Royal Rumble (2014)
WWE pay-per-view event / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2014 Royal Rumble was the 27th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It took place on January 26, 2014, at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the first WWE pay-per-view event to be held in this arena since it opened in August 2010. It was the first Royal Rumble to be held in the city of Pittsburgh. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2014 event, the winner received a match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXX; this was the first time since 2002 in which there was only one eligible championship for the Royal Rumble winner to challenge for.
Royal Rumble | |||
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Promotion | WWE | ||
Date | January 26, 2014 | ||
City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | ||
Venue | 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 event featured five professional wrestling matches, including one match on the Kickoff pre-show. The main event was the 2014 Royal Rumble match. A returning Batista won by last eliminating Roman Reigns to become a two-time Royal Rumble winner. Also on the event's card, Randy Orton successfully defended the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against John Cena, Bray Wyatt defeated Daniel Bryan, and Brock Lesnar defeated Big Show. On the event's Kickoff pre-show, The New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) defeated Goldust and Cody Rhodes to become the new WWE Tag Team Champions.
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.