Royal Rumble (1988) was the first annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It took place on January 24, 1988 at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. Unlike the subsequent Royal Rumble events, this event was not shown on pay-per-view and was instead a television special shown on the USA Network. The main event was a two out of three falls match where The Islanders (Haku and Tama) defeated The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers). The undercard featured the first-ever Royal Rumble match which was won by Jim Duggan, Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki) defeated The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Leilani Kai) in a two out of three falls match for the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship and Ricky Steamboat defeated Rick Rude by disqualification.

WrestleMania IV was the fourth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It took place on March 27, 1988 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The main event was the finals of a fourteen-man tournament for the undisputed WWF Championship, where Randy Savage defeated Ted DiBiase to win the vacant title. The main matches on the undercard were a twenty-man battle royal won by Bad News Brown, Demolition (Ax and Smash) versus Strike Force (Tito Santana and Rick Martel) for the WWF Tag Team Championship, Brutus Beefcake versus The Honky Tonk Man for the WWF Intercontinental Championship and a 14-man tournament for the vacated WWF Championship.

WWE SummerSlam was the first annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view event. It was produced by the World Wrestling Federation and took place on August 29, 1988 in Madison Square Garden, located in New York, New York. The PPV was created to help the company compete against rival promotion World Championship Wrestling. It was one of the first four annual pay-per-view events produced by the WWF. The main match of the preliminary bouts was the WWF Intercontinental Championship match between The Ultimate Warrior and the reigning champion The Honky Tonk Man. The Ultimate Warrior won the match in approximately thirty seconds to end the longest Intercontinental Championship reign. The main event was a match pitting The Mega Powers (Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage) against their long-time rivals, The Mega Bucks (Ted DiBiase and André the Giant). Hogan and Savage won the match after Miss Elizabeth distracted the special guest referee by removing her skirt to reveal a bikini bottom.