Royal Rumble (2018)

The 2018 Royal Rumble was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE, held for wrestlers from the promotion's main roster brands, Raw and SmackDown. It was the 31st annual Royal Rumble event and took place on January 28, 2018, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the third Royal Rumble held at the venue, after the 2004 event, when it was known as the Wachovia Center, and the 2015 event. The event was based around the Royal Rumble match, a modified 30-person 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 first time, the event featured a women's Royal Rumble match. As a result and also for the first time, there were two Royal Rumble matches on the card, one for men and one for women, which is now standard, with the winners of each receiving a choice of which championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 34. The men could choose to challenge for either Raw's Universal Championship or SmackDown's WWE Championship, while the women had the choice between the Raw Women's Championship and the SmackDown Women's Championship. Nine matches were contested at the event, including three on the Kickoff pre-show. The main event was the 2018 Women's Royal Rumble match, which was won by Raw's Asuka, who last eliminated SmackDown's Nikki Bella. This was also the second women's match to main event a WWE PPV and livestreaming event, but the first to main event one of the "Big Four". The 2018 Men's Royal Rumble match was won by SmackDown's Shinsuke Nakamura, who last eliminated Raw's Roman Reigns. Other prominent matches included Brock Lesnar retaining the Universal Championship in...