shone a spotlight on a number of things relating to this year's WrestleMania to get us excited, and now it's time for us to take a trip to where WrestleMania 42 was meant to be held. Without further ado, let's shine a spotlight on Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton vs. Batista from WrestleMania 30!

We all need to thank our lucky stars that Michael Cole doesn't have Vince McMahon's voice in his ear anymore because his calls at the end of this match, while they do sell the importance of the situation, are really something to behold. Calling Daniel Bryan "The Miracle Kid" when he is only one year younger than Randy Orton is one thing, but saying that this match is "The Miracle on Bouborn Street" really is an insult to the people who put together Google Maps, because the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is nowhere near Bouborn Street. I understand that Bouborn Street is an iconic road in New Orleans, Louisiana, but at least have some respect for local geography, Michael.

Anyway, the main event of WrestleMania 30: it's fantastic. It's the ultimate David vs. Goliath story in the sense that David has to go against two Goliaths who have the backing of the powers that be. Bryan was already badly beaten up heading into this one after his match with Triple H at the start of the show (which was the longest match on the show, by the way, because of course it was), but the great thing about this one was that it wasn't exactly a handicap match all the way through. Had it been Bryan vs. Evolution, I don't think it would have worked as well. After all, Batista, who really had  one of his best showings of his entire career in this match, worked hard to get to this point by winning the Royal Rumble in January.

Obviously, Orton and Batista work together; the story wouldn't make sense if they didn't. The highlight of that teamwork was the Batista Bomb/Reverse RKO through the announce table. That spot looks awesome in principle, but even nastier on a rewatch, when you see Orton landing on one of the monitors that hadn't been cleared. To anyone who asks why wrestlers always clear the announce table when setting up for a spot, this is why. It's when things break down between Batista and Orton that you're reminded why WWE saw so much in them back in the "Ruthless Aggression" era, with both men playing their roles excellently throughout.

With all that said, Bryan is the star of the show, and it's a testament to how good he has been in his entire career that some fans might not even rank this match that highly from an in-ring standpoint. But from a moment perspective, it's easily one of the biggest and best of his career. The roar of the crowd when Orton is taken out by a Batista Bomb, only for "The Animal" to be taken out by Bryan's running knee that results in the "YES! Lock" is deafening. You can still feel the anticipation all these years later, and when Batista does tap out, it's magical. It's easily one of the best WrestleMania main events ever, and one could argue it's one of the best WWE matches ever as well. A must-see match.

If you've been a fan of WWE for a while, you'll know that the company has a little tendency to stretch the truth and rewrite history. After all, history is only ever written by the winners, and when the person with the pen in their hand is someone like Vince McMahon who literally bought his biggest competition at the start of the 21st century and ruled over wrestling like some deranged overlord, the past is always going to look favorable on WWE.

WrestleMania 30 is a prime example of this, because WWE has made it very clear that Daniel Bryan walking out of New Orleans with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was the culmination of a two year story... except it wasn't, not even close.

The tale WWE likes to tell is that Bryan lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Sheamus in 18 seconds at WrestleMania 28, and started his redemption arc almost overnight. The "NO!" chants that were lobbied at him were a response to the "YES!" chants that Bryan had been doing, but they organically became positive chants over time that resulted in a movement which took Bryan to the pinnacle of professional wrestling. What actually happened is very different. Bryan was always seen as a solid hand, but never a main event star. He was seen as a "internet darling," a term WWE liked to use for anyone the fans cheered for because they worked in Ring of Honor or in Japan, rather than the fans cheering for them because they liked the wrestler's work.

Because of this, Bryan was always positioned in and around the title picture, but was never actually going to be given the ball. It got to the point where Bryan's "YES!" chants were what WWE thought was over and not the man himself, so the company tried to give the chants to someone they wanted in the main event scene, The Big Show. The whole "B+ Player" mantra was the one thing that was actually true about the whole thing, and let's be honest with ourselves; had it not been for CM Punk walking out of the company, Bryan would have never won the big one at WrestleMania 30. If you need evidence for this, Punk still has the original rundown of what WrestleMania was going to look like, and he was going to face Triple H while the main event was going to be Orton vs. Batista. Where was Bryan? Wrestling Sheamus of course!

WWE has toned down on the rewriting of history somewhat in recent years as they realized that people could probably just do their own research and find out what the past actually looked like. With that said, it's still frustrating that this is one of those situations where they bend over backwards to tell you that the company "listens to its fans," when in reality, WWE would have bent over backwards to keep Bryan as far away from the WrestleMania 30 main event as humanly possible.