Royal Rumble (1998)

Royal Rumble
Promotional poster featuring the back of Stone Cold Steve Austin's head
Promotion	World Wrestling Federation
Date	January 18, 1998
City	San Jose, California
Venue	San Jose Arena
Attendance	18,542
Buy rate	300,000[1]
Tagline(s)	Pain! Just A 4 Letter Word.[2]
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous D-Generation X: In Your House Next → No Way Out of Texas: In Your House
Royal Rumble chronology
← Previous 1997 Next → 1999

The 1998 Royal Rumble was the 11th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on January 18, 1998, at the San Jose Arena in San Jose, California. Six matches were contested on the event's card. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 1998 event, the winner received a match for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania XIV. This is the first Royal Rumble of the Attitude Era.

The main event was a casket match between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker for the WWF Championship, which Michaels won to retain the title. The main match on the undercard was the 1998 Royal Rumble match, which Stone Cold Steve Austin won by lastly eliminating Rocky Maivia, thus becoming the third person to win two Royal Rumble matches, and back-to-back, after Hulk Hogan in 1990-91 and Shawn Michaels in 1995-96. Additionally, The Legion Of Doom (Hawk and Animal) defeated The New Age Outlaws ("Road Dogg" Jesse James and "Badd Ass" Billy Gunn) by disqualification therefore, not winning the WWF Tag Team Championship, and "The Rock" Rocky Maivia defeated Ken Shamrock to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship.