Retro Reviews: Royal Rumble Part 2

Don’t call it a comeback, we’ve been here for years. In as much as it took a year plus to get back to doing Royal Rumble reviews. Alrighty, let’s pick things up where we left off. If you missed the first part, you can catch up here, and then pick it up in 1998.

1998

The first Rumble that is full on Attitude Era comes to us from the San Jose Arena in San Jose, California and it would be one to remember for those of us who came of age in the Attitude Era. Vader and Goldust have a physical, if at times sloppy go. A six-mini tag match was far better than you’d expect, and Sunny’s involvement as special referee was very well done. The Rock and Ken Shamrock have a decent match in their long feud. They’d have better but another unclean finish kinda kills it for me. Speaking of repetitive finishes, the LOD beat the Outlaws by DQ, continuing a series of indecisive finishes between these two. Which can work, but the Warriors never really got their heat back from the Outlaws. Yes, it made Dogg and Gunn legit threats but they never gave it back to these babyfaces. 

• Must-See Matches:
  • Max Mini, Mini Nova and Mosaic vs. Battalion, El Torito & Tarantula
    • A fun match these six guys probably have had thousands of times before and it is crisp.

     –  Royal Rumble Match

– There’s so much packed into this match. The Three Faces of Foley with the hardcore duel with Terry Funk, the Rock going for nearly an hour, everyone being out for Stone Cold who is in full DTA mode here, one of the best Rumbles.

– WWF Championship – Casket match: Shawn Michaels (c) vs. The Undertaker

– One of the better casket matches with so many historical notes attached to it. We go from this match to two of the biggest angles at Wrestlemania that in a way completed the turn away from the New Generation and we’re in full on Attitude Era.

FINAL GRADE: B-

Yes, you could see the Rumble finish coming a mile away and the roster was pretty thin but this is still peak Attitude Era fun. Not to mention this was the true start of Austin-mania 

1999

We get a lot of pantomime in a match between one of the tag champs and the hardcore champ where no belt is on the line. Road Dogg and Bossman have decent, if not a little slow, opener. The Intercontinental title is on the line next as Ken Shamrock defends against Billy Gunn. This build for this match started when Gunn mooned Shamrock’s sister, obviously making this a deeply personal rivalry. It was alright, these two never really seemed to have much chemistry in the ring. X-Pac defends the European title in a good match that was brought down for me by too many spinning heel kicks as cut-offs and a bit a flub when Teddy Long seemingly counted out X-Pac. Women’s title match as Sable defends against Luna and whoa boy. Luna gave Sable way, way too much, Sable was terribly selling a back injury and the strap match was formulaic and overbooked all at the same time. And then the most infamous match from this card, the I Quit match for the WWF Championship. I’ll prove myself to be a terrible person later on in this writeup. I know many people are high on this year’s Rumble match, but not as much for me. It was obviously going to be Austin the whole time and he was taken out of the match in relatively short order, making much of the middle pretty much worthless. I will admit that my inner 15-year-old was still giddy to see Austin beat on McMahon for a little while. 

• Must See Match: WWE Championship, I Quit match: Mankind (c) vs. The Rock
  • If you are a new fan of wrestling and are not used to the amount of head trauma that permeated the business in this era, the finish will probably be hard to watch. I saw this match live and it’s always hard to watch the end. But this was a beautifully brutal match the rest of the way though and told a tremendous story. Michael Cole actually perfectly played up the drama, begging Foley to quit. This would be their last epic one on one encounter. Their feud would pretty much end the night after St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and then the even more entertaining Rock n Sock Connection would come to be. 

FINAL GRADE: C

This is right in the middle of the road of the madness of the Attitude Era. At the time, the ending to the Rumble was shocking but looking back, it does not hold up. There was a lot of stuff happening on this night, but aside from the title match, not a ton of memorable stuff.

2000

We head to the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden for the millennial edition of the Rumble. I remember this card as a show of moments, starting with the debut of Tazz. Also, it’s weird to a: See Kurt with hair and b: Hear his classic entrance theme without the “you suck” chants. Even the time-waster of the Miss Rumble 2000 swimsuit contest is memorable, just for all the wrong reasons. Shout-out to a babyfaced Coach making his PPV debut getting mobbed by the crowd at the newly opened WWF New York. The Intercontinental Title match was an alright triple threat. I think all three came across well. The Tag Team title match was there and overbooked. Not the best Royal Rumble match of all time here, but there were a lot of dick punches, so that’s a thing it’s got going for it. 

• Must See Matches:
  • Tag Team Tables Match: The Dudley Boyz vs. The Hardy Boyz
    • A highly entertaining car crash of a match that was the beginning of the trio of matches these two teams (later with Edge and Christian) had in 2000 that set and then raised the bar for tag team specialty matches. 
  • Street Fight for the WWF Championship: Triple H (c) vs. Cactus Jack
    • A symphony of violence, a masterpiece of storytelling written in blood. One of the best matches in both of their Hall of Fame careers.

FINAL GRADE: A-

The millennium opens up with one of the best PPVs of the Attitude Eras and one of the best Rumbles to this date. 

2001

The Rumble heads to the Big Easy for ‘01 to what was then the New Orleans Arena. Our opening match is another competent chapter in the rivalry between the Dudleys and Edge and Christian. The story told here hits a little different 19 years later, as it was built around the concussion that the Dudleys were given a week prior by Edge and Christian. Head trauma is kinda one of those no-go areas for angles these days. Either way, New Orleans was very hot for this title change. I think the less said about the women’s championship match and the post-match injury the better. The WWF title match isn’t bad by any means. But a bunch of little things add up for me and make it hard to push it into must see territory. The crowd is kinda dead for the first half of this thing. They don’t wake up until the Stephanie McMahon-Trish Stratus fight/extended rest spot. The finish makes all the sense but really just took the piss out of Kurt. I think these two had better matches elsewhere in their feuds. Plus, I think their more memorable matches involved other people, e.g. the triple threat at Summerslam 2000 with The Rock. 

• Must See Matches
  • WWF Intercontinental Championship – Ladder Match: Chris Benoit (c) vs. Chris Jericho
    • One of the more underrated ladder matches in company history, this was an incredibly physical brawl between two of the best workers in the company at the time. 
  • Royal Rumble match
    • One of the best Rumble matches of all-time. This was a tour de force for Kane, who managed to be the thread that ran through all of the chapters of this match. Yes, Drew Carey was in this match. But his involvement was actually done well and you don’t really mind the sidebar of him trying to buy off Kane. 

FINAL GRADE: A

Top to bottom, a show that’s was just a little bit better than the previous year’s edition. And that Rumble is an all-timer. 

2002

The Rumble heading into formerly enemy territory, coming from down Atlanta way at what is now State Farm Arena. This was also the final WWF Royal Rumble, as the name change came later in the year. The tag team opener was a solid, basic match but the crowd was hot. I forgot how over Taz was during this face run with Spike Dudley. The I-C match itself was solid, physical encounter between Edge and William Regal. They were able to tell two separate stories in the middle of the title change. Consider it an honorable mention for this year’s event. The women’s title match actually could have used a couple more minutes. They were working an injury angle on Trish’s hand and Jazz could have used another minute or two to get more heat working on it. The match just cut off before it got a chance to breathe. The street fight was good and bloody fun, but I think the promos were far better than the match. Atlanta loves them some Ric Flair and they were all about him bleeding buckets. The Rumble itself was full of moments and returns. Goldust, The Godfather, Val Venis and of course Mr. Perfect returned in the match. And of course, who can forget the unhold beating poor Maven took from the Undertaker. I don’t know if there was a more obvious winner from the start, but all the big names got their own chapter of the match. The last third of the match is overloaded with the main eventers at the time. 

• Must See Match:
  • WWF Undisputed Championship: Chris Jericho (c) vs. The Rock
    • I think these guys had an underrated chemistry in the ring and they told a great story. A rollercoaster ride of a match. 

FINAL GRADE: B

2003

   We start out with a Royal Rumble qualifying match between The Big Show and a babyface Brock Lesnar. I mean, that works now but it didn’t last 20 years ago. Brock was a very different monster when he first got into the sport. But then again, Paul Heyman did turn and cost him the WWE title like twenty years before he did it to the benefit of Roman Reigns. You’d think Brock would remember… Anyway, the whole match was part of a plan to keep Brock out of the Rumble and away from the WWE Championship, foreshadowiiiiiiiing. Nothing near a mat classic, but a tight 6 minute match that does what it needed to do: get the crowd hot, let Brock throw around a large man so he looks gassed to tell another story later in the night. Good way to start the show and they jumped right into it. 

World Tag Team Titles on the line next as Lance Storm and William Regal defend against the Dudleys. This is still early on in Regal’s “Power of the Punch” era so the brass knuckles are an important part of the story here. Referee Nick Patrick started this one out by thoroughly searching both Storm and Regal for foreign objects. This one felt like the pacing was just rushed. They got everything in during a decent tag match, including a distraction from Chief Morley so Regal could pull out the knux, but the Dudleys see it coming, 3D Regal, D-Von grabs the knux, clocks the legal man Storm and the heels are hoist by their own petard to give the Dudleys their 16th tag team title reign. 

Up next, Torrie Wilson against Dawn Marie Wilson in a “stepmom vs. stepdaughter” match. The less said about this contest and the whole angle around it, the better. Top ten worst things the company has ever presented as a storyline.

So as bad as that one was, up next is a legendary bad match, Triple H defends the World Heavyweight Championship against Scott Steiner. I have actually never seen this one in its entirety, but have definitely seen some highlights. You have to give it to the WWE’s production staff though. Their hype package made even this dud of a build look really good. The match itself, uh… well, not as bad as it may have been hyped to be. Yes, it was slow, plodding, repetitive, sloppy at times, botchy at worse and Boston was not buying Scott freakin’ Steiner as a good guy. Oh, and the finish is a sledgehammering clusterfuck. Maybe this was as bad as advertised after all. Either way, totally avoid it. 

Following the WWE Title match, is our main event and the match that sells the show: the Royal Rumble. It starts out with two all-time greats setting up their all-time matchup at Wrestlemania and 

MUST SEE MATCH: 

• WWE Championship: Kurt Angle (c) vs. Chris Benoit
  • Another classic matchup in their long-running, brutal and technical rivalry

FINAL GRADE: B-

2004

    Next up is the ‘04 Rumble from the Wells Fargo Center (then Wachovia Center) in the City of Brotherly Love. This is the first Rumble fully in the brand split era, so for the first time the winner would have to decide which world championship to challenge for at Wrestlemania. Triple H and Shawn Michaels have revived their rivalry over the World Heavyweight Title, while Hardcore Holly receives one of the most unlikely Big 4 title shots as he challenges Brock Lesnar. This one was rooted in a match from September 2002 when Holly broke his neck against Lesnar, putting him out for more than a year. But the return and build was done right and one could argue that Holly was made a more than credible threat to Lesnar’s reign. 

Our opening contest is a tables match for the World Tag Team Titles as Batista and Ric Flair of Evolution defend against the masters of the table match, the Dudley Boyz. This thing was quick and sloppy. Bubba had an impressive spot early where he shot a table all the way across the ring into the ribs of Batista. Jonathan Coachman leaves the broadcast spot to provide the distractions so that Batista can put D-von through a table with a spinebuster. Literally five and a half minutes of alright then. 

The Cruiserweight title on the line next as Rey Mysterio defends against Jamie Noble. For the second straight event, the match is never really allowed to get into a second gear as they literally got three and a half minutes and the whole thing really just furthered the blind girlfriend angle with Noble and Nidia that might have gone on a little too long to still have been believable. 

Los Guerreros explode next as the former tag team champs square off, it’s Eddie vs. Chavo. There was a heck of an emotional buildup to this one with an emphasis on the family betrayal of nephew and uncle. This was, hands down, the best match of the undercard and unfortunately it didn’t get the time it deserved. The end came pretty abruptly as well with Eddie getting a clean win after a frog splash. There was extracurricular activity after the match so that this one could continue after the Rumble if they wanted to, but Chavo would move on to win the Cruiserweight title, while Eddie would go on a month later to win the WWE Title. Not a bad match by any stretch and a great story told, but probably so much more they could have been able to do with some more time. 

Speaking of the WWE title, that match is up next and it was, a match. Six and a half minutes, Holly took most of the heat but got a little come up but, more of a house show title match rather than one that should have been featured on a Big 4 show. 

The World Heavyweight Championship is your co-main event as Triple H defends against Shawn Michaels in a last man standing match, the latest in the years long feud between these two former friends who would later reunite. There was a lot of buildup to this one, a lot of intense promises of violence which were mostly fulfilled. Both men were absolute messes in this one, full on 1.0s on the Muta Scale. While the abundance of blood made sense in the context of the feud, I don’t think it was as necessary. There was already enough going into this match. Also, the finish of a double TKO was kinda weak. I mean it got over the exhaustion that they were feeling, but the WWE in this era tried to book way too many last man standing matches that essentially went nowhere. If you want to take in the entire body of work between these two men, then catch this match and be ready for claret. But they have had and would have much better encounters. 

Finally, we get to the Royal Rumble that no one talks about any more and with good reason. Chris Benoit goes in at number one and runs the gauntlet to win the match and the title shot at Wrestlemania. In the annals of Rumble matches though, it’s not a bad match at all.  I will say this; Goldberg was way over in 2004 and Philadelphia was ready for Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg. My how much that will change by the time it actually happens. 

FINAL GRADE: C+

    The undercard was full of quick matches that never got a chance to get anywhere and a house show world title match. The co-main was a physical bloodbath that honestly didn’t need all of the color it got and the Rumble match was good but not great. There were stories told during the match, but not as many as other years. It was Chris Benoit’s year and you saw it coming a mile away. It’s not essential viewing, but if you like Royal Rumbles and/or like early Ruthless Aggression WWE, then it’s worth your time.

Date	Winner(s)	Loser(s)	Stipulation
January 18, 1998	Max Mini, Mosaic & Mini Nova	Battalion, El Torito & Tarantula
	Stone Cold Steve Austin	29 others	Royal Rumble match
	Shawn Michaels (c)	The Undertaker	Casket Match for the WWF Championship
January 24, 1999	The Rock	Mankind (c)	“I Quit” match for the WWF Championship
January 23, 2000	The Hardy Boyz	The Dudley Boyz	Tag Team Tables match
	Triple H (c)	Cactus Jack	Street Fight for the WWF Championship
January 21, 2001	Chris Jericho	Chris Benoit (c)	Ladder match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship
	Stone Cold Steve Austin	29 others	Royal Rumble match
January 20, 2002	Chris Jericho (c)	The Rock	Undisputed WWF Championship
January 19, 2003	Kurt Angle (c)	Chris Benoit	WWE Championship