Royal Rumble 2012 Royal Rumble 2012 was a professional wrestling pay - per - view ( PPV ) event produced by WWE , which took place on January 29 , 2012 at the Scottrade Center in St . Louis , Missouri . It was the 25th annual Royal Rumble event . The theme song for the event was Dark Horses by Switchfoot . Background . Royal Rumble featured professional wrestling matches which involved different wrestlers from pre - existing scripted feuds , plots , and storylines that played out on WWE ' s television programs . Wrestlers portrayed villains or heroes as they followed a series of events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches . The main event from " Raw " featured CM Punk defending his WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler . On the December 26 , 2011 episode of " Raw " , Punk was put into a gauntlet match by Interim Raw General Manager John Laurinaitis , with the stiplulation that if either one of Jack Swagger , Ziggler , or Mark Henry defeated Punk , they would receive a championship match against the latter the next week . Ziggler won the match after Punk was distracted by Laurinaitis throwing out Vickie Guerrero and Swagger from ringside . The next week , during the title match , Punk was counted out as a result of another intervention from Laurinaitis . However , since titles cannot change hands via countout , Punk retained the championship . After the match , Laurinaitis announced that Punk would defend his championship against Ziggler in a rematch at the Royal Rumble , with himself acting as the special guest referee . Then on the January 9 , 2012 edition of Raw , Punk faced Swagger in a singles match , 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 championship match . Additionally , a week later on the January 16 episode of " Raw " , in a segment with Mick Foley , Laurinaitis revealed that he was using this opportunity to cost Punk his title for disrespecting him . Another match heading into the Royal Rumble from " Raw " featured John Cena against Kane . Upon returning to the WWE on the December 12 edition of " Raw " , after an absence of nearly four months , Kane interrupted 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 several 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 his attacks on 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 from John Laurinaitis . The same night , Laurinaitis put Cena in a one - on - one match against Kane at the Royal Rumble , in addition to booking Cena in a match against Swagger . Before the match even officially started , 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 " . On the January 23 episode of " Raw " , during a Falls Count Anywhere match ( in which Lauranaitis had prevented Cena from interfering , on the pretext of never granting Ryder a rematch for the United States Championship 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 . The main event from " SmackDown " involved Daniel Bryan defending his World Heavyweight Championship in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match against Big Show and Mark Henry . In December 2011 , at , after Big Show defeated Henry in a Chairs match to win the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time , Bryan immediately cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to defeat Big Show , after a post - match attack on the latter by Henry . Using his rematch clause , Big Show faced off against Bryan on " SmackDown " , only for the champion to agitate Henry at ringside , who pushed Bryan , thus ending up losing via disqualification but retaining his title . The following 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 accidently 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 a large brawl involving nearly everyone . This forced " SmackDown " ' s General Manager Theodore Long to officially book Bryan , Big Show and Henry in a Triple Threat Steel Cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble . As per tradition , the event was highlighted by the over - the - top - rope elimination Royal Rumble match , which featured the traditional thirty entrants , a year after having a forty man field , the largest in the history of the event . The winner would receive his choice of either a World Heavyweight or a WWE Championship match at WrestleMania XXVIII . Reception . 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 " . Royal Rumble entrances and eliminations . A new entrant came out approximately every 90 seconds .