| Royal Rumble | |||
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&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:Royal_Rumble_(2011).jpg) Promotional poster featuring various WWE wrestlers | |||
| Promotion | World Wrestling Entertainment | ||
| Brand(s) | Raw SmackDown | ||
| Date | January 30, 2011[1] | ||
| City | Boston, Massachusetts[1] | ||
| Venue | TD Garden[1] | ||
| Attendance | 15,113[2] | ||
| Buy rate | 476,000 | ||
| Tagline(s) | The Biggest Royal Rumble in History | ||
| Pay-per-view chronology | |||
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| Royal Rumble chronology | |||
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The 2011 Royal Rumble was the 24th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on January 30, 2011, at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2011 event, the winner received their choice to challenge for either Raw's WWE Championship or SmackDown's World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXVII. This was the last Royal Rumble held under the first brand extension, which ended in August, but was reinstated in July 2016.
Four matches were featured on the event's supercard, a scheduling of more than one main event. The main event was the 2011 Royal Rumble match, which featured 40 participants from both brands instead of the usual number of 30—it has thus far been the only Royal Rumble match to have 40 participants. It was won by SmackDown's Alberto Del Rio, who last eliminated Raw's Santino Marella. The primary match on the Raw brand was for the WWE Championship, between reigning champion The Miz and Randy Orton, which Miz won to retain the title. The primary match on the SmackDown brand was Edge versus Dolph Ziggler for the World Heavyweight Championship, which Edge won to retain the title. The other featured match on the card was a fatal four-way match for the WWE Divas Championship in which Natalya defended the title against Eve Torres, Layla, and Michelle McCool; Torres won to win the championship. This event was notable for the returns of Booker T who left the company in 2007 and Kevin Nash, in his first WWE appearance since 2003 who also appeared in his Diesel persona since the 1996 event.