Royal Rumble (2016) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It took place on January 24, 2016, at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. It was the 29th event in the Royal Rumble chronology. This was the fifth Royal Rumble to be held in the state of Florida (1990, 1991, 1995, and 2006) and the first pay-per-view event at Amway Center since it opened in 2010.
At the event, Roman Reigns defended his WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the Royal Rumble match. The event also marked the first time that a reigning champion has defended his title during the match and the second time (after the 1992 event) that the title is the prize for winning the match.
Six matches were contested at the event, with one match contested on the pre-show. In the main event, the returning Triple H won the Royal Rumble match by eliminating Dean Ambrose to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, becoming the third person to win from entrant number 30 and the first since John Cena in 2008. The defending champion Roman Reigns was also eliminated by Triple H.
The Royal Rumble match and the event is most notable for featuring the highly anticipated WWE debut of longtime Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) mainstay A.J. Styles, who signed with the company a few weeks prior.