page_title: Royal Rumble (2014)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Rumble (2014) / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: CM Punk at the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards 2011 in Australia
context_page_description: Royal Rumble (2014) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by WWE. It took place on January 26, 2014 at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the twenty-seventh annual Royal Rumble, the first to be held in the city of Pittsburgh and the first WWE pay-per-view of 2014.
  The event featured four professional wrestling matches and one associated with match, two of which were for the championships. The main event was the Royal Rumble match, a battle royal in which wrestlers enter the ring at regular intervals. Batista won by last eliminating Roman Reigns to become a two-time Royal Rumble winner. Elsewhere 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 defeated Goldust and Cody Rhodes to become the new WWE Tag Team Champions.
context_section_description: After the Royal Rumble event, CM Punk did not appear and was not mentioned on Raw the next day. Despite being advertised for the SmackDown taping on Tuesday, he also did not appear in front of the live audience. By Wednesday, WWE.com stopped advertising Punk for future events. It was reported by the Wrestling Observer that on Monday, Punk had legitimately walked out on WWE when he informed Vince McMahon that he was "going home". On February 20, McMahon indicated to investors that Punk was "taking a sabbatical". However, in an interview published in late May, Punk indicated that he had retired; he was questioned "How does it feel to be retired at 35?" and replied with "It feels good." Punk's WWE contract subsequently expired in July 2014, thus making the Royal Rumble his final on-screen appearance. 
  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. 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. Punk subsequently signed a contract to compete in the UFC in 2015. Though Punk hasn’t appeared on a WWE show since then, he now currently works for WWE Backstage, a show broadcast by Fox Sports, who have a television deal with WWE.
  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. Cesaro and a returning Christian also qualified for the Chamber match by defeating Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger respectively. 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.
  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. During the Elimination Chamber match, the Wyatt Family once again interfered to cause Cena's elimination from the match. 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.
  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. The scheduled WrestleMania XXX main event was Orton versus Batista for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. However, on the March 10 episode of Raw, Bryan and multiple fans "occupied" the ring and refu
caption: CM Punk did not appear and was not mentioned in any WWE event after the Royal Rumble
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2592", "Image ImageLength": "3888", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 40D", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2011:10:07 23:03:44", "Image Artist": "Eva Rinaldi", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1236", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7574", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:10:07 16:53:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:10:07 16:53:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "61/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "9/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "92", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "92", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "92", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "550", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "721", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1112", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "324000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2592000/583", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "49c4b11d79670bad3dcba2f1fca21166"}