Royal Rumble (2017)

Royal Rumble
Promotional poster featuring various WWE wrestlers
PromotionWWE
Brand(s)Raw
SmackDown
DateJanuary 29, 2017
CitySan Antonio, Texas
VenueAlamodome
Attendance52,020[1]
Tagline(s)Remember the Rumble[2]
WWE Network event chronology
← Previous
NXT TakeOver: San Antonio
Next →
Elimination Chamber
Royal Rumble chronology
← Previous
2016
Next →
2018

The 2017 Royal Rumble was the 30th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on January 29, 2017, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. This was the second Royal Rumble to be held at this venue after the 1997 event, and the fourth to be held in the state of Texas, after the 1989, 1997, and 2007 events.

Traditionally, the Royal Rumble match winner receives a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. However, due to the brand split that was reintroduced in July 2016, the winner received a match for their respective brand's world championship at WrestleMania 33, either Raw's WWE Universal Championship or SmackDown's WWE Championship. The main event was the 2017 Royal Rumble match, which was won by SmackDown's Randy Orton, who last eliminated Raw's Roman Reigns. This made Orton the seventh multiple Royal Rumble winner.

Seven other matches were contested at the event, including three on the Kickoff pre-show. One of the more notable matches saw John Cena defeat AJ Styles to capture his record 13th WWE Championship and his 16th overall world championship, tying Ric Flair's official record. Also on the undercard, Kevin Owens retained the WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns in a no disqualification match, Charlotte Flair retained the Raw Women's Championship against Bayley, and Neville defeated Rich Swann to win the WWE Cruiserweight Championship.

It was also the last time that only the men's Royal Rumble match took place as the women's Royal Rumble match was introduced the following year.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference RR2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Chris E. Hayner (January 18, 2017). "Randy Orton's 'Royal Rumble' win shows WWE is scared of the future". Screener. Archived from the original on June 30, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2017.