The 2001 Royal Rumble was the 14th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on January 21, 2001, at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana. Six matches were contested, including one match for the Sunday Night Heat pre-show.

As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2001 event, the winner received a match for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania X-Seven. The main event was the 2001 Royal Rumble match, which Stone Cold Steve Austin won by last eliminating Kane, which was his third Rumble win, and is so far the only wrestler to win the Royal Rumble match three times. The match also included comedian Drew Carey as a participant. On the undercard, Kurt Angle retained the WWF Championship against Triple H, and Chris Jericho defeated Chris Benoit in a ladder match to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. The event was notable for the WWF return of Haku, who wrestled in World Championship Wrestling as Meng, holding the WCW Hardcore Championship after winning it at Sin one week before.

The Royal Rumble is an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) produced every January by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, which were dubbed the "Big Four", and was considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with King of the Ring. It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. The match generally features 30 wrestlers and the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For 2001, the winner earned a match for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania X-Seven. The 2001 event was the 14th Royal Rumble and was scheduled to be held on January 21, 2001, at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The event consisted of five matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWF's writers, while storylines were produced on WWF's weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown!.

At the Royal Rumble was WWF Champion Kurt Angle defending his title against Triple H in a standard match. The build-up to the match began on the January 8 episode of Raw Is War, when Angle defended the championship against "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, which ended in a no contest when Triple H interfered and ambushed Austin with a steel pipe. On the January 11 episode of SmackDown!, Vince McMahon scheduled Angle to defend his title at the Royal Rumble against Triple H. Leading up to the event, both men spoke about the match, with Triple H claiming that Angle only held the championship because he allowed him to, and Angle denying this.

Also taking place at the event was a ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, in which the champion, Chris Benoit, defended his title against Chris Jericho. In the match, the title belt was suspended above the ring from the ceiling, and the only method to win was to climb a ladder to retrieve the belt. Their feud started at WrestleMania 2000, when Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho challenged Kurt Angle with both his Intercontinental title and WWF European Championship on the line in a Two-fall triple threat match. During that match, both men pinned each other in one fall each to win the respective championship from Angle. Since that event, Benoit would hold three pay per view victories over Jericho culminating at SummerSlam in a two out of three falls match. On the January 4 episode of SmackDown!, Benoit defended his title against Jericho in a standard match. During the match, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko, Benoit's partners in the group The Radicalz, interfered by attacking Jericho, causing him to win the match by disqualification but not the championship. On the January 8 episode of Raw Is War, Jericho teamed with The Hardy Boyz (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) against The Radicalz (Saturn, Malenko, and Benoit) in a six man tag team match, which Jericho won by pinning Benoit. On the January 11 episode of SmackDown!, Jericho demanded a title match at the Royal Rumble. Benoit offered to give Jericho any type of match he wanted and Jericho chose a ladder match.

Before the pay-per-view event began, an episode of Sunday Night Heat, one of the secondary television programs for WWF, was shown. Lo Down (D'Lo Brown and Chaz) defeated Kaientai (Taka Michinoku and Shoichi Funaki) in a tag team match, when Chaz pinned Funaki. Originally, the winning team was to send one of their members into the Royal Rumble match, but Drew Carey wound up being entered instead.

The pay-per-view event began with Edge & Christian defending their WWF Tag Team Championship against The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley). Throughout the match, both teams performed many offensive maneuvers, though The Dudley Boyz were able to gain the upper hand. D-Von pinned Edge after a 3D, resulting in The Dudley Boyz winning the WWF Tag Team Championship.