While demanding an explanation for these events the next week on Raw, Cena was again attacked by Kane, who revealed in the next several weeks of his desire to have Cena "embrace the hate" (his current on-screen character and T-shirt promoting otherwise) within caused by the anti-Cena crowd who continued to boo him. Upon returning to the WWE on the December 12 edition of Raw, after an absence of nearly four months, Kane interrupted Cena's match against Mark Henry, and though it was Henry who put him out of action, he bypassed him and attacked Cena, chokeslamming him before revealing his new mask. Additionally, a week later on the January 16 episode of Raw, in a segment with Mick Foley, Laurinaitis revealed that he was using this opportunity to cost Punk his title for disrespecting him.Īnother match heading into the Royal Rumble featured John Cena against Kane.
Then on the Januedition of Raw, when Punk faced Swagger in a singles match, Laurinaitis added a stipulation that if Swagger lost, he and Vickie Guerrero would be banned from ringside at the pay-per-view Punk won the match, and thus, Guerrero and Swagger are banned from ringside during the championship match.
However, since titles cannot change hands via countout, Punk retained the championship. After the match, Laurinaitis announced that Punk would defend his championship against Ziggler in a rematch at the Royal Rumble, with himself acting as the special guest referee. The next week, during the title match, Punk was counted out as a result of another intervention from Laurinaitis. On the Decemepisode of Raw, Punk was put into a gauntlet match by Interim Raw General Manager John Laurinaitis, with the stipulation that if either one of Jack Swagger, Ziggler, or Mark Henry defeated Punk, they would receive a championship match against the latter the next week. Ziggler won the match after Punk was distracted by Laurinaitis throwing out Vickie Guerrero and Swagger from ringside. Storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown.Ī highly promoted match featured CM Punk defending his WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler. The card included six matches that resulted from scripted storylines with results predetermined by WWE. The winner would earn a world championship match of their choosing at WrestleMania XXVIII. It features 30 wrestlers, and the match ends when one wrestler remains in the ring, after all 29 other wrestlers have been eliminated via being tossed over the top ring rope and having both feet touch the floor. The pay-per-view featured the annual Royal Rumble match, which has been featured at every Royal Rumble event since its inception. 4 Royal Rumble entrances and eliminations.The event received 443,000 pay-per-view buys, down from 446,000 buys the previous year's event received. Incidentally, this event is also noted as Mick Foley's last night as an active wrestler, as he would compete in the Royal Rumble match. Two title matches were featured: a WWE Championship match with CM Punk defending against Dolph Ziggler, which Punk won to retain the title and a Triple Threat Steel Cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship between the reigning champion Daniel Bryan, Big Show and Mark Henry, which Bryan won to retain the championship. The main event was the annual 30-competitor Royal Rumble. Sheamus, the twenty-second entrant, won the match by last eliminating Chris Jericho, the twenty-ninth entrant. Six professional wrestling matches were featured at the event.
It is the twenty-fifth annual Royal Rumble event chronology. It has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a match at that year's WrestleMania (in this instance: WrestleMania XXVIII) for his choice at either the WWE Championship or the World Heavyweight Championship. It took place on Januat the Scottrade Center in St. Royal Rumble was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE.