Royal Rumble (2001)

The 2001 Royal Rumble was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the 14th annual Royal Rumble event and took place on January 21, 2001, at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana. The event was based around the men's Royal Rumble match, a modified 30-man battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time and the winner received a WWF Championship match at WrestleMania X-Seven. Six matches were contested, including one match for the Sunday Night Heat pre-show. The main event was the 2001 Royal Rumble match, which "Stone Cold" Steve Austin won by last eliminating Kane, which was his record-setting third Rumble win, after his back-to-back wins in 1997 and 1998. The match also included comedian Drew Carey as a participant. On the undercard, Kurt Angle retained the WWF Championship against Triple H, and Chris Jericho defeated Chris Benoit in a ladder match to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. The event was notable for the WWF return of Haku, who wrestled in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as Meng, holding the WCW Hardcore Championship after winning it at WCW Sin one week before.