Royal Rumble (1998)

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Royal Rumble 1998 was the thirteenth Royal Rumble event produced by World Wrestling Federation which took place on 4th January 1998

## Background

The main match heading into the show is the Royal Rumble Match, in which the winner will be getting a WWF Championship shot at Wrestlemania 14.

Bret Hart will defend his WWF Championship against Shawn Michaels in their last ever encounter for the next 5 years. Bret and Shawn's story is a long one as it dates all the way back to 1992 when Shawn Michaels defeated Bret Hart to become Intercontinental champion and on the same night they formed Four Horsemen along with Lex Luger and Ric Flair, throught the 2 years they were together Shawn and Bret started getting heated with each other with Shawn wanting to beat up Bret as much as he could, at Wrestlemania 9 Shawn Michaels cashed in on Lex Luger and became WWF champion only for Bret Hart to defeat him in the main event and take away his title. Shawn and Bret finally came to blows before Wrestlemania 10 and a 4HM fatal 4 way was announced which yet again Bret won, Bret and Shawn got respect for each other as Shawn went to Smackdown. A Hart Foundation vs DX feud started brewing during 1996 which led to a match at Wrestlemania 13 where Shawn Michaels finally became WWF champion yet again defeating Bret Hart, 1 month later he lost it to Owen Hart in a winner take all between Hart Foundation vs DX and Stone Cold. Shawn kept trying to gain his title back and at Summerslam during a match against Owen for the title, Bret Hart cashed in his briefcase to make it a triple threat but Shawn took profit of that and SCM'd Bret to become champion yet again. A week before Survivor Series the title was vacated as Shawn "lost his smile" and a tournament was made for Survivor Series, in the finals Bret Hart defeated Undertaker after special guest ref Shawn Michaels tried to hit Bret with a chair but Bret ducked and he hit Taker accidentally, Shawn defeated Taker in a hell in a cell match at Badd Blood to become NO1 contender, Bret and Shawn had no respect for each other whatsoever but decided that they had too many matches against each other so tonight will be their official last match, they can't have another match until at least 5 years later. Vince wanted to spice up this match as he added a special guest referee: Owen Hart who hated both Shawn and Bret

The Rock will face Faaroq tonight for leadership of Nation of Domination, Rock feels like he should be the leader of Nation of Domination and Faaroq was pissed saying he MADE The Rock what he is, they decided to have a match against each other and if Rock can win, he can become NOD's leader at Survivor Series but Faaroq hit him with brass knuckles to get the cheap win. Rock didn't remember this as he respected Faaroq for this win but he would come back when he's ready, multiple wrestlers started laughing at Rock due to him not knowing what happened so Rock sat down and watched the Survivor Series footage as he saw that Faaroq cheated to win, he was pissed and said he wasn't a real man to lead this black power stable so he challenged him to another match tonight

Taka Michinoku and Terry Funk started forming an alliance as Terry thought Taka was the future, Taka answered an open challenge by LW champion The One Cold Scorpio but Scorpio low blowed Taka when he got too close to winning, Funk entered the ring and brawled with him, this feud continued as Scorpio lost the LW title and was trying everything to gain it back but Taka would always be there to ruin it. Scorpio had a match against Terry Funk as he started hitting him with chairshots and Taka came out for the save, Terry challenged Scorpio on Taka's behalf to a match tonight

At Survivor Series, Ken Shamrock made his debut by defeating Shawn Michaels with a knockout punch, one day later he was Bulldog's special tag partner as they defeated Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart(After Bret walked out) to win the tag titles, they lost it immediatly at Badd Blood against Vader and Sycho Sid so Bulldog turned on Shamrock. Shamrock ended up costing Bulldog a chance at winning the WWF title and this match was set for tonight

Kane has been destroying the whole roster ever since his arrival at Badd Blood, Paul Bearer wanted more so Vince Mcmahon gave him a handicap match against all the 9 guys of the gang wars, if they managed to win their gang would return to WWF

## Results

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## Details

* The Rock uses brass knuckles on Faaroq's face and rock bottoms him to wiin, Rock is officially NOD's leader
* Jeff Jarrett is a surprise appearence as he was just at Starrcade 2 weeks ago
* When Cactus Jack shows up, Terry Funk meets with him but Cactus chairshots him, Funk chairshots him as well, they give the chair to each other and start chairshotting each other all in good fun
* Mick Foley showed up as all of his 3 aliases in the rumble: Dude Love at number 1, Cactus Jack at number 15 and Mankind at number 30
* Due to Mankind returning at number 30, Taker stared at him as he made his entrance and Kane took advantage of that distraction to eliminate his brother
* In the main event, Shawn goes for the sharpshooter and Owen rings the bell without Bret tapping as Owen has turned his back on the canadian crowd and Bret is pissed(not an actual screwjob, kayfabe screwjob)