Royal Rumble (2014)
Royal Rumble | |||
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Consol Energy Center | |||
Attendance | 15,715[1] | ||
Buy rate | 467,000[2] | ||
Pay-per-view chronology | |||
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Royal Rumble chronology | |||
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The 2014 Royal Rumble was the 27th annual
The event featured five professional wrestling matches, including one match on the Kickoff pre-show. The
The event is known for the overwhelmingly negative crowd response during the Orton–Cena title match, as well as towards the end of (and after) the Royal Rumble match, when the fans booed the Rumble winner Batista, repeatedly chanted for Daniel Bryan (who had competed earlier in the night and was not involved in the main event), and rooted for man in place, Roman Reigns (who was a heel at the time). Fans worldwide (including retired wrestler Mick Foley) voiced their displeasure over social media, and the event was covered by many major news outlets as one of the worst Royal Rumble pay-per-views. However, the bout between Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt was highly praised by fans and critics. The event also marked the last WWE pay-per-view appearance of CM Punk for nearly a decade, as he walked out on the company the next day despite still being under contract and retired from professional wrestling later that year; he would make his return to wrestling by debuting in rival promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in August 2021, and would later make his return to WWE at Survivor Series: WarGames in his hometown of Chicago in November 2023, and subsequently be featured in the 2024 event, marking his first televised WWE match in a decade.
The event received 467,000 buys, down 8.8% from the 512,000 buys for the previous year's event.
Production
Background
The
The Royal Rumble match generally features 30 wrestlers and the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania Main Event.[9][10] For 2014, the winner received a match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXX. It was the first Royal Rumble since the 2002 event to only feature one world championship, as the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship were unified as the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs in December 2013.[4][11]
Storylines
The event comprised five matches, including one on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown.[12][13]
A highly promoted match featured WWE World Heavyweight Champion
On the December 30, 2013, episode of Raw, Brock Lesnar returned with his manager, Paul Heyman, to announce his intentions to challenge the winner of the upcoming WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Randy Orton and John Cena at the Royal Rumble.[17] Lesnar then dared any wrestler who disapproved of that notion to challenge him, which was answered by Mark Henry, and a brawl would ensue, ending with Lesnar delivering an F-5 to Henry.[17] The following week on Raw, Henry challenged Lesnar again, only to have Lesnar dislocate his elbow with the Kimura lock in storyline, which led Big Show to come out afterwards to confront Lesnar.[19] On the January 10 episode of SmackDown, Big Show issued a challenge to Lesnar, Paul Heyman accepting on behalf of Lesnar and scheduling the match for the Royal Rumble event.[20]
Announced on WWE.com,
On the October 28, 2013, episode of Raw,
Event
Role: | Name: |
---|---|
English commentators
|
Michael Cole |
Jerry Lawler | |
John "Bradshaw" Layfield
| |
Spanish commentators | Carlos Cabrera |
Marcelo Rodriguez
| |
Ricardo Rodriguez | |
Interviewer
|
Renee Young
|
Ring announcers | Lilian Garcia |
Justin Roberts | |
Referees | Charles Robinson |
John Cone | |
Mike Chioda | |
Jason Ayers (Pre-show) | |
Rod Zapata (Rumble match)
| |
Pre-show panel | Josh Mathews |
Ric Flair | |
Shawn Michaels | |
Jim Duggan |
Pre-show
Before the show aired live on pay-per-view, the Royal Rumble Kickoff pre-show was shown live on
In the pre-show, Goldust and Cody Rhodes defended the WWE Tag Team Championship against
Preliminary matches
In the first match on the pay-per-view portion of the show, Bray Wyatt faced Daniel Bryan. Early in the match, the referee saw Bray's Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan attempting to interfere, so he ejected them from ringside. During the match, Wyatt targeted Bryan's head, ramming it into the ring-post. Bryan later mounted a comeback with a running
In the next match, Brock Lesnar (accompanied by Paul Heyman) faced Big Show. Lesnar attacked Big Show before the match started, and then hit him with a chair. When the match started, Big Show landed his KO Punch, but Lesnar picked up the victory after executing an F-5. Lesnar then continued to attack Big Show with a chair after the match.[29][30][31]
In the penultimate match, Randy Orton defended the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against John Cena. After both wrestlers failed to win despite executing their RKO, Attitude Adjustment, and STF moves, both wrestlers resorted to using their opponent's signature moves but still could not win the match. At the end of the match, Cena again trapped Orton in the STF submission hold, but the lights temporarily went out due to the arrival of The Wyatt Family on the ring apron. Orton took advantage of the distraction to drop Cena with the RKO to pin him and win the match.[29][31][32]
Main event
The main event was the Royal Rumble match for a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania XXX. CM Punk and Seth Rollins were entrants #1 and #2; they spent the longest and second longest time in the match (49 and 48 minutes respectively). Kane entered at #5 and targeted Punk, but Punk managed to eliminate him. NXT's Alexander Rusev entered at #6. Kofi Kingston, who entered at #8, had two feats of athleticism to escape elimination; first after he was deposited on the guardrail by Rusev (who caught him when Kingston was thrown out of the ring) he jumped back to the ring apron from the guardrail, and later while he was hanging on to the bottom rope with his feet, he fended off Jack Swagger by snatching Swagger's boot and hitting him with it.
Rollins'
Batista entered at #28 and quickly eliminated Erick Rowan, Ryback and Alberto Del Rio. The final entrant at #30 was Rey Mysterio, who was eliminated by Rollins. When Ambrose tried to eliminate Reigns, Reigns retaliated by eliminating Ambrose, Rollins and Antonio Cesaro simultaneously, leaving himself, Punk, Sheamus and Batista as the final four. Though already eliminated, Kane returned to ringside and pulled Punk over the top rope to eliminate him, then executed a chokeslam through a broadcast table on Punk. Reigns eliminated Sheamus to set a new record for most eliminations in a Rumble match with 12, but Reigns was then thrown over the top rope by Batista, who won the match.[29][31][33]
Reception
The event sold out the Consol Energy Center with 15,715 people in attendance.
The negative reaction of the fans attending the event in Pittsburgh was so great that it was reported as one of the major news items coming out of the show,
Fans took to social media to display their displeasure towards the event. The BBC reported that regarding Bryan's exclusion from the Rumble match, "many people have also expressed anger on social media, with the phrases #RoyalRumble, #WWE and Daniel Bryan all trending on Twitter".[42][43] The Herald & Review described the reaction to the event as "WWE's PR nightmare", with the most "liked" comments on WWE's Facebook page within 24 hours of the event including "worst PPV ever", "the sound of WWE dropping the ball" and in reference to the WWE Network, "no Bryan, no buy".[44] Retired wrestler Mick Foley criticized WWE management on social media, stating, "Does WWE actually hate their own audience? I've never been so disgusted with a PPV".[42][43]
Dale Plummer and Nick Tylwalk of
James Caldwell of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter rated the Royal Rumble match 2.5 stars out of 5, commenting that "well, that back-fired". He wrote that the "Rumble peaked about three-fourths through, then fell off the table at the end", and described the Rumble winner Batista as "out-of-shape".[33] Caldwell also rated the Bryan-Wyatt match 4.0 stars out of 5, describing it as "easily Bray's best WWE TV match, great chemistry from both wrestlers" in front of a "hot, invested crowd". Caldwell chose not to rate the Lesnar-Show match, commenting that it was necessarily short due to Show being injured going into the match.[30] Lastly, Caldwell rated the Orton-Cena title match 2.0 stars out of 5.[32]
Benjamin Tucker, who attended the event and is also from the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter, rated the entire event 6.0 out of 10, saying "the show began great but slowly lost steam before ending in a roar of jeers". For the Rumble match, Tucker said that "the first two-thirds especially were exciting, with several wrestlers being spotlighted well", "until lower-level players kept coming out in the final half of the match". Tucker felt that "Roman Reigns was the star of the match, even outclassing Batista. Where Batista stumbled around the ring like... well, an old, retired wrestler, Roman Reigns looked like an absolute monster". For the opening match, Tucker felt that the "deliberate pace didn't hurt the match in the slightest. Instead, it allowed Bray to keep using his character while in a competitive, big match situation". For the rest of the matches, Tucker wrote that "Lesnar looked like a relentless beast", while "Orton and Cena put on their most lifeless performance ever together. There was very little story to the match" and "no creativity at all".[38]
The following year's Royal Rumble was similarly marked by an extreme negative audience reaction towards the Rumble match and its winner, which some media outlets described as being even worse than the 2014 event.[45][46] When Daniel Bryan was eliminated in the first half of the match, the crowd repeatedly chanted his name for the second half of the match while booing other wrestlers making their entrance to the match, including eventual winner Roman Reigns.[47][48] Reigns, who had been portrayed as a heroic character, was booed after winning the main event, even after he received The Rock's endorsement,[47] and The Rock was heckled for helping Reigns.[48] Also, many fans took to social media to display their displeasure at Bryan's elimination and the winner of the Rumble match.[48]
Aftermath
After the Royal Rumble event, CM Punk did not appear and was not mentioned on Raw the next day.
However, on an episode of Colt Cabana's Art of Wrestling podcast released in November 2014, Punk said that he was suspended for two months after walking out on the company in January and that after the suspension ended, nobody from WWE contacted him. Punk also told that when he reached out to them for unpaid royalties, he was given a run-around by company executives until he was handed his termination papers and was fired by WWE on his wedding day with April Mendez (better known as AJ Lee) in June 2014.[55] The manner of firing was the last straw for Punk, stating that he would never return to WWE and that following a legal settlement with WWE there would be no further working relationship between them. The settlement included Punk giving WWE permission to sell his remaining merchandise.[56] Punk subsequently signed a contract to compete in the UFC in 2015.[57][58] Punk had not appeared on WWE programming since then, though he did have multiple appearances on WWE Backstage, a show broadcast by Fox Sports, who had a television deal with WWE.[59] However, on August 20, 2021, Punk returned to professional wrestling when he signed with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) during The First Dance edition of its weekly program Rampage.[60] After Punk left AEW in August 2023, he returned to WWE that November at Survivor Series: WarGames.[61]
The post-Rumble Raw on January 27 began with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon (The Authority) addressing the Rumble event and mocking the audience for not getting what they wanted. When Daniel Bryan came out and confronted them about not being inserted into the Rumble match, and then demanded to be inserted into the Elimination Chamber match and refused to leave the ring until they did, he was attacked by the Shield, but was then saved by John Cena and Sheamus. As a result, Bryan, Cena and Sheamus later teamed together to take on the Shield in a 6-man tag match in which all three members of the winning team qualified to participate in the Elimination Chamber match (in which Randy Orton would defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship) at the eponymous pay-per-view. During that match, The Wyatt Family interfered, causing the Shield to be disqualified and thus Bryan, Cena and Sheamus qualified for the Chamber match.[62][63] Cesaro and a returning Christian also qualified for the Chamber match by defeating Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger respectively.[64] For costing them the spots in the Chamber match, the Shield vowed revenge against the Wyatt Family, which set up a match between the groups at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.[64]
At Elimination Chamber, Randy Orton retained his WWE World Heavyweight Championship by winning the Elimination Chamber match against Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Cesaro, Christian and Sheamus.[65] During the Elimination Chamber match, the Wyatt Family once again interfered to cause Cena's elimination from the match.[65] Also at Elimination Chamber, Batista defeated Alberto Del Rio, with the negative audience reaction to Batista continuing, even prompting the audience to cheer Del Rio. Meanwhile, Bray Wyatt was victorious once again with the Wyatt Family defeating the Shield.[65]
Because of the boisterous negative reaction, Batista responded to the audience on the February 28 episode of SmackDown, saying he didn't come back to be liked, only to be the next WWE World Heavyweight Champion, thus turning into a villain in the process.[66] The scheduled WrestleMania XXX main event was Orton versus Batista for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.[67] However, on the March 10 episode of Raw, Bryan and multiple fans "occupied" the ring and refused to leave, resulting in an irate Triple H agreeing to Bryan's demand for a match at WrestleMania, with the stipulation that the winner would be inserted into the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at the event.[68] At WrestleMania, Bryan was added to the match after defeating Triple H in the opening contest of the show, and would ultimately win the triple threat match, forcing Batista to submit and win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.[69][70] On May 12, Daniel Bryan announced that due to injuries, he would require neck surgery,[71] which he underwent on May 15.[72] Bryan was stripped of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship by the Authority on June 9 as he was not healthy enough to defend his championship.[73]
Following Elimination Chamber, Wyatt feuded with Cena, with Wyatt wanting to prove that Cena's heroic act was a facade characteristic of "this era of lies" while also trying to turn Cena into a "monster".
On the February 24 episode of Raw, Brock Lesnar and his manager
Results
No. | Results | Stipulations | Times | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5 | Batista won by last eliminating Roman Reigns | 30-man Royal Rumble match for a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania XXX[91] | 55:08 | ||||
|
Royal Rumble entrances and eliminations
- – NXT
- – Winner
Draw | Entrant | Order | Eliminated by | Time[8] | Eliminations |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | CM Punk | 27 | Kane[1] | 49:12 | 3 |
2 | Seth Rollins | 25 | Roman Reigns | 48:37 | 3 |
3 | Damien Sandow | 1 | CM Punk | 02:17 | 0 |
4 | Cody Rhodes | 11 | Goldust | 21:01 | 1 |
5 | Kane | 2 | CM Punk | 01:10 | 1 |
6 | Alexander Rusev | 3 | CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Kofi Kingston, and Seth Rollins | 07:06 | 0 |
7 | Jack Swagger | 6 | Kevin Nash | 12:24 | 0 |
8 | Kofi Kingston | 7 | Roman Reigns | 12:42 | 1 |
9 | Jimmy Uso | 5 | Dean Ambrose | 07:53 | 0 |
10 | Goldust | 12 | Roman Reigns | 12:00 | 1 |
11 | Dean Ambrose | 26 | 33:41 | 3 | |
12 | Dolph Ziggler | 8 | 06:09 | 0 | |
13 | R-Truth | 4 | Dean Ambrose | 00:28 | 0 |
14 | Kevin Nash | 9 | Roman Reigns | 02:36 | 1 |
15 | Roman Reigns | 29 | Batista | 33:51 | 12[2] |
16 | The Great Khali | 10 | The Shield (Roman, Rollins, Ambrose) | 00:24 | 0 |
17 | Sheamus | 28 | Roman Reigns | 28:22 | 1 |
18 | The Miz | 16 | Luke Harper | 12:09 | 0 |
19 | Fandango | 13 | El Torito | 03:02 | 0 |
20 | El Torito | 14 | Roman Reigns | 01:49 | 1 |
21 | Antonio Cesaro | 24 | 16:57 | 0 | |
22 | Luke Harper | 23 | 15:21 | 2 | |
23 | Jey Uso | 17 | Luke Harper | 04:32 | 0 |
24 | John "Bradshaw" Layfield | 15 | Roman Reigns | 00:49 | 0 |
25 | Erick Rowan | 18 | Batista | 05:05 | 0 |
26 | Ryback | 19 | 04:01 | 0 | |
27 | Alberto Del Rio | 20 | 03:00 | 0 | |
28 | Batista | - | Winner | 14:34 | 4 |
29 | Big E Langston | 21 | Sheamus | 02:49 | 0 |
30 | Rey Mysterio | 22 | Seth Rollins | 02:10 | 0 |
^ Kane was already eliminated when he returned to eliminate CM Punk later in the match.[29][31][33]
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