Royal Rumble

Royal Rumble is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event, produced annually in late March or early April by OECW, a professional wrestling promotion based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The event was started by then OECW owner Tom Redmond Sr. in 1984, and has since produced twenty-eight editions with the twenty-ninth, Royal Rumble XXIX, taking place in 2012. OECW regards it as their flagship event due to it being the most successful and longest-running professional wrestling event in company history. Nicknamed "The Biggest Event In History," "The Grandest Stage of Them All" and "The Showcase of the Gods". Relatively unknown for years Royal Rumble was finally placed in the spotlight by Tom Redmond Jr. after the death of Redmond Sr in 1999.

Organization
Royal Rumble's I, V,X ,XV,XX,XXV and XXX have all taking place at the promotions home arena Royal Coliseum with all the other events taken place mostly in sports arenas in large cities, a number of them have occurred in large stadiums. The most-attended events include Royal Rumble II (83,733) in Pontiac, Royal Rumble VI (67,678) in Toronto, Royal Rumble VIII (62,167) in Indianapolis, Royal Rumble X (67,925) in Houston, Royal Rumble XVIII (68,237) also in Toronto, Royal Rumble XIX (54,097) in Seattle, Royal Rumble XXIII (80,103) in Detroit, Royal Rumble XXIV (74,635) in Orlando, Royal Rumble XXVI (72,219) in Glendale and Royal Rumble XXVII (71,617) in Atlanta.

Royal Rumble centers on the main event matches for the OECW World Heavyweight Championship, and since Royal Rumble XIX, the OECW Extreme Championship. Other OECW championships are also contested for, while gimmick matches and personal feud matches also take place on the match card.

Since 1993, the winner of the annual Battle for the Title free for all match has been able to receive a guaranteed OECW World Heavyweight Championship match at the same year's Royal Rumble. With the introduction of the Extreme Championship in 2002, the winner is also given the option to choose between the world title or the Extreme championship.

Royal Rumble XXI saw the introduction of the Bank ladder match. This match features six to ten participants and took place at seven Royal Rumble between 2004 and 2011. The participant who retrieves the briefcase suspended above the ring wins a contract, which guarantees a world title match at the time and place of the winner's choosing for up to one year, including the following year's Royal Rumble.

Commentators
For five of the first six Royal Rumble Jesse Monsoon and Tom Redmond Sr. served as the color commentators. For Royal Rumble VII and VIII, Monsoon and Redmond Sr provided color commentary. In the mid to late 1990s the commentator team comprised Redson McMahon, James T Ross and Redmond Sr. Since the brand separation in 2002, matches from the Raw brand have been called by Ross and Redmond Sr; the SmackDown matches called by Redmond Sr Cole, John Bradshaw and Jon Coach. The following year Ross was replaced by Ron Strike at Royal Rumble XXVI. At Royal Rumble XXVII Ross returned to commentate, along with Jon Matthews. Howard Fin has served as the long-standing ring-announcer and has appeared at every event.