7 Things You Should Know About WWE Royal Rumble 1988

7. This Was Not A PPV Event

The 1988 Royal Rumble event did not air on Pay-Per-View. WWE had entered the PPV business by 1988, but this was just a USA Network special. It was a savvy business move by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon because the NWA was running a PPV called Bunkhouse Stampede that really wasn't successful for them. To counter it, WWE decided to air the first ever Royal Rumble live for three hours on USA Network as way to stick it to the NWA. It's something that the NWA did to WWE too, so it was a bit of payback by WWE. The event was held in Hamilton, Ontario and there were a reported 15,000 fans in attendance. It was a loud crowd all night long because they were excited about the first ever Royal Rumble simply due to the curiosity factor since they had no idea what to expect.