The main event was the Royal Rumble match for a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania XXX. CM Punk and Seth Rollins were entrants #1 and #2; they spent the longest and second longest time in the match (49 and 48 minutes respectively). Kane entered at #5 and targeted Punk, but Punk managed to eliminate him. NXT's Alexander Rusev entered at #6. Kofi Kingston, who entered at #8, had two feats of athleticism to escape elimination; first after he was deposited on the guardrail by Rusev (who caught him when Kingston was thrown out of the ring) he jumped back to the ring apron from the guardrail, and later while he was hanging on to the bottom rope with his feet, he fended off Jack Swagger by snatching Swagger's boot and hitting him with it. Rollins' Shield teammates (Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns) entered at #11 and #15 respectively. Goldust eliminated his brother Cody Rhodes 24 minutes into the match, and was in turn eliminated by Reigns, who had also eliminated Kingston and unannounced entrant Kevin Nash, amongst others. Midway through the match with only Punk and the Shield left in the ring, Sheamus returned to WWE television at #17 to a thunderous ovation from the Pittsburgh crowd and momentarily stopped the Shield's dominance. Los Matadores' mascot El Torito entered at #20, and managed to eliminate Fandango, before being eliminated in turn by Reigns. Pay-per-view commentator John "Bradshaw" Layfield was announced as entrant #24, making it the first time the JBL character had participated in a Royal Rumble (John Layfield had previously taken part in the 2004 Royal Rumble match as Bradshaw). He was eliminated by Reigns while handing his jacket to fellow commentator Michael Cole, whereupon he resumed his commentator role for the rest of the match. Batista entered at #28 and quickly eliminated Erick Rowan, Ryback and Alberto Del Rio. The final entrant at #30 was Rey Mysterio, who was eliminated by Rollins. When Ambrose tried to eliminate Reigns, Reigns retaliated by eliminating Ambrose, Rollins and Antonio Cesaro simultaneously, leaving himself, Punk, Sheamus and Batista as the final four. This marked Sheamus' third consecutive final four appearance (2012, 2013, 2014) in the Royal Rumble. Though already eliminated, Kane returned to ringside and pulled Punk over the top rope to eliminate him, then executed a chokeslam through a broadcast table on Punk. Reigns eliminated Sheamus to set a new record for most eliminations in a Rumble match with 12, but Reigns was then thrown over the top rope by Batista, who won the match.
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