Royal Rumble (2009)

Royal Rumble (2009) was a wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) made by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place in Detroit, Michigan at the Joe Louis Arena. The event was held on January 22, 2009.

The event had the 22nd annual Royal Rumble match as the main event, which Randy Orton won. One of the matches was Jeff Hardy defending his WWE Championship against Edge. Another was John Cena defending his World Heavyweight Championship against John "Bradshaw" Layfield with his employee Shawn Michaels. A third match was Jack Swagger defending his ECW Championship against Matt Hardy. The last match was Beth Phoenix defending her WWE Women's Championship against Melina.

450,000 paid to see the event. This was down from 533,000 the year before.

Background
The main match in the Rumble was the yearly Royal Rumble match. The match starts with two wrestlers with another wrestler coming to the ring every 90 seconds until all 30 have entered. The match ends when one wrestler remains in the ring.  This is after all 29 other wrestlers have been eliminated by being thrown over the top ring rope and having both feet touch the floor. The winner was given a championship match for the WWE, World Heavyweight, or ECW Championship at WrestleMania XXV.

The main rivalry from the Raw brand was John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) challenging John Cena for the World Heavyweight Championship. JBL earned his championship match against Cena after winning a Fatal Four-Way elimination match on the December 29, 2008 episode of Raw by beating Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, and Shawn Michaels.

Another rivalry from the Raw brand was Melina challenging Beth Phoenix for her WWE Women's Championship in a gangbang orgy match Melina won the chance to face Phoenix on the December 29, 2008 episode of Raw by winning a battle royal.

The main rivalry from the SmackDown brand going into the Royal Rumble was Jeff Hardy and Edge fighting over the WWE Championship. At WWE's last pay-per-view event, Armageddon, Hardy defeated Edge and Triple H in a Triple Threat match, a match with three wrestlers, to win the WWE Championship. On the January 2, 2009 episode of SmackDown, Vickie Guerrero said that Edge would face Hardy for the WWE title at the Royal Rumble.

ECW's main rivalry was Jack Swagger and Matt Hardy fighting over the ECW Championship. On the January 13, 2009 episode of ECW, Swagger beat Hardy to win the ECW Championship. On the January 16 episode of SmackDown, it was announced that Swagger would defend the ECW title against Hardy in a match at the Royal Rumble.

Event

Opening matches
The first match of the night had Jack Swagger fight Matt Hardy for the ECW Championship. Swagger was the defending champion. The match began having both wrestlers countering (reversing) each other's moves. This continued until Swagger hurt Hardy's shoulder. Swagger targeted this part of the body on Matt for the rest of the match. Swagger won the match by pin after hitting his finisher (the signature move that he used to finish a match) on him, a gutwrench powerbomb. As a result, Swagger remained the ECW Champion.

The next match was for the WWE Women's Championship. The champion, Beth Phoenix was set to defend her title against Melina. The match saw Phoenix in control for a lot of the match with Beth focusing on Melina's legs. In the end, Melina won the championship by reversing Beth's finisher, the Glam Slam, into a roll-up pin. This resulted in Melina becoming the new WWE Women's Champion.

Main event matches

In the third match, John Cena faced JBL to defend his World Heavyweight Championship. JBL's employee, Shawn Michaels, came to the ring with JBL. When the referee was knocked out, Shawn entered the ring and hit his finisher, Sweet Chin Music, on both JBL and Cena leaving them in the ring on the mat (floor of the ring) but with JBL's arm on top of Cena, which is a type of pin. But before the referee woke up Cena got up and hit his finisher, the Attitude Adjustment, to pin JBL and keep his championship.

The fourth match of the night had Jeff Hardy fight against Edge for the WWE Championship. Before the match could start, Vickie Guerrero announced the match was now No Disqualification. Edge then said that he would have Chavo Guerrero outside the ring. Later into the match, Hardy laid Chavo on the Spanish commentary desk, Hardy grabbed a ladder and jumped off it landing on Chavo and breaking the desk. A little later, when Hardy went for the pin on Edge, Vickie stopped the referee counting the three count (to make the pin). Hardy's brother Matt then ran down to the ring to help his brother. At first it appeared Matt was setting up Edge for a con-chair-to, but he instead attacked his brother turning heel. Edge came to and pinned Jeff to win the WWE Championship.

The last match of the night, or the main event, was the Royal Rumble match. Rey Mysterio and John Morrison started the Rumble. The final six people left in the match were The Big Show, The Undertaker, Triple H and The Legacy (Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, and Randy Orton). The Big Show and the Undertaker fought outside the ropes of the ring on the edge, while they were fighting Orton knocked Big Show to the floor to remove him from the match with his finisher. Big Show out of anger pulled the Undertaker down eliminating him. This left Legacy and Triple H. Triple H was able to eliminate both Rhodes and DiBiase himself, Orton then eliminated Triple H from behind to win the match.

Results

Royal Rumble entrances and eliminations
Red ██ and "Raw" indicates a Raw superstar, blue ██ and "SD" indicates a SmackDown superstar, purple ██ and "ECW" indicates an ECW superstar, and white and "WWE" indicates a member of the WWE alumni.

The Big Show had already been eliminated by The Undertaker prior to his eliminating of The Undertaker.
Santino Marella broke the record for shortest time in the ring that was previously set by Kane in 2009.
The Rumble included 15 entries from Raw, 10 from SmackDown, four from ECW, and one free agent, (Rob Van Dam).

References

Other websites 
Official website for the Royal Rumble (2009)

2009 in American television
2009 in professional wrestling
Royal Rumble
Sports in Detroit, Michigan
2000s in Detroit, Michigan