Wrestleview.com’s Jose Marrero sent this in:
When Miz threw out John Cena there was a declaration by Micheal Cole how there was no rule against someone not in the Rumble being able to throw someone out. That’s not true, in the 1996 Royal Rumble Vader was thrown out by Shawn Micheals and afterwards beat up and threw out many superstars including eventual winner Shawn Micheals. Those eliminations were declared null and void due to Vader not being in the Rumble any longer. So technically speaking it is against the rules to have a non participant eliminate someone in the Rumble match. It just wasn’t enforced this year.