The Royal Rumble match is generally contested as the main event match of the annual event. There are some exceptions, such as the 1988, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2006, 2013, and 2023 events. In 1988, the main event was a tag team match, while for all the others, it was a men's world championship match. While originally only for men, a women's version of the Royal Rumble match was held as the main event at the 2018 event, which was also the first event to have two Rumble matches on one card. It subsequently became standard to have both a men's and women's Royal Rumble match at the annual event.
In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the "WWF" initialism.[9] In April 2011, the promotion ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism.[10] Also in March 2002, the promotion introduced the brand extension, in which the roster was divided between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform on their respective weekly television shows[11]—ECW became a third brand in 2006.[12] The first brand extension was dissolved in August 2011,[13] but it was reintroduced in July 2016 (other brands, including NXT, NXT UK, and 205 Live, would also be active during this second brand split).[14] The Royal Rumble, along with the other original "Big Four" events, were the only PPVs to never be held exclusively for one brand during either brand split periods. The 2008 Royal Rumble was the first WWE pay-per-view to be available in high-definition.[15] In 2015, the Royal Rumble began to air on WWE's online streaming service, the WWE Network, which launched in February 2014,[16] and in 2022, the event became available on Peacock as the American version of the WWE Network merged under Peacock in March 2021.[17]
Due to the Rumble matches taking up a large amount of time (most Rumble matches last roughly one hour), the Rumble event tends to have a smaller card than most other pay-per-view events, which routinely have six to eight matches per card though with the Royal Rumble expanding to a five-hour show as well as a two-hour kickoff pre-show starting in 2018, the card then mainly featured anywhere from nine to twelve matches with two or three of those matches taking place on the kickoff show. In 2022, however, WWE phased out the pre-shows with the Rumble returning to around six matches on the card and a runtime of around three to four hours. The men's Royal Rumble match is usually located at the top of the card, though there have been exceptions, such as the 1988, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2018, and 2023 events.[21] In these cases, 1988's main event was a tag team match, while the others were men's world championship matches, except in 2018. The 2018 Royal Rumble was the first to include a women's Royal Rumble match, which was the main event for that year. It was subsequently the first in which two Rumble matches were contested on one card and it is now standard for the event to include both a men's and women's Rumble match.[22]
The Royal Rumble match is based on the classic battle royal, in which a number of wrestlers (traditionally 30) aim at eliminating their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the floor. The difference between a Royal Rumble and a standard battle royal is that in a standard battle royal, all participants start the match in the ring at the same time, where in a Royal Rumble match, two participants start and then the rest enter at timed intervals.[23][24] The winner of the match is the last wrestler remaining after all others have been eliminated. Since the 1993 event, the prize for winning is a world championship match at WrestleMania, with the exception of the 2016 event, where the prize of the match was the championship itself as reigning champion Roman Reigns defended the title in the match.[23][25] According to Hornswoggle, who worked for WWE from 2006 until 2016 and participated in two Rumbles, participants may learn their eliminations by knowing the two wrestlers who are eliminated before them and which wrestlers are entering the Royal Rumble before and after their elimination.[26]
(c) – refers to the champion(s) heading into the match
Video box set
In March 2007, WWE released a complete DVD box set titled Royal Rumble: The Complete Anthology, which showcases every Royal Rumble event in its entirety, up to the 2007 Royal Rumble.[99]
^Brian Shields. Main Event: WWE in the Raging 80s (p.166)
^Ian Hamilton. Wrestling's Sinking Ship: What Happens to an Industry Without Competition (p. 160)
^Sullivan, Kevin (November 23, 2010). The WWE Championship: A Look Back at the Rich History of the WWE Championship. Gallery Books. p. 124. ISBN9781439193211. At the time, SummerSlam was one of WWE's "Big Five" Pay-Per-Views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, and Survivor Series were the others), ...
^WWE.com Staff (January 5, 2023). "Money in the Bank headed to The O2 in London on Saturday, July 1". WWE. Retrieved January 5, 2023. The O2 is one of the world's premier venues and the perfect home for Money In The Bank. We are excited to bring one of our 'Big 5' events to the UK and look forward to welcoming the WWE Universe to London on July 1.
