Royal Rumble 2012 2012-01-29

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Event
Royal Rumble 2012

Date
Sun 29th January 2012 (UTC)

Timestamp

Time

00:00:00 UTC

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League
WWE

Season
2012

Round
5

Status

Location

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Description

Royal Rumble (2012) was the twenty-fifth annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by WWE. It took place on January 29, 2012 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

The pay-per-view featured the annual Royal Rumble match, which has been featured at every Royal Rumble event since its inception. 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 winner would earn a world championship match of their choosing at WrestleMania XXVIII.

A highly promoted match featured CM Punk defending his WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler. On the December 26, 2011 episode of Raw, Punk was put into a gauntlet match by Interim Raw General Manager John Laurinaitis, with the stiplulation 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. The next week, during the title match, Punk was counted out as a result of another intervention from Laurinaitis. 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. Then on the January 9, 2012 edition of Raw, 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. 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.

Another match heading into the Royal Rumble featured John Cena against Kane. 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 ironically Henry who put him out of action, he bypassed him and attacked Cena, chokeslamming him before revealing his new mask. 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. When Cena dismissed any intentions of doing so, Kane not only continued his attacks on Cena, but began to direct his attention to his close friend Zack Ryder, assaulting him as well, to the point of injuring him (kayfabe), ultimately leading to Ryder losing his United States Championship to Jack Swagger on the January 16, 2012 episode of Raw, under orders from John Laurinaitis. The same night, Laurinaitis put Cena in a one-on-one match against Kane at the Royal Rumble, in addition to booking Cena in a match against Swagger. Before the match even officially started, Cena started to attack Swagger aggressively to avenge Ryder's loss, prompting Kane to appear on the TitanTron and congratulate him to have started "embracing his hate". On the January 23 episode of Raw, during a Falls Count Anywhere match (in which Lauranaitis had prevented Cena from interfering, on the pretext of never granting Ryder a rematch for the United States Championship if he did so), Kane chokeslammed Ryder through the entrance stage, incapacitating him. As Ryder was stretchered and taken away in an ambulance, Eve Torres (Ryder's storyline girlfriend) blamed Cena for Ryder's injuries, leading to Cena knocking the microphone out of interviewer Josh Mathews' hand in frustration, and donning a very aggressive look in response to this entire situation.

Another featured bout involved Daniel Bryan defending his World Heavyweight Championship in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match against Big Show and Mark Henry. In December 2011, at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs, after Big Show defeated Henry in a Chairs match to win the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time, Bryan immediately cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to defeat Big Show, after a post-match attack on the latter by Henry. Using his rematch clause, Big Show faced off against Bryan on SmackDown, only for the champion to agitate Henry at ringside, who pushed Bryan, thus retaining his title. The following week on SmackDown, Bryan defended his title against Big Show again, this time in a No Disqualification, No Count-Out match, which ended in a no contest, when Big Show accidentally ran into and injured Bryan's storyline girlfriend, AJ. The next week on SmackDown, Henry finally enacted his rematch clause against Bryan in a lumberjack match; however, that match also ended up as a no contest, when the lumberjacks became too hostile because of how Bryan had agitated them, and the post-match scenario erupted into a large brawl involving nearly everyone. This forced SmackDown's General Manager Theodore Long to officially book Bryan, Big Show and Henry in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble.

As per tradition, the event was highlighted by the over-the-top-rope elimination Royal Rumble match, which featured the traditional thirty entrants, a year after having a forty man field, the largest in the history of the event. The winner would receive his choice of either a World Heavyweight or a WWE Championship match at WrestleMania XXVIII.

Reports

Result List

Result Description
World Heavyweight Title Triple Threat Steel Cage Match
Daniel Bryan (c) defeated Mark Henry and The Big Show (9:10)

Eight Man Tag Team Match
Beth Phoenix, Natalya & The Bella Twins (Brie Bella & Nikki Bella) defeated Alicia Fox, Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly & Tamina (5:30)

Singles Match
John Cena vs. Kane - Double Count Out (12:00)

Singles Match
Brodus Clay defeated Drew McIntyre (1:05)

WWE Heavyweight Title Match (Special Enforcer: John Laurinaitis)
CM Punk (c) defeated Dolph Ziggler (14:30)

Royal Rumble Match
Sheamus defeated Alex Riley and Booker T and Chris Jericho and Cody Rhodes and David Otunga and Dolph Ziggler and Epico and Ezekiel Jackson and Hunico and Jack Swagger and Jerry Lawler and Jey Uso and Jim Duggan and Jinder Mahal and Justin Gabriel and Kharma and Kofi Kingston and Michael Cole and Mick Foley and Primo and R-Truth and Randy Orton and Ricardo Rodriguez and Santino Marella and The Big Show and The Great Khali and The Miz and The Road Dogg and Wade Barrett (54:55)
- The Miz eliminated Alex Riley
- The Miz eliminated R-Truth
- Mick Foley eliminated Primo
- Ricardo Rodriguez & Mick Foley eliminieren Justin Gabriel
- Santino Marella eliminated Ricardo Rodriguez
- Cody Rhodes eliminated Santino Marella
- Mick Foley eliminated Epico
- Cody Rhodes eliminated Mick Foley
- The Miz & Cody Rhodes eliminieren Jerry Lawler
- The Great Khali eliminated Jinder Mahal
- Kofi Kingston eliminated Ezekiel Jackson
- Cody Rhodes eliminated Jim Duggan
- Cody Rhodes & Dolph Ziggler eliminieren Booker T
- Cody Rhodes & Dolph Ziggler eliminieren The Great Khali
- Jerry Lawler & Booker T eliminieren Michael Cole
- Kharma eliminated Hunico
- Dolph Ziggler eliminated Kharma
- Sheamus eliminated Kofi Kingston
- Wade Barrett eliminated The Road Dogg
- Randy Orton eliminated Jey Uso
- Randy Orton eliminated Wade Barrett
- Chris Jericho eliminated David Otunga
- The Big Show eliminated Jack Swagger
- The Big Show eliminated Cody Rhodes
- The Big Show eliminated The Miz
- The Big Show eliminated Dolph Ziggler
- Randz Orton eliminated The Big Show
- Chris Jericho eliminated Randy Orton
- Sheamus eliminated Chris Jericho

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