In April 2011, the promotion ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism. In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the "WWF" initialism. In October 2021, Money in the Bank became recognized as one of the "Big Five". From 1993 to 2002, it was considered one of the "Big Five", including King of the Ring, but that PPV event was discontinued after 2002. The following year, the event started to be broadcast on pay-per-view, and thus became one of the "Big Four" annual pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Survivor Series, and SummerSlam, the promotion's four biggest shows of the year. After the match was first tested at a house show in October 1987, the first Royal Rumble event took place on January 24, 1988, and was broadcast live as a television special on the USA Network. The titular match was created by wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson and the event was established by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). The Royal Rumble is a pay-per-view (PPV) consisting of the Royal Rumble match, title matches, and various other matches. It is now standard for the event to include both a men's and women's Rumble match on the card.
While originally only for men, a women's version of the Royal Rumble match was held at the 2018 event, which was also the first event to have two Rumble matches on one card. In most of these cases, the main event was a world championship match. The Royal Rumble match is generally contested as the main event match of the annual event. It is one of WWE's five biggest events of the year, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank, referred to as the "Big Five".
It also became available to stream on the WWE Network in 2015 and will become available to stream on Peacock in 2022. After the initial event was broadcast as a television special on USA Network, the Royal Rumble has been shown on pay-per-view (PPV) since the 1989 event. The event is held in late January, the week before the Super Bowl. It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a battle royal whose participants enter at timed intervals.
WWE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCHES PROFESSIONAL
The Royal Rumble is a professional wrestling event, produced annually since 1988 by WWE, the world's largest professional wrestling promotion.