Royal Rumble (2012)

Background

The professional wrestling matches at Royal Rumble resulted from scripted storylines pre-determined by the hosting promotion, WWE. Storylines between the characters played out on WWE's primary television programs, Raw and SmackDown.

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.

On the December 26, 2011 episode of Raw, Raw General Manager John Laurinaitis put WWE Champion CM Punk in a gauntlet match, where if either Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, or Mark Henry defeated Punk, they'd receive a title match against the latter the next week. Ziggler won the match after Laurinaitis distracted Punk, ejecting Vickie Guerrero and Swagger from ringside. The next week, during the title match, Punk was counted out because of Laurinaitis intervening again. However, since titles can't change hands by countout, Punk retained the title. After the match, Laurinaitis announced that Punk would defend his title against Ziggler in a rematch at the Royal Rumble, with himself as the special guest referee. Then on the January 9, 2012 episode of Raw, Punk faced Swagger. 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 title match. The next week on the Raw, in a segment with Mick Foley, Laurinaitis revealed that he was using this opportunity to cost Punk his title for disrespecting him.

Upon returning to WWE on the December 12 episode of Raw, after a near four-month absence, Kane interrupted John 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 many 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 to attacks 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 of John Laurinaitis. The same night, Laurinaitis put Cena in a match against Kane at the Royal Rumble, in addition to booking Cena in a match against Swagger. Before the match even officially began, 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". The next week on Raw, during a Falls Count Anywhere match (in which Lauranaitis had prevented Cena from interfering, on the pretext of never granting Ryder a United States Championship rematch 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.

In December 2011, at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs, after The Big Show defeated Mark Henry in a Chairs match to win his first World Heavyweight Championship, Daniel Bryan immediately cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to defeat Big Show, after a post-match attack on the latter by Henry. Big Show invoked his rematch clause against Bryan on SmackDown, only for Bryan to agitate Henry at ringside, who pushed Bryan, thus retaining his title. The next 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 an all-out brawl involving nearly everyone, forcing SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long to officially book Bryan, Big Show and Henry in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match for the World Heavyweight Title at the Royal Rumble.

Event

In a dark match prior to the PPV broadcast, Yoshi Tatsu defeated Heath Slater.

The opening televised match was a Triple Threat Steel Cage match with Daniel Bryan defending his World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Henry and Big Show. Bryan retained by escaping the cage after he fell from Big Show's grasp (Bryan was climbing out of the cage, and Show was trying to pull him back in over the top) and crashed to the arena floor.

The next match was an Eight-Diva tag team match with Alicia Fox, Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly and Tamina Snuka taking on The Bella Twins (Nikki and Brie Bella) and The Divas of Doom (Divas Champion Beth Phoenix and Natalya). The latter team won after Phoenix tagged herself in and performed a glam slam on Kelly Kelly, scoring the pinfall.

The following match was between John Cena and Kane. After a back and forth contest, the action would spill from the ring, and the match ended in a double count-out. After the match, Kane would continue his assault, hitting Cena with multiple chair shots before attacking an injured Zack Ryder, who was watching the event from a private office. Kane dragged Ryder to the ring and performed a tombstone piledriver on Ryder.

The next match was made after Drew McIntyre requested a spot in the Royal Rumble, asking Smackdown GM Teddy Long for an opportunity to prove himself, so he gave him a match against a mystery opponent who turned out to be Brodus Clay. Despite McIntyre starting the match well, Clay would quickly defeat him after a running splash.

The penultimate match of the card was the WWE Championship match between reigning champion CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler with Raw interim GM John Laurinaitis serving as outside enforcer. As per the match stipulations, Ziggler's tag team partner Jack Swagger and manager Vickie Guerrero were both banned from ringside. The first part of the match was a hold-for-hold encounter. Towards the latter part of the match Punk had Ziggler beaten, but the referee was knocked out and unable to make the count. Punk would execute a second GTS and both the referee and enforcer Laurinaitis counted to three and Punk retained his championship.

Main event

The main event was the annual Royal Rumble match, where the winner would get a World Championship match of their choice at Wrestlemania XXVIII. The Miz entered first (a result of losing a match on Raw to R-Truth), and would last nearly 46 minutes until entry #30 Big Show eliminated Miz. Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes entered at #4, lasting nearly 42 minutes, and scored the most eliminations with six. WWE legends Mick Foley, Hall of Famer (and first ever Rumble winner) "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, and Road Dogg were all surprise entries in the match. All three announcers who called the event (Jerry "The King" Lawler, Booker T, and Michael Cole) also entered the match at various points as official entries. Kharma was another surprise entry, making her the third female superstar to enter a Rumble. Kofi Kingston was a highlight of the Rumble match, who was nearly eliminated by The Miz, when he stood on his hands at ringside and hand-walked to the ring steps to avoid elimination. Later that year, the hand-walk move earned Kofi Kingston a Slammy Award for the "Tell Me I Did Not Just See That" Moment of the Year.

The final four consisted of Sheamus, 2009 Rumble winner Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, and Big Show. Show and Orton were quickly eliminated, and Sheamus and Jericho would then go back and forth with attempted eliminations for over five minutes. Sheamus tried to throw Jericho out off the ring with High Cross, but Jericho countered attempting a Codebreaker on Sheamus, but he threw Jericho off the ropes and Brogue Kicked to eliminate Jericho and win the Rumble match. Sheamus ultimately challenged for (and won) the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania XXVIII.

Reception

The event received mixed reviews. The Sun gave the event a rating of a 6.5 out of 10, stating that it "felt like a fun show for much of the night, but with precious little substance". The Canadian Online Explorer also gave Royal Rumble a 6.5 out of 10, with the Royal Rumble match receiving the same rating. The World Heavyweight Championship match and the John Cena vs. Kane match were rated a 5 out of 10 and the Divas' tag-team match a 3 out of 10. The WWE Championship match received the highest rating with an 8.5 out of 10.