10 years ago and five minutes away from the location of the 2022 Royal Rumble, the 2012 event emanated from St. Louis’ Scottrade Center; now called the Enterprise Center. It was a unique time in the company’s history. Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, two former pillars of Ring Of Honor, were both reigning world champions.

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The Road To WrestleMania was already paved with the then-Once In A Lifetime match between John Cena and The Rock. In the behind-the-scenes news, there were several interesting tidbits that showed how the sauce was getting made. There are some things that only the most diehard of wrestling fans would notice.

7 The First Steel Cage

No pun intended, but World Champion Daniel Bryan had a tall order placed before him at the 2012 event. After shockingly cashing in his Money In The Bank several months prior, Danielson had to defend the World Title against both The Big Show and Mark Henry inside the confines of a steel cage. After several weeks of agitating and annoying his challengers, Bryan was able to outwrestle, outwit, and outmaneuver his opponents and escape the cage. It was the first and so far, last time that the World Title was defended inside a steel cage at the Rumble.

6 CM Punk’s First UFC Foray

Months after CM Punk absconded and quit WWE, and after he was officially fired on his wedding day, Punk announced that he was joining the UFC as a fighter. But the Iconoclast had a moment to cameo in the world of MMA years earlier.

Related: Royal Rumble: 10 Best Performances By A # 30 EntrantThe night before this event, the WWE Champion was invited to walk Chael Sonnen to the ring, live on Fox. Vince McMahon vetoed the idea, citing the “barbaric nature” of UFC. However, the “doofus son-in-law” was allowed to come to the ring with Floyd Mayweather for his boxing match later that year.

5 Unannounced Matches

Since the beginning of time, wrestling cards have always carried the phrase “card subject to change.” While those changes were a little more prevalent during the past few years, thanks to the pandemic, changes still occurred without quarantines.

Thanks to a terrible groin injury, Mark Henry had limited movement in the opening cage match, which cut down the time. To give some added value to the event, the WWE added Drew McIntyre vs. Brodus Clay and an eight-woman tag, featuring Pinup Strong and The Bellas victorious against Tamina, Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox, and Eve Torres to fill some time.

4 Cena’s Rumble “Victory”

Despite the main event of WrestleMania 28 being announced the Raw after WrestleMania 27, there was still talk of having John Cena actually win the Royal Rumble. But instead of challenging a world champion at The Show Of Shows, he was going to toss his world title shot aside. The idea was that it was going to show the world just how important his match with The Rock was. Thankfully it was realized how paltry of an idea it is to sacrifice the importance of winning the Royal Rumble for a match with The Rock.

3 Mick Foley’s Last Stand

The Hardcore Icon, Mick Foley surprised the St. Louis crowd by entering the fray at number seven. He actually was able to eliminate both of the Colons, Primo and Epico in the combined time it takes to scramble some eggs. He also helped Ricardo Rodriguez eliminate Justin Gabriel.

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More memorably, he and Santino Marella engaged in a humorous Cobra vs. Mr. Socko battle before both men were dumped out by Cody Rhodes. This would actually be Mick Foley’s final match as several months later, doctors would warn and advise him against competing once again in what would have been a wild hardcore feud with Dean Ambrose.

2 Sheamus’ “Unpredictable” Victory

The St. Louis crowd erupted when hometown favorite, Randy Orton entered the fray at the very favorable 28 position. He was part of the final four, alongside The Big Show, eventual winner Sheamus, and Chris Jericho; who recently made an interesting return (the usually verbose Jericho still hadn’t uttered a word).

With Y2J returning to “save us all,” it seemed like he’d be a sure-fire bet to win the match, which is why the powers that be had decided that Jericho “didn’t need it,” and Sheamus got the Rumble victory and springboarded his way to the 28-second shot heard round the world, defeating Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 28.

1 Epico, Cole, And Karma’s One-Time Shots

The Royal Rumble match usually sees several stars make their one-time cameo appearances and the 2012 event was no different. It’s just that the cameos were practically a waste of time, sans for one. Epico won the award for shortest stint at just 12 seconds. Meanwhile, Michael Cole of all people thought it would be a good idea to enter the field, but he ran away almost immediately when the most dominant female of the era shocked the world when Kharma (aka Awesome Kong, Kia Stevens) made her WWE debut. Cole was scared to death and ran out, eliminated by his fellow commentators Booker T and Jerry Lawler. Karma was dumped out by Dolph Ziggler shortly afterwards.