Royal Rumble

Event

The Royal Rumble is a pay-per-view consisting of the Royal Rumble match, title matches, and various other matches. The first Royal Rumble took place on January 24, 1988 and was broadcast live on the USA Network. The following year, the event started to be broadcast on pay-per-view and thus became one of WWE's "big four" pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Survivor Series, and SummerSlam.

The 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, and 2013 events. Due to the Rumble match 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. The 2008 Royal Rumble was the first WWE pay-per-view to be available in high-definition.

Match

The Royal Rumble is based on the classic Battle Royal match, in which a number of wrestlers (usually 30) aim at eliminating their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the floor. The winner of the event is the last wrestler remaining after all others have been eliminated.

The Royal Rumble differs from the classical Battle Royal as the contestants do not enter the ring at the same time but instead are assigned entry numbers, usually via a lottery, although desirable spots are occasionally assigned by other means, the most common being winning a match. This lottery is usually staged right before the event begins. The match begins with the two wrestlers who have drawn entry numbers one and two, with the remaining wrestlers entering the ring at regular timed intervals, either 90 seconds or two minutes, according to their entry number.This format is credited to Pat Patterson. To date, only four men who have been one of the starting wrestlers have won the Royal Rumble: Shawn Michaels, Vince McMahon, Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio. The most common number to win is number 27.

Although the interval is supposed to be fixed ahead of time, because wrestling is scripted and its setpieces are planned in advance, sometimes the interval between entrants will be shortened or lengthened in order to coincide with a planned spot in the ring. One of the most infamous of these incidents occurred during the 2015 Royal Rumble match. Before the match began, Lilian Garcia explained that the entrants would enter the match every 90 seconds. Rusev entered at #15 and Goldust at #16, but the two entrants were 2 minutes and 8 seconds apart from each other. This was because a spot was planned for that match where Goldust's titantron (which reads "Shattered Dreams") was supposed to play over Daniel Bryan's elimination; this is infamous because the general consensus among fans is that this was done specifically out of spite towards Daniel Bryan fans.

The Royal Rumble match commonly involves 30 wrestlers and usually lasts an hour, with the longest match, at the 2011 event, lasting over one hour and nine minutes of a three-hour pay-per-view. However, the first match, contested in 1988, involved only 20 men, and lasted 33 minutes of the two-hour broadcast. The 2011 Royal Rumble had a 40-man field, out of whom Alberto Del Rio was victorious.

Although the vast majority of eliminations are caused by active participants, eliminations caused by other means have occurred, and have been ruled legitimate, including self-eliminations (such as Andre the Giant jumping out of the ring after seeing a snake in 1989, Kane eliminating himself in 1999 and Drew Carey eliminating himself in 2001; however Randy Savage's jump over the top rope in 1992 was not ruled as self-elimination), elimination from previously-eliminated participants (such as The Undertaker eliminating Maven in 2002, Kurt Angle eliminating Shawn Michaels in 2005, Kane eliminating CM Punk in 2014 and The Wyatt Family eliminating Brock Lesnar in 2016) and elimination from non-participants (such as Brock Lesnar eliminating Goldberg in 2004, Shane McMahon eliminating Shawn Michaels in 2006 and The Miz eliminating John Cena in 2011). Furthermore, if an injured wrestler is taken away by medical staff, he can return to the match as long as the match is still ongoing (such as Steve Austin in 1999 or Roman Reigns in 2016), but if the match ends without the injured wrestler returning, he is deemed eliminated (such as Scotty 2 Hotty in 2005).

Royal Rumble matches are generally stipulated to involve no disqualifications. The only exception involved Finlay entering the match before his turn to save Hornswoggle in 2008. Of course, this contradicts the 2001 Royal Rumble, when Al Snow inserted himself into the match temporarily without being disqualified.

Prize

Since 1993, the winner of the Royal Rumble match is traditionally awarded a title match for WWE's top championship at WrestleMania – presently, there are two top championships, the WWE Championship on SmackDown and the WWE Universal Championship on Raw.

With the brand extension introduced in mid-2002, the 30 entrants from 2003 to 2006 consisted of 15 wrestlers from both the Raw and SmackDown brands. At first, the winner of the match received a shot at their brand's top champion. Starting in 2004, the Rumble winner had the option of challenging any brand's champion. For instance, Chris Benoit switched brands after winning the 2004 Royal Rumble and won the World Heavyweight Championship. From 2007 to 2010, participants from the ECW brand competed along with the Raw and SmackDown brands, with the ECW World Championship added as an option for the winner to challenge for, although no winners ever did. During ECW's participation, the entries for each brand were not evenly divided. The ECW Championship was deactivated in 2010, and the World Heavyweight Championship was unified into the WWE Championship in 2013, leaving the latter as the only title to challenge for until the brand extension returned in July 2016. The winner of the Royal Rumble match now receives a title opportunity for either SmackDown's WWE Championship or Raw's WWE Universal Championship.

WWE's top championship has been booked as on the line during the Royal Rumble match on two occasions. In 1992, the vacant WWF World Heavyweight Championship was contested in the 1992 Royal Rumble match, eventually won by Ric Flair, while in 2016, Roman Reigns was scheduled to defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship as a participant of that year's Royal Rumble match and was entrant number one. This marked the first time that a reigning champion had to defend his title in the match, which was ultimately won by Triple H, who eliminated Reigns before lastly eliminating Dean Ambrose to win. Reigns would go on to earn a match against Triple H at WrestleMania 32 and won back the title.

From 2001 to 2007, the Royal Rumble match winner had gone on to win a World Championship title at WrestleMania. After winning the 2008 match, John Cena became the first winner to use his championship opportunity at an event (No Way Out 2008) other than WrestleMania. He also became the first since The Rock in 2000 to win the Royal Rumble match but fail to win the title in his championship opportunity.

The Royal Rumble winner may also choose to put his championship opportunity on the line in a match. This was first done in 1996, when Shawn Michaels risked his WrestleMania XII title shot in a match against Owen Hart at In Your House 6. The second time was in 1999, when Stone Cold Steve Austin offered to forfeit his title opportunity to the Big Boss Man, who won third place in the Rumble (Austin was actually the runner-up in that rumble, but the winner, Vince McMahon himself, had voluntarily given up his title opportunity) if McMahon could beat him in a cage match at St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House, which Austin would go on to win. The third time was in 2002, when Kurt Angle convinced Triple H to put his WrestleMania X8 championship spot on the line at No Way Out, a match which Angle won. However, Triple H would later defeat Angle and regain his WrestleMania championship spot. The fourth time was in 2006, when Randy Orton goaded Rey Mysterio into putting his main event spot at WrestleMania 22 on the line at No Way Out, a match which Orton won. Mysterio was eventually reinserted into the main event at WrestleMania, making it a triple threat match, and went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship. On the February 25, 2013 edition of Raw, John Cena successfully defended his WrestleMania 29 WWE Championship opportunity in a match against CM Punk. On February 22, 2015 at Fastlane, Roman Reigns defended his WrestleMania 31 WWE World Heavyweight Championship opportunity against Daniel Bryan.

In 2000, The Rock was declared the victor, as the storyline intended. However, it was later revealed that his feet had actually touched before those of The Big Show. A singles match was held at No Way Out, the event following the Royal Rumble, to determine who received the Wrestlemania title shot against the reigning champion Triple H. Big Show won with the help of Shane McMahon. Rock then defeated Big Show in a rematch in March on Raw with the help of Vince McMahon, which earned him a title shot and converted the match at WrestleMania into a triple-threat that was later made a four-way match when Linda McMahon inserted the recently retired Mick Foley into the match.

Non-PPV Royal Rumble matches

WWE has booked several Royal Rumble matches outside of the annual Royal Rumble event:

WWE has also booked two Royal Rumble matches which were never televised, both in 1994. The first, a 30-man Royal Rumble on January 17, was won by Owen Hart, last eliminating Fatu. The second, an 18-man Royal Rumble match, took place on May 9 in Osaka, Japan and was won by The Undertaker, who last eliminated Bam Bam Bigelow.

Royal Rumble winner's championship opportunity

Note: There was no WrestleMania title opportunity for the winners of the 1992 and 2016 Royal Rumble matches. In 1992, Ric Flair won the Royal Rumble match, which was for the vacant WWF World Heavyweight Championship. In 2016, Triple H won the Royal Rumble match in which Roman Reigns defended the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the match.

Longest time spent in a single Royal Rumble

Top 20 individual longest times in a single Royal Rumble match. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

Note: bold indicates the winner of that year's match

Longest cumulative time spent in Royal Rumbles

Only wrestlers who have spent more than 3 cumulative hours are shown. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

Shortest time spent in a single Royal Rumble

Only wrestlers who spent 10 seconds or less in a single rumble are shown. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

Non-eliminated wrestlers

Several times, wrestlers were drawn to compete in the match but did not actually compete. Their participation is counted as zero seconds, with the exception of #6 Hornswoggle:

1. In 1991, "Macho King" Randy Savage was drawn 18th, but no-showed due to leaving the building after costing Ultimate Warrior the WWF Championship against Sgt. Slaughter.
2. In 1994, Bastion Booger was drawn 25th, but no-showed due to suffering food poisoning before the match.
3. In 1998, Skull was drawn 22nd, but no-showed due to being attacked by Los Boricuas after being mistaken as Stone Cold Steve Austin.
4. In 2004, Spike Dudley was drawn 13th, but was attacked on the ramp by Kane
5. In 2005, Scotty 2 Hotty was drawn 15th, but was attacked on the ramp by Muhammad Hassan.
6. In 2008, Hornswoggle was drawn 9th and eliminated The Miz, however he wasn't brought into the ring until towards the end of the match by Mark Henry and was saved by Finlay and escorted to the back and never reentered the match.
7. In 2008, Finlay was drawn 27th, but was disqualified after coming out before his number came up and using his shillelagh to help Hornswoggle.
8. In 2015, Curtis Axel was drawn 6th, but was attacked on the ramp by Erick Rowan.

Most eliminations in a single Royal Rumble

Top wrestlers with most eliminations in a single match. Only wrestlers with at least seven eliminations are shown. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

Total eliminations in cumulative Royal Rumbles

Top wrestlers with the most eliminations. Only wrestlers with at least 20 eliminations are shown. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

Most Rumble appearances

Only wrestlers with at least 9 appearances are shown. As of the 2017 Royal Rumble.

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.