Royal Rumble (2008)

The 2008 Royal Rumble was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brand divisions. It was the 21st annual Royal Rumble event and took place on January 27, 2008, at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York City, New York. This was the second Royal Rumble held at MSG after 2000 and it was WWE's first pay-per-view broadcast in high definition. 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 world championship match at WrestleMania. For the 2008 event, the winner received their choice to challenge for either Raw's WWE Championship, SmackDown's World Heavyweight Championship, or the ECW Championship at WrestleMania XXIV. Five professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's supercard. The main event was the 2008 Royal Rumble match, which featured wrestlers from all three brands. Raw's John Cena, the surprise 30th entrant returning from a torn pectoral muscle, won the match by last eliminating Raw's Triple H, the 29th entrant; instead of waiting until WrestleMania, Cena invoked his guaranteed championship match at the following month's No Way Out. The primary match on the Raw brand was Randy Orton versus Jeff Hardy for the WWE Championship, which Orton won to retain. The primary match on the SmackDown brand was Edge versus Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship, which Edge won to retain. The featured matches on the undercard were Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) versus Ric Flair in a Career Threatening match and John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) versus Chris Jericho.