Royal Rumble (2014)

Royal Rumble
Royal Rumble
	Promotional poster featuring various WWE wrestlers
Promotion	WWE
Date	January 26, 2014
City	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Venue	Consol Energy Center
Attendance	15,715
Buy rate	467,000
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous; TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs	Next →; Elimination Chamber
Royal Rumble chronology
← Previous; 2013	Next →; 2015

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. It was the first Royal Rumble to be held in the city of Pittsburgh and the first WWE pay-per-view event held in the Consol Energy Center. 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.

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.

Considered one of the worst Royal Rumble pay-per-views, the event is known for the overwhelmingly negative audience response to the Orton–Cena and the Royal Rumble matches. The fans booed the Royal Rumble winner Batista and protest chanted for Bryan and Reigns but the Bryan-Wyatt match was praised. The event also marked the last WWE appearance of CM Punk who abruptly left the company; he returned to WWE in 2023 and wrestled his first match for the company at the 2024 Royal Rumble.

The event received 467,000 buys, down 8.8% from the 512,000 buys for the previous year's event.

^ Godzuk, Jack. "Rumblings of Discontent". pittsburghsportsreport.com. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
^ Caldwell, James (May 1, 2014). "WWE Q1 RESULTS: Official PPV buys for Royal Rumble & E. Chamber, comparison to recent years". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved January 7, 2017.

[Attendance-1] Godzuk, Jack. "Rumblings of Discontent". pittsburghsportsreport.com. Retrieved May 2, 2017.

[Q1Results-2] Caldwell, James (May 1, 2014). "WWE Q1 RESULTS: Official PPV buys for Royal Rumble & E. Chamber, comparison to recent years". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved January 7, 2017.

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