IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2002
Date: January 20, 2002
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 12,915
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is the first step to things falling downhill, as we’re a few months away from the Brand Split and things falling through the floor in quality. The main event tonight aside from the Rumble is Jericho defending his newly won Undisputed Title (which he won by beating the Rock and Steve Austin IN THE SAME NIGHT in case you didn’t know that) against Rock. HHH is back in the ring tonight also (he may have fought on Smackdown before this but I don’t think he did) so let’s get to it.

The opening video has clips of various Rumble wins in a photo album kind of theme. The theme for this year’s show is 30 Men, 1 Winner. I’ve heard worse ideas which we’ll get too very soon.

Tag Titles: Spike Dudley/Tazz vs. Dudley Boys

I LOVE Stacy as the Duchess of Dudleyville. I never remember her looking better. Anyway, Spike and Tazz are defending here in a reign that I don’t think anyone ever remembers. The Dudleys beat up Spike recently so he’s in a neck brace. The Dudleys attack to start and hit the belly to back neckbreaker on Tazz on the floor. It’s Bubba vs. Spike to start things off in a handicap match for all intents and purposes. Bubba rips the neck brace off and drops a big elbow.

Bubba shouts at Spike to get up as we get a very nice shot of Stacy. Tazz is back on the apron as D-Von hits a Hennig necksnap of all things. Bubba loads up a second brainbuster on Spike but gets countered into a Dudley Dog for no cover. The tag to Tazz is missed so Spike has to take a double flapjack instead. Spike avoids a headbutt from D-Von and makes the Dudleys clothesline each other. Hot tag brings in Tazz to clean house with suplexes. A big boot to Bubba’s head sets up a top rope cross body by Spike for two. Stacy interferes and gets put in the Tazmission. D-Von gets caught in the same hold and the champions retain.

Rating: D+. I have no idea what the point of this being on PPV was as it barely broke five minutes. Nothing with Stacy in the Dudley attire can be bad, but this came about as close as you can get. Actually scratch that as it wasn’t so much bad but just short. I have no idea why this wasn’t on Raw or something like that. Tazz would be retired very soon after this due to a horrible neck.

We immediately go to a recap of Regal vs. Edge which is based on Regal using brass knuckles over and over again. Edge got fed up with it and beat up a lot of people with a chair.

Edge has a chair with him tonight to counter the knuckles. Apparently he broke Regal’s nose recently.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. William Regal

Edge is defending. The referee checks Regal over and over again for knuckles and finds them in his trunks. Well you can’t say he didn’t do his job. The referee stupidly puts them on the ring post instead of like, giving them to someone to take to the back or something. Edge pounds away to start and chokes with his boot in the corner. He goes after Regal’s bad nose as Lawler claims conspiracy.

Regal comes back with a clothesline but Edge kicks him in the back to put both guys down. Being the British dude that he is, Regal suplexes Edge down for two. Make that four. Uh six. Yet somehow that isn’t three. Off to an arm trap chinlock followed by a hard forearm to put the champion down again. A double arm powerbomb hits Edge for two and they head to the apron. Edge busts out a DDT onto said apron, further injuring Regal’s nose.

Back in and they ram heads to put both guys down as the match continues to drag at a slow pace. Edge wins a slugout and takes Regal down with a spinwheel kick and a suplex for two. Regal suplexes him down as well, only for Edge to hit a big old clothesline for two more. The Regal Stretch goes on out of nowhere but Edge reverses into a terrible version of his own to no avail. A top rope spinwheel kick puts Regal down but he finds another set of brass knuckles. Instead of swinging them though, he pulls the referee in the way of Edge’s spear. Regal clocks Edge and wins the title.

Rating: D+. This didn’t click at all. Regal didn’t seem interested in selling at all and Edge wasn’t ready to carry a match by himself yet. He was getting to the point where he could but it would take a summer of feuding with Eddie to get him up to that point. Regal wouldn’t really do anything with the belt other than lose it to RVD. Nothing to see here.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Jazz

Jacqueline is referee for absolutely no apparent reason and Trish is defending. Jazz is basically being a bully and has injured Trish’s hand coming into this. Jazz jumps Trish to start but misses a splash, giving Trish two off a rollup. A modified hot shot slows the champ down again and a legdrop gets two. Jazz works on the bad hand for a bit but Jackie pulls them out of the ropes. Jackie of course makes it all about herself and won’t count a cover on Trish. Stratusfaction hits out of nowhere for two and Jazz is up a few seconds later, basically no selling it. Trish hits a bad looking running bulldog to retain.

Rating: D. It was short, it was sloppy, the ending was stupid and Jackie was in it. What other kind of grade do you expect here? Stratus was starting to get better but it would take another year and Lita before she got amazing. Jazz was a pretty stupid pick to bring over to WWE as no one remembered her and she didn’t have the looks to back up any lack of hype. Bad match here.

Flair says he’ll win.

We recap Vince vs. Flair. Flair debuted after Survivor Series as the new co-owner of the company and has driven Vince crazy since. This led up to a street fight tonight between the two of them tonight which isn’t as big a deal as they were shooting for I don’t think. The highlight of it was Vince dressing up as Flair and saying destroying lives turned him on.

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Remember this is a street fight. Vince shoves him down to start and struts, so Flair punches him down and struts as well. Flair wins a chop battle in the corner (duh) so Vince goes to the eyes to escape. There’s the Flair Flop followed by a Flair Flip in the corner as Vince is in full control. We head to the floor and get our first weapon shot, with Vince pounding on Ric with a metal Keep Off sign.

There’s a trashcan shot to the head and Flair is busted open. How thin must the skin on his forehead be? Anyway, Vince steals a camera from someone to take a picture of Flair’s cut before we head back inside. Since he’s a jerk, Vince starts working over the knee in (less skilled) Flair fashion. The leg is wrapped around the post and Vince puts on a Figure Four that Dusty Rhodes would be jealous of.

Flair turns the hold over and Vince IMMEDIATELY lets go of the hold. So not only is he better at it than some wrestlers, he’s also smart. Never let it be said that Vince doesn’t know what he’s doing. Vince bails to the floor and grabs a lead pipe that he used to bust Flair open in the build up to the match. Flair catches him coming in with a low blow and pounds away on the floor.

Vince takes a monitor shot to the head and in a weird spot, we see a replay on the monitor on the table as the live match goes on. Vince is busted open now and we head back inside. Scratch that as we go back outside immediately where Flair’s family takes pictures of Vince’s cut. Set it up earlier, pay it off later. Good move. Back in and Flair kicks him low again just because he can, cracks him in the head with the pipe and ends it with the Figure Four.

Rating: C+. At the end of the day, this match makes as much sense as almost anything you’ll see. Vince controlled at the beginning, but at the end of the day he’s a boss and Flair is a veteran wrestler and athlete. It makes sense for him to be able to shrug that off and destroy Vince with relative ease once he got the upper hand. On top of that we got some good blood and Vince getting hit in the balls so how can this not be entertaining?

Stephanie talks trash about everyone else in the Rumble and runs down Debra as well. Austin walks up and WHAT’s her away. Cole gets a bit of it too. This is when the bit was brand new and still kind of funny, as opposed to now when it ruins almost every serious promo.

No highlight package for the world title match? For those of you not around in 2002 (LUCKY!), Jericho won the title in December, beating Rock along the way. It makes sense for Rock to get the first shot, especially since they feuded over the end of the year.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho still has both titles because HHH wasn’t there to win the first Undisputed Title and get the new belt. Rock decks him immediately and the champ heads to the floor, only to run back in and get punched some more. Jericho misses a charge and hits the post but pulls off a hot shot out of nowhere to give himself a breather. They trade strikes in the corner before Jericho hits a spinwheel kick to Rocky’s arms for two.

A suplex gets two for Jericho and for some reason Rock’s left thumb is sticking out. The champ unhooks a buckle but can’t get the Walls. A missile dropkick gets two on Rock and it’s off to the chinlock. That goes on for a good while so Chris goes up again, only to get crotched and superplexed. A belly to belly suplex gets two for Rock but Jericho clotheslines him down and hits the Lionsault. Due to high reasons of arrogance, Jericho waits forever to cover and fights with the referee after getting two.

Another dropkick attempt by Jericho is caught in a Sharpshooter, but here’s Lance Storm for a distraction while Jericho taps. Christian comes in as well and is promptly punched out by Rock. Jericho hits a Rock Bottom on Rock for two and the frustration begins. The champ loads up a People’s Elbow but Rock nips up and sends Jericho out to the floor.

Both guys are rammed into both announce tables before Jericho’s Rock Bottom attempt is countered into an AWESOME looking Rock Bottom by Rock from one table through the other. That only gets two back inside before Jericho counters another Rock Bottom into the Liontamer (yes I said Liontamer instead of the Walls). Ok now it’s the Walls, which allows Rock to make the rope.

The jumping clothesline takes the referee down by mistake, allowing Jericho to blast Rock with the belt. Another referee slides in and gets two off that and Rock DDTs Jericho down. Rock covers….and Nick Patrick won’t count. There’s a Rock Bottom for his efforts and a People’s Elbow for Jericho but there’s no referee. Rock checks on Hebner, allowing Jericho to hit him low, send him into the Chekov’s Gun in the shape of an exposed turnbuckle. All that plus a rollup with his feet on the ropes is enough for Jericho to retain the title.

Rating: B. This took awhile to get going but once things picked up it turned into what you would expect from Rock vs. Jericho in a nearly 20 minute match. The overbooking worked here as Jericho needed something to boost him up to Rock’s level, which is what you’re supposed to do as a heel. Good stuff here and a very fine title match.

Shawn Michaels, in a really stupid looking Texas flag shirt, is at WWF New York. He picks Taker or Austin to win the Rumble.

Video on the Rumble. The main picks to win are Taker, HHH, Angle and Austin.

Royal Rumble

Rikishi and Goldust are #1 and #2 respectively and we’ve got two minute intervals. Goldie walks around Rikishi to start and gets punched in the face for his efforts. Rikishi knocks him around for a bit but can’t quite drop the big load on Goldie’s chest. A backdrop puts Goldust on the apron and Boss Man is #3, making it 2-1 against Rikishi. Goldust gets punched in the face but Boss Man pounds Rikishi into the corner. The heels explode after a long one minute partnership.

Bradshaw is #4 and hopefully he can pick things up a bit. He beats up everyone as Rikishi loads up the Stinkface on Boss Man. A superkick and a clothesline put Boss Man out and there’s a Samoan Drop to Bradshaw. Goldie pounds away on Bradshaw in the corner and gets powerbombed for his efforts. Lance Storm is #5 and absolutely nothing of note happens until Al Snow (on Tough Enough at this point) is #6. Bradshaw kills Storm with the Clothesline as the fans want Head.

Billy of Billy and Chuck is #7 and we’re still waiting on something to happen. The fans are still into this at least so it’s not a failure at this point. Storm and Snow fight to the apron with Snow superkicking Lance to an elimination. Billy dumps Bradshaw and Undertaker is finally #8 to pick things up a bit. A chokeslam kills Billy (the third in the series, not starring Uma Thurman) and another one puts out Goldust. Snow and Rikishi are dumped out and Billy follows them, leaving Undertaker alone to a big reaction. He’s evil here in case you’re not up on Taker history.

Matt Hardy is #9, which is interesting as Taker injured both Hardys and Lita. The redhead gets in along with Matt and helps him take the big man down via a low blow. Matt hits a Twist of Fate and stomps away but can’t get Taker out. Naturally Jeff Hardy is #10 because that’s how the TOTALLY RANDOM draw works in the Rumble.

Taker slugs down one of the best tag teams ever in just a few seconds, only to get caught in the Twist/Swanton combo. Again, why would you use moves that keep a giant on the mat? Not that it matters as Poetry in Motion is caught and Jeff is easily thrown out. The Last Ride kills Matt and he’s gone too, leaving Taker alone again. The clock during that segment was REALLY long too as they were roughly three minutes each to get the whole segment in.

Maven from Tough Enough is #11 but Lita is on the apron. Taker PUNCHES her down, drawing the Hardys back in. Taker dumps both of them again, but Maven dropkicks Undertaker in the back and eliminates him in arguably the biggest surprise elimination ever in the Rumble. The look on the Dead Man’s face is hilarious as he has absolutely no emotion at all. He calmly turns around, gets back in the ring, and mauls Maven, sending him through the ropes to the floor. A HUGE chair shot cracks Maven’s head and the beating continues until Scotty 2 Hotty is #12.

Taker punches Scotty down and throws Maven back in to eliminate him, which under old Rumble rules would count. The beating goes into the crowd as there’s nothing in the ring at the moment. Christian is #13 but has no one to fight because Scotty is still down. Instead we go to the back where Maven is rammed face first into a popcorn machine. Taker eats a handful of popcorn and finally leaves Maven alone.

Scotty gets in and walks into a DDT as DDP is #14. Nothing of note continues to happen until Scotty superkicks Page through the ropes to the floor and hits the Worm on Christian. Page sneaks back in and throws Scotty out as Chuck is #15. They all beat on each other for a bit with Christian and Chuck teaming up for a bit. Godfather, now the owner of an escort service in an attempt to salvage the gimmick, is #16 and brings out 12 good looking women with him. Page is eliminated off camera during this.

With Godfather in the ring after about 15 seconds due to dancing, Albert is #17. He’s the Hip Hop Hippo at this point and lasts about 45 seconds before being tossed by the villains. Godfather is dumped soon thereafter, and here’s Saturn at #18. Chuck and Perry slug it out as the fans cheer for the Ho’s leaving. Nothing happens again, until Austin is #19. Chuck is the first victim, getting stomped down in the corner. There goes Christian, Saturn gets a Stunner, Chuck is eliminated, Saturn is dumped, Christian gets thrown back in, Stunned and thrown out again, Chuck gets the same as Christian, and Austin takes a breather.

Val Venis is #20 (and also returning) and things go about as you would expect, although Val does get in some offense and survives until Test is #21. A double teaming lasts for a bit until Austin remembers who he’s fighting and dumps both guys in a few seconds. Austin does his watch bit when no one is in the ring with him. Notice the difference between the big stars and the regular guys: the big ones are CONSTANTLY trying to keep the audience entertained instead of letting them die.

Speaking of entertaining the crowd, HHH is #22. The entrance takes about a minute and a half, they stare at each other for about twenty more seconds, and the slugout only lasts for a few seconds until Hurricane is #23. Luckily for him, the legends knock each other down so Hurricane can tries a double chokeslam. The look on Austin’s face is hilarious as the two of them dump Hurricane with ease.

Austin and HHH chop each other in the corner until Faarooqq is #24 and lasts about that many seconds. Mr. Perfect makes a surprise return at #25 to a big surprise reaction from the audience. He looks a bit, shall we say, tipsy here. Perfect chills on the floor a bit as JR makes a mistake, saying Perfect debuted at the Rumble in 1993. In reality he was #4 in 1989. Austin and HHH double team Perfect to no avail so here’s Angle at #26, drawing the rare double chant of YOU SUCK WHAT.

HHH and Angle pair off as do the other two guys and the match slows down a bit. Kurt starts suplexing people but can’t dump HHH because Austin makes the save due to reasons of a big ego. Big Show is #27 in his one piece women’s swimsuit. Angle gets chokeslammed so Austin and HHH double team the big man to limited avail. HHH saves Angle, presumably because he wants Kurt’s help to get Show out. Makes sense I guess.

Show dominates everyone until Kane is #28. HHH gets chokeslammed so we can have our battle of the giants. Jerry: “They’re not getting any smaller are they JR?” Uh yeah Jerry, actually they are. They do the double chokeslam spot but Kane kicks Show low and picks him up, slamming him to the floor. AWESOME display of strength there, but Angle immediately dumps Kane to get us back down to four.

Van Dam is #29 and hits a Five Star on Angle who is down from something we didn’t see. Everyone but HHH gets kicked down so he hits a Pedigree to put Van Dam down. Booker T is #30, giving us a final group of Booker, RVD, Angle, Perfect, HHH and Austin. Booker throws out RVD without having to do anything else thanks to the Pedigree. We get a Spinarooni, followed by a Stunner and elimination to get us down to Austin, Angle, HHH and Perfect.

Austin hits a slingshot into the post on HHH who walks into an Angle Slam. Angle rolls some Germans on Austin and the C/Kurts try to dump Austin. Austin hits some HARD right hands to break that up but as he tries to dump Perfect, Angle runs up and dumps the Rattlesnake. Austin pulls Perfect to the floor but Kurt sends Austin into the steps to break it up. Steve still isn’t done as he comes back in with a chair for all three guys. Eh he’s Austin so he can get away with it.

Angle accidentally clothesline Hennig but doesn’t eliminate him. There’s the PerfectPlex (BIG pop for that) to Kurt but HHH dumps Perfect a second later. Angle and HHH stare each other down and the Game pounds away on him to take over. Kurt gets HHH to the apron but can’t get the win. HHH chokes away but charges into a backdrop, sending him to the apron. Kurt makes the classic mistake of not making sure the other guy is out and gets clotheslined to the floor, giving HHH the Rumble. For you trivia guys, this is the longest Rumble ever to date, even going 11 seconds longer than the 40 man version.

Rating: C+. This has some very bad spots in it but the rest of the stuff is solid all around. Once Austin gets in there things pick up a lot, but the 18 guys before him don’t do much. Taker’s elimination came too fast which hurt things here, as there was no one of note from #9 until Austin at #19. Still though, the good stuff here was good enough to check this out, but you might want to fast forward some parts of it.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a pretty good but certainly not great show. 2002 was a bad year for the company on Raw and things were clearly starting to look weak here. The main problem was the lack of elevation of anyone new to the main event in the year, as the main events for almost every PPV were people who had been there before. There’s nothing on here that’s required viewing but there’s also nothing terrible on here either. Check it out but don’t expect to be blown away.

Ratings Comparison

Spike Dudley/Tazz vs. Billy and Chuck

Original: C-

Redo: D+

William Regal vs. Edge

Original: C-

Redo: D+

Trish Stratus vs. Jazz

Original: D+

Redo: D

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Original: D+

Redo: C+

Chris Jericho vs. The Rock

Original: B+

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: C-

Redo: C+

Overall Rating

Original: B-

Redo: B-

Yep, about the same for the most part here.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/21/royal-rumble-count-up-2002-game-on/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2002
Date: January 20, 2002
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 12,915
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

WCW is dead. That’s the big deal here obviously. A lot of the wrestlers from there are now here. Well mainly just those with talent or those that will sell t-shirts. Other than that, you have one major thing going on here: HHH is back tonight. Look up the video where he returns. It’s absolutely awesome.

It is by far and away the coolest moment I can ever remember on Raw. HHH, out about 8 months with a torn quad, is back now to reclaim his glory in the Royal Rumble. Also in the Rumble we have Austin, Angle, Taker and that’s about it. Other than the Rumble, we have Vince vs. Flair in a street fight and Rock facing Jericho for the newly formed Undisputed Title.

This show more or less is designed to give HHH the Mania shot but still making it look cool. The end of the Monday Night Wars have kind of hurt the company though, as there’s no reason to go insane in trying to crush WCW anymore. Anyway, let’s get to this as the card looks pretty good.

The intro is set to Cocky by Kid Rock and it showcases all of the major stars that are in the Rumble, which is a smart idea if nothing else. It wasn’t as generic as it has been in the past so that’s a perk if nothing else.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley and Tazz

Spike and Tazz were some of the oddest tag champions of all time. I vaguely remember them being champions, but not by much. They held them for a month and a half just before the draft and other than that they never did a thing again. This is the hottest period of Stacy’s career as the Duchess of Dudleyville. Just pure perfection in a woman.

The Dudleys beat on Spike on Smackdown and gave him a 3D in the parking lot so his neck is messed up. King is very annoying here too. This feels a lot like a TV match. The heels hit an AWESOME looking double flapjack on Spike, getting him way up there. This match is way too short here as it’s only about five minutes long.

Spike hits a Dudley Dog and finally, which is a stretch as he was only down for a bit, gets the tag to Tazz. Stacy gets up on the apron but for no reason at all we go to a shot of the crowd that looks like it’s at the beginning of a TV show. Anyway, within seconds, Tazz has D-Von in the Tazmission and we’re done. Yeah that’s really it.

Rating: C-. This was a bit out there. It felt like something that belonged on Raw. I really don’t get the point of this pairing but it works fine I suppose. The Dudleys were still the best tag team in the company, but with no one to feud with on their level they were really kind of worthless. And people say the tag division has been alive for a long time. Yeah right.

Edge and Regal have been fighting for a long time now.

Edge is in the back and says that he’s ready for a fight.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. William Regal

Edge is defending here. Regal was using brass knuckles a lot around this time so Nick Patrick looks all over the place for them before the match starts. Edge is rocking the completely awesome Rob Zombie song here. DAng I love that song. Edge gets one heck of a pop. If there has ever been a poster boy for coming up from the bottom of the card to the midcard to the main event in the modern era, it’s Edge. He needs to come back as a face.

The referee finds knuckles on Regal in his tights. That brings on a ton of jokes from Lawler of course. Edge broke Regal’s nose with a chair to cause him to need a bunch of nose surgeries. We get a MASSIVE Regal sucks chant as the crowd is very hot. Nick Patrick’s voice is very deep to say the least. Lawler gives us some great insight here by telling us a broken nose hurts. In a cool spot, Regal has a double underhook (setup for the Pedigree) and Edge backdrops him but Regal hangs on.

That looked good. Lawler talking about noses is getting up to the level of annoyance of puppies here. Regal’s agility is underrated. He really is light on his feet. Regal hooks the Regal Stretch which lasts for a little while. Edge’s eyes are of course greatness personified. Edge gets the bastard version of it on to be rude but it doesn’t work at all.

A fan shouts break his neck Regal, which is ironic as Edge would do just that in just over a year. The referee gets speared so Regal can get the knuckles out. The longest time to make a count in history ends this for Regal. He of course swears it was all just a regular punch.

Rating: C-. The main thing this has going for it is that it’s brutal. I mean these two beat each other up very well. Again though, I could have seen this on a Raw or Smackdown. PPV matches are supposed to be special ones that the TV shows build up to. That wasn’t the case here as there’s nothing here to justify paying for. That’s not good.

With no transition at all, here we are at the next match.

Women’s Title: Jazz vs. Trish Stratus

Jazz was more or less the Chyna of ECW. They brought her over in the Invasion angle and then realized the flaw in that plan: no one knew who she was. She had been around for about a year and did a few things of note but nothing worthy of being known on this scale. Anyway, Jacqueline is the guest referee here. This wasn’t announced on TV, and the reason is there’s no point to it and no one would have cared anyway.

They were trying to make it a big deal that women were refereeing here, but they couldn’t have done it worse. For one thing, she might have been the least cared about Diva ever. I mean did anyone like her? Also, naturally, she’s in a tied off top so it’s about sex appeal (or in her case the lack thereof) all over again. Trish is still pretty bad in the ring at this point but you can see that there’s talent there. At the time I’m writing this, I’m debating why ECW failed as a national company with NSL.

While Jazz is on the way to the ring, we see a very quick video of Jazz hurting Trish’s hand while King alludes to Jazz going after Trish in the past few weeks. See what they did right there? Inside of 30 seconds they’ve explained that Jazz has been aggressive towards Trish, established Jazz as the heel here, shown that Trish might not be 100% coming into this match, and said that this has been going on for at least a few weeks because King is mentioning other things that Jazz has done.

That took about 20 seconds. ECW at Barely Legal didn’t do that for most of the matches, and it would have helped tremendously. Apparently Jackie was the other option for #1 contender and lost, so that validates her being a referee. Again, there’s an explanation. It’s freaking stupid, but it’s something at least. Trish’s hand is indeed bandaged.

Jazz takes her apart for the most part early on but Trish manages to get a sunset flip to set up a very good pinfall reversal sequence that was very impressive. Jazz and Jackie get into it after Jazz takes over. Jackie gives a slow count as this is just horrible. Trish gets a not great Stratusfaction for two and Jazz is dominating again. She hits it again for the win. Yeah that’s it. Jazz destroyed her for the majority of the three minutes and then that bulldog ends it. WOW.

Rating: D+. This was very, very sloppy. Jackie had no point to being in this at all and added nothing to it. Jazz was just not worth having in there at all either as no one bought her as a big deal. Trish was just awful at this point but it was clear she had some skills. There would be times in her matches where you would stop and go hokey smoke at the things she would come up with. Eventually she would get a lot better, but not for awhile.

We recap Vince vs. Flair which makes me think there have been almost no backstage segments tonight which is very odd for a show like the Rumble. Anyway, this feud is because after the Alliance died, Flair bought Shane and Stephanie’s shares of the company, which led to the brand split soon after this. Vince said that it was his company so he hates Flair, leading to this match. Yeah it’s contrived but who cares?

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Naturally it’s a street fight. This was back in the day when Flair still was in passable shape and could have some decent matches in the ring. Flair’s family is in the front row. Ross actually thinks it’s a big deal that Vince made Flair bleed. A hard stare can do that. Fink in the ring in the tux just looks right. Ross points out that both men are former world champions and former Rumble winners as it occurs to me how completely ridiculous Vince has been about pushing himself as a wrestler.

I know that he loves this very much but there comes a point where it’s just pushing yourself way too hard. Even Eric Bischoff didn’t get this bad. This has been a standard match so far. It’s very sad when a guy like Flair, who could put on classic matches with absolutely anyone (he had a very good match with Hawk of all people at Bunkhouse Stampede. If that doesn’t prove he’s the best ever, nothing will) has to get beaten up by Vince here, so Vince’s ego can be stroked.

Now we bring in the weapons which we need pretty badly here to validate Vince’s advantage. The fans are all behind Flair here of course. Flair is bleeding. I’m blown away. Lawler is cheering Vince on to no end here, which doesn’t surprise me. Flair showed up in Memphis around 1984 or 85 for a one night appearance and started the Jimmy Hart vs. Jerry Lawler feud that went on for the better part of a decade and caused more injuries to Lawler than should be humanly possible.

They’ve been on the floor for a good while now and Vince is dominating. He gets the camera from Flair’s family and takes a picture of them. That was just freaking pointless but then again Vince is involved in it so there we are. Oh good night take me now Vince is trying to use wrestling holds. Oh yeah the gimmick of the match is that Vince is turned on by destroying people, leading to a ton of bad jokes from Lawler.

Flair gets put in the figure four after having his legs worked on. Ross says this would ruin his professional career. That happened years before this so we have no worries there. Flair get the reversal and after being in the hold all of 2 seconds, Vince is limping. Holy oversell Batman. Vince finds a pipe that he hit Flair with a few weeks ago. Flair gets the forearm to the area below the balls but not quite to the back to break that up though.

Ross says Vince’s heart, if he has one, is blacker than sin. No one can ever accuse Ross of being underwhelming. For no apparent reason, Flair looks at a monitor, which would show him looking at a monitor. This fascinates him for some reason. That makes great sense I suppose. Not really but I want to move on.

In a sick spot, Flair bites Vince’s open cut. I really hope he’s not a Twilight fan. Flair gets Vince’s pipe and knocks him over the head with a decent sounding shot. He puts the figure four on and Vince taps out. Apparently the pain causes him to wake up. The hold is released and Vince passes out again. That was pretty bad.

Rating: D+. This was a waste of time. It was two old guys fighting and trying to be hardcore and it failed miserably. The cut Flair had was decent but I still fail to see what the point of this was. Flair, a legendary wrestler, beat a non wrestler and that’s a big deal? This was just to say that Flair fought Vince and nothing more. This was pretty weak.

We see Jericho beating Rock at Vengeance to win the Undisputed Title, which is misleading because he beat Rock for the WCW title then Austin later on. To say Jericho was in over his head in this role is an understatement. Rock beat Booker to get his shot tonight. Jericho having a mental meltdown over Rock making fun of him is pretty good stuff.

Stephanie brags about what HHH is going to do to Austin tonight and what she would like to do to Debra, Austin’s wife. Austin comes up behind her and hilarity ensues. The WHAT chant could work really well if the timing was there.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho still has both belts here which is kind of odd. They needed to just use the WWF one as it’s perfect looking as a title. The story was that HHH was supposed to be the champion first but since he wasn’t ready in time he got a Mania title win out of it and a new belt to go with it. No one bought Jericho as champion and I don’t think anyone ever has in any of his reigns. To be fair though, while he’s amazing on the mic as a heel, in the ring it just falls short.

No heel, especially one the size of Jericho, is going to be believable with a submission as his primary finishing move. It just doesn’t work. These two had been feuding over the WCW title for awhile before the Undisputed Title came into being. The promos of course were off the charts. That should be what this match is: a debate. It would have been more entertaining, which is saying a lot as the matches tended to be at least pretty good.

The beginning here is mainly feeling each other out which is fine. Jericho goes shoulder first into the post yet stays in control anyway. Well ok then. They’re starting slowly here. Not boring mind you but just slowly. That’s fine as it’s building to a big finish, which is that pesky little thing called psychology. Rock has his really short hair here which I’ve never liked at all. Jericho goes up but gets crotched as Rock hits the ropes. If nothing else that’s realistic so I’ll take it.

Ross says a pair of 2’s don’t beat anything. Any card player want to blast him there? The crowd is quite hot for this match which is always a good sign. Rock kicks out of two Lionsaults, as he brings the move back to life to kill its credibility even worse than it already was.

Rock hooks the really bad Sharpshooter while barely sitting back on it but Lance Storm and Christian, who were the UnAmericans soon after this with Jericho as an associate member soon after this, have the referee’s attention while Jericho taps. He gets out of it though and hits a Rock Bottom on the Rock for two. Jericho follows it up with the People’s Elbow as I’m just not buying him in the main event here.

He’s trying as hard as he can and the match is fine here, but he’s just in over his head I think. They hit the floor and Jericho takes a sweet looking Rock Bottom through the Spanish announce table. Finkel running away from the area is a great visual. Lawler for some reason tells Fink to put the table back together. The image of him as a carpenter with that perfect voice of his is very amusing for some reason.

After a Walls of Jericho doesn’t work (SHOCKED), the referee goes down so we get Nick Patrick, who has been very pro-Jericho recently. Rock gets a cover but Patrick won’t count. He gets a Rock Bottom and Jericho gets the elbow. With the referee still down, Jericho gets a low blow and a rollup with his feet on the ropes for the pin. Apparently Rock’s head hit an exposed turnbuckle too. That’s better I guess.

Rating: B+. While I didn’t really buy Jericho out there and there were some bad spots, this was a solid 20 minute match. It was designed to put Jericho over as a heel and I think it did that. The key thing was that there was at least a pin and not him keeping the belt by DQ or something. He cheated to get it, but that’s what a heel does. Rock was a bigger star so Jericho shouldn’t have gotten a clean pin so to me this was acceptable.

Jericho had it in the ring, but he didn’t feel like a world champion. Granted having to contend with the still incredibly popular Rock and Austin and the returning HHH and being more or less a guy to keep the belt warm for HHH, AND the NWO returning the next month, there was no way Jericho was going to get a fair shot at being seen as the top guy at the moment. This was good stuff though.

We get a long package about the Rumble which had been shown on TV a bunch of times in the weeks leading up to this.

Royal Rumble

Fink’s intro takes just shy of forever to get through. Rikishi is number one and Goldust is number 2. This is around the time that Rikishi was transitioning into something close to being a tough guy. Goldust is making a return here as apparently they were really hard up for talent or something. We’ve been going about 90 seconds here and I’m already bored out of my mind with this. They really couldn’t have picked a worse pair to start this out.

Three is Big Boss Man, who just won’t go away for some reason. This enforcer role never got over at all. He hits a clothesline on Rikishi and the fat guy does his inside out flip. Why is that impressive when we see it every time he gets hit by a clothesline? Bradshaw is fourth and this is just flat out horrible so far. The smallest guy in there is 6’6 and 260lbs. That might have something to do with it.

Stink face to Boss Man, which is still the dumbest move in history. Rikishi uses one of the two moves he was good at, a superkick, to set up the elimination of Boss Man. Bradshaw hits a powerbomb on Goldust to hopefully give him something resembling interest in him as Lance Storm is 5th. There is just nothing of note going on here. It’s just guys that you know aren’t going to win trying to throw each other out in something that’s never going to happen.

Snow brings the level of interest up to nonexistent at number 7. Storm takes a solid Clothesline. The fans aren’t that into this either so it’s not just me. Oddly enough, Snow gets the biggest reaction of anyone. Billy, currently being homosexual, is 8th. In a very cool sequence, Snow and Storm fight on the apron in a kind of karate match until Snow puts Storm out. That was a lot cooler than it sounded. Bradshaw is out too.

We have Billy, Goldust, Rikishi and Snow in there at the moment as Taker is 9th. He had been vowing to win the Rumble and he’s also recently heel. He puts out all four with relative ease. Typically I like that format, but there’s just pure apathy from me on this for some reason. Matt Hardy with a delicious looking Lita is next. Taker had beaten up the Hardys and Lita recently so there’s some story here.

Lita comes in also and manages to slow down Taker which is more than the worthless Matt can do. Say it with me: Jeff is 10th. He’s wearing a hat for no apparent reason. They get him down and then Lita comes in and they triple stomp him. Apparently the three of them had been fighting recently which I vaguely remember. They hit their double team move, and for the life of me I don’t get why Taker doesn’t know how to take the Twist of Fate.

He always sells it like a spinning neckbreaker and ends up on his back which is just completely wrong. Jeff gets thrown out and Matt gets a Last Ride before he’s out too. Eyebrows Huffman, more commonly known as Maven, is number 11. He had won Tough Enough maybe 4 months prior to this so he’s a complete rookie here. Lita gets up on the apron and the Hardys come back in.

They get tossed with ease, but as Taker is yelling at them, Maven gets back up and in easily the biggest upset in Rumble history, Maven hits a dropkick to the back of Taker to eliminate him. The reaction from the crowd and Ross and the look on Taker’s face are by far and away the best thing since 97 when Austin heard Hart’s music. I mean this was like Santino on his first night beating Umaga without Lashley’s help.

It was completely insane as Taker was one of the heavy favorites for this. Taker more or less loses any sense of emotion on his face but slowly turns to look at Maven. Just take a guess as to what starts happening next. Once the beating starts they go to the floor and Maven takes a freaking sick chair shot. Taker shoves a cameraman down and we get a shot of his legs flying into the air which is just amusing. Taker puts him back in the ring as Scotty comes in at number 12.

Taker punches him down, and this winds up keeping him down for about three minutes. Yeah one punch does that apparently. Taker throws Maven over the ropes and we go into the crowd where there just happens to be a space with no fans there. What a coincidence! They go up the stairs and into a concession area where Taker puts Maven through a popcorn machine. Christian is in at 13 somewhere during this time but we just see him in the ring.

Scotty is still down by the way. FINALLY he gets up and after the audience has had nothing to see for about 5 minutes we have the clash of Scotty vs. Christian. Maven is officially still in but they just say screw it. He got a world title match the next night that did nothing at all. DDP is 14th. He might be the worse use of a character that Vince has ever had. I mean he was a god in WCW and he’s a self help guy in the WWF. That’s Vince for you.

We see Maven again and if nothing else he sells quite well for a rookie. We get a Diamond Cutter on Christian and there goes Scotty after the Worm, which actually might be dumber than the Stink Face. Chuck is 15th as the jobber Rumble continues. I mean really why in the world should I care about this match in the slightest? Actually scratch that. I get why I should care about the match but there’s zero reason to care about any of the people in there.

Christian is European Champion which you need to know because typing it killed some time here. This whole show has been that way. The matches have been ok up to this point but GEEZ there is just nothing appealing about this match at all for me. To further the greatness here we have Godfather returning but no longer as a pimp. He now owns an escort service. Just take me now please.

He has 12 women with him and spends so much time dancing with them that not only do we miss DDP’s elimination but Albert, the Hip Hop Hippo at this point and I wish I was making that up, is being counted down for the 17th entrant as Godfather gets in the ring. Christian and Chuck put him out in about 30 seconds. Godfather goes out soon thereafter but not before we get that stupid as heck running splash.

Perry Saturn, completely insane at this point is 18th. His tights have a cow pattern on them. This really is mind numbingly boring at this point. No one cares about anything in this match for the most part either. THANK GOODNESS Austin is 19th to breathe some much needed life into this thing. He clears the ring before anyone else is in. In a funny moment he looks at an invisible watch and goes out and gets Christian and Chuck and throws them in to stun them and then throw them out again.

The crowd is awake for the first time in this whole match. Val Venis returns (it’s a theme thing tonight) and doesn’t look as good with short hair. His gimmick overshadowed his in ring ability as he was actually pretty good in the ring. The crowd is just insane for Austin here as we’re in the WHAT phase of his career. Part of the problem here is that there haven’t been a lot of people in the ring that aren’t jobbers.

The small amounts of people make it hard to really get anything going that feels like a good Rumble. Test is 21st. Geez did they ever miss the boat on him in 1999. He never got anywhere close to that level again either. Test misses a big boot on Austin and hits Venis so he’s gone. Test follows him about 30 seconds later so Austin is alone again and we have 9 entries to go.

22 is HHH and the reaction is good but not what JR wants us to believe. To make sure we don’t have a great showdown for two minutes or close to it because that would be, you know, interesting, HHH walks at an Undertaker pace. They really must have been trying to protect HHH here as they talk for a bit and they punch each other for ten seconds before the clock starts again and it’s Hurricane at 23.

He lasts about 30 seconds so at least we’ll get some Austin vs. HHH here. What are Hurricane’s powers supposed to be anyway? Have they ever been listed? Farrooq is 24th but instead of allowing him to start a ring full of people he’s out in less time than Hurricane. Mr. freaking Perfect is 25th which was a surprise I think. He would actually stick around for a few months after this. He was still relatively young here at 42, so it’s not like he was ancient.

For some reason we again are told that he made his Rumble debut in 93, which is just wrong as he was 4th in 89. Angle makes is in his first Rumble match at 26. For absolutely no apparent reason, Austin saves HHH just before Big Show comes in at 27. He’s wearing that one piece swimsuit that they claim was ring attire. They say he’s the biggest athlete in sports entertainment history which is so wrong I’m not even going to touch it.

Show and Austin never had that big match which I’m sure would have at least been pretty good. Angle is in a gorilla press but HHH makes the save, as Ross does the smart thing and says in essence that Angle would be useful in helping get rid of Show. Kane is 28th and I really want this thing to just end already. They do the completely clichéd double chokeslam spot that is just stupid at this point.

Kane does something impressive though by picking Show up and cleanly throwing him over the top in a slam. Angle puts Kane out less than a minute after he got in. Are we not allowed to have more than 5 people in a match for more than 30 seconds or something? RVD is 29th to a GREAT pop. He can’t be world champion though. He can just get great pops and put on great matches and look awesome, but he’s clearly not world title material.

He comes in with a Five Star on Angle. He gets an awesome RVD chant in his honor, but HHH’s pop killing sense kicks in and he hits a Pedigree to end that. We can’t have someone else getting over now can we? I didn’t think so. Let’s have no more of such crazy thoughts now. Booker is 30th, so your final group is Booker, RVD, Angle, Perfect, Austin and HHH. Well if nothing else the ending is star packed.

Why in the world would you get rid of Show and Kane that fast though? They pointed out how awesome Kane was last year so it’s not like that’s been forgotten. Booker eliminates Van Dam less than 10 seconds after he gets in and does a Spinarooni and is put out after being in the ring 30 seconds. Ok seriously, WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON??? Why in the world are these major stars going out in like a minute and a half each?

Austin breaks up a string of Germans with a WEAK low blow. I mean that was awful looking. This has to be a way to protect HHH or something. That’s the only way to explain the absurd booking of this thing. As Austin explains a spot to Perfect, Angle runs up and executes said spot by putting Austin out. To further protect HHH, everyone but him goes to the floor. That lasts all of four seconds, making it completely pointless.

Austin gets a chair and kills everyone not named HHH with it but then nails him anyway to make sure it’s a completely matched set. That was just a completely pointless bit as Austin just wasn’t a huge deal anymore. He should have fought Hogan at Mania though and there is zero arguing that, period. There’s no way anyone can convince me that Rock vs. Hogan was bigger than Austin vs. Hogan would have been.

Also, why in the world would you put Austin, the guy who main evented Mania the previous year, in a midcard throwaway match with SCOTT FREAKING HALL??? Perfect, the genius that he is, hooks the Perfectplex, which in this situation is a short suplex that doesn’t have a snap to it.

HHH puts him out so we’ve got Angle vs. HHH to finish us. And of course HHH Hulks Up and wins it to send us to the most lackluster main event of Mania in years because Hogan vs. should have been Austin was the real main event.

Rating: C-. The ending was the only appealing thing about this and even it was bad. Seriously, Booker, RVD, Show and Kane, four former world champions, were in the match a combined six and a half minutes, with about 90 seconds of that being walking to the ring. That’s just ridiculous on a ton of levels. It’s not like they would have been unrealistic in the ending or anything like that.

Last year’s was great, but there are three things here that messed this one up for me. First of all, it was pretty clear that HHH was going to win. I know there were legit alternatives in there at the end so that helped a lot, but it was still pretty clear. Second, the Iron Man last year was Kane at about 53 minutes. This year it was HHH at about 23. See the problem there? There’s no one that’s there for the entire Rumble to build up anything with.

Finally, unless I missed it, the longest amount of time there were six guys or more in there was about 45 seconds at the end. That’s just not enough to really get anything going. This was a bad Rumble in my eyes.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a quite good show. The women’s match is less than 4 minutes so the only bad match is a pizza break match. Still though, despite a solid card and a series of pretty good matches (while the Rumble was bad, it’s still watchable because it’s the Rumble and the ending is solid. I’m going to change that from a D+ actually.) there’s just something missing here.

It lacks the pop of 2000 and 2001, which may be because they knew WCW was on the run and that they could taste victory while here they have it. This show is good enough though as there may be some badly ranked matches, everything here is at least watchable. The street fight is fine for what it is I suppose and I could see some people liking it.

That sums this up well: I could see people liking it. I think part of it is not a lot of people watch these back to back so they have a lot of time between 2001 and 2002 to forget how awesome the previous two were. Anyway, this is a good but not great show that’s worth checking out, even though you won’t remember much of it a month later.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2001
Date: January 21, 2001
Location: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 17,137
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

This is the first of two requested Rumble reviews of the year to go along with the regular redo of last year’s show. We’re nearing the end of the Attitude Era and Steve Austin is back after nearly a year on the shelf for neck surgery. All signs are pointing to Rock vs. Austin for the title at Wrestlemania and there’s nothing wrong with that. Let’s get to it.

The opening video looks at how this is the only chance for a lot of people to become World Champion.

The opening sequence is rather clever as it’s a pole with street signs, each bearing a Rumble participant’s name. The Road to Wrestlemania you see.

Tag Team Titles: Dudley Boyz vs. Edge and Christian

Edge and Christian are defending and the story….well it likely doesn’t matter as these teams plus the Hardys feuded for the better part of ever. Thankfully the recap shows us that the Canadians laid both of them out with chair shots to the head on Monday. What a sign of the times that really is. Edge and Christian tease walking out but you know that’s not going anywhere.

D-Von neckbreakers Edge for two to start as Jerry goes over the Dudleys’ family tree. Eh it was better when Heyman did the same thing at Wrestlemania. Bubba comes in and drops a big elbow for two as Lawler makes fun of the concussions. Again, total sign of the times and it’s almost disturbing to hear today. Christian walks into a side slam for two but a forearm to the back of D-Von’s head gives the champs their first control.

A Russian legsweep keeps the head banged up as it’s time to talk about Christian’s hair and teeth. Bubba comes in for a save with Lawler giving tips for how to make the concussion even worse. We get a rare D-Von chant as he tries to fight out of a chinlock. Another neckbreaker gets two on D-Von and Edge stays on the neck. Lawler: “I love it when Edge talks trash.” JR: “Does it keep you aroused?” D-Von gets in half of a double clothesline and it’s time for the slow crawl to the corner.

Like any good villain, Christian distracts the referee so the tag doesn’t count. Instead it’s Conchairto time but the chairs only hit each other, allowing D-Von to clothesline both champions down. NOW the hot tag brings in Bubba and it’s What’s Up to Edge. It’s table time but Christian cuts him off. Edge misses a belt shot and gets rolled up for two. A spear cuts off the 3D though and gives Edge two on Bubba. The champs load up their own What’s Up but D-Von makes the save this time, followed by 3D for the pin and the titles.

Rating: B-. These teams are always good for a layup and like I said, it’s not like the story really mattered. You could throw any combination of these four and the Hardys out there for a great match and that’s a great thing to have in your back pocket. It’s not like the titles really mattered at this point as the fans wanted to see some combination of these three teams, which the company certainly gave them. The concussion stuff is still a bit rough to sit through though.

Drew Carey arrived earlier today. More on this later.

Also earlier today, Vince clarified that HHH will still get his title shot tonight despite what happened with Steve Austin on Smackdown. What happened you ask? Well again that’s not important enough to mention. Like anyone wasn’t watching the shows at this point though.

HHH doesn’t want Stephanie coming out to the ring tonight but Stephanie says she has to be there to deal with any potential Trish Stratus interference. After listening to Stephanie’s normal levels of acting, we’re joined by someone with some actual talent in that area as Carey comes in. He didn’t know the two of them were married because he’s been a bit busy lately.

Carey talks about running into Kamala recently and HHH tries to get rid of him. Drew understands and is looking for Vince for some tips on his upcoming comedy pay per view. Stephanie leaves with him because she wants to find Trish. Nothing wrong with a little promotion like this and the segment didn’t take long.

The APA talks about showing each other something. Bradshaw: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”. They mean Rumble numbers of course and Faarooq needs two beers. Crash Holly comes in to say he’ll thrown them out tonight even if they’re friends. Bradshaw: “And people say we’re drunks.”

We recap Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho. They’ve been fighting over the Intercontinental Title and tonight it’s a ladder match for Benoit’s belt. Most of the video doesn’t even have words but it’s not like it matters. Much like the tag match, you could throw these two and Angle out there with whatever story you wanted and it’s going to get a strong reaction. Again, that’s incredibly valuable to have at your disposal.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

Benoit is defending in a ladder match and the fight is on in a hurry. The slugout leads to both guys trying their submission to no avail. Benoit sends him shoulder first into the post as Lawler picks Benoit to win in a blowout. A shoulder breaker stays on the shoulder and Jericho’s springboard dropkick is knocked out to the floor. They’re definitely going with the idea that Benoit knows Jericho very well to start.

The shoulder goes into the post and it’s already ladder time. It’s way too early to climb though as Jericho pulls him off in an electric chair. Jericho rams the ladder into Benoit’s ribs and puts said ladder in the corner. Now you know what’s going to happen and I know what’s going to happen, but since Jericho is a face here, he’s stupid enough to be whipped into the ladder and fall outside again.

Benoit’s dive through the ropes is blocked with a chair to the head (egads that’s tough to watch). A ladder shot to Benoit’s back only hits barricade and now it’s the ladder going off Jericho’s head. Jericho sends him into the ladder back inside before tying Benoit’s leg into the ladder. That means a super Russian legsweep to bring them both crashing down. Benoit goes into the ladder again and Jericho catapults the ladder into his face to make things even worse. These are some brutal, brutal shots here and they keep getting harder and harder.

Jericho starts going up the ladder so Benoit belly to back suplexes him over the top in a heap. They both head up the ladder this time though and Jericho gets the Walls ON TOP OF THE LADDER for one of the coolest and most painful looking spots you’ll ever see. Benoit falls off but manages to kick the ladder over, sending Jericho into the ropes. The Crossface makes Jericho tap (and goes back to the shoulder from earlier) but Jericho’s other arm is still good enough to send Benoit into the ladder.

The ladder is set up in the corner but Benoit knocks him off, setting up a HUGE Swan Dive….which only hits mat. Jericho puts the ladder on top of Benoit for a climb but Benoit shoves it forward, sending Jericho crashing into the top rope. Benoit goes up but Jericho makes the save with a chair to knock Benoit to the floor. That’s too much of a fall and Jericho wins the title.

Rating: A. This is one of my all time favorites as the match is nothing short of brutal and featured some unique spots in there. Sometimes you just need two people to beat the heck out of each other with reckless abandon and that’s exactly what you got here. There’s even some psychology with the arm work and that’s all you could ask for. This isn’t a match that needs a lot of analysis because you get everything you need out of just watching the thing.

Carey meets Trish Stratus who isn’t all that interested when he hits on her (Drew Carey isn’t that bad of a catch actually) because she’s involved with someone. That someone would be Vince, who doesn’t seem thrilled to meet Drew. The pay per view is plugged and Vince has an idea to promote the show: Drew can be in the Royal Rumble! Drew: “I don’t wrestle. Of course I don’t act but I have a show.”

Chyna doesn’t want to hear from Billy Gunn about her match with Ivory. She tells him to worry about the Rumble. I’d worry about being Billy Gunn.

Jericho says he proved Benoit wrong.

We recap Chyna vs. Ivory. The Right to Censor gave Chyna a spike piledriver to put her out of action, meaning her career might have been over. Now she’s back to destroy Ivory for what she’s done to them in what should be a squash.

Women’s Title: Ivory vs. Chyna

Chyna is challenging and hits some quick clotheslines to begin the dominance. A toss off the top keeps it going and Ivory gets stomped in the corner. Ivory gets tossed outside so Chyna follows her into the crowd for the quick stop. Chyna cleans house, including tossing Steven Richards. Back up and a handspring elbow into the corner crushes Ivory….but Chyna collapses and grabs her neck. Ivory gets the quick cover for the pin after no offense.

Rating: D-. Of course the wrestling isn’t the point here as this was an angle disguised as a match. There are only so many ways you can book Chyna vs. Ivory, or Chyna vs. any woman for that matter, and this is the kind of trick booking you have to use. It’s barely a match of course and what we got was nothing worth seeing of course.

Lawler goes in the ring to check on Chyna and Billy Gunn (who comes from opposite the entrance for some reason) joins him. A long stretcher job ensues.

After someone seems to have her neck horribly injured, we go to Stephanie needing her hair fixed. She runs into Trish and things get catty, as expected.

Harvey Wippelman gives Drew some gear when Kane comes in. I think you know where this is going and it’s starting to wear thin.

Tiger Ali Singh and Low Down (D’Lo Brown and Headbanger Mosh in, shall we say, an ethnic gimmick, which is probably more offensive than funny) are arguing over who gets the spot in the Rumble. Vince comes in and says never mind because Carey is getting their spot. This is the kind of detail that makes the entry a lot easier. You’re not left wondering whose spot Carey is taking because the name is officially give. Also, who is going to remember Brown or Chaz in the match as cannon fodder for a big name? Put Carey in instead and give us a fun moment instead. It’s not like it’s going to change anything.

Fans at WWF New York give their picks for HHH vs. Kurt Angle.

We recap Kurt Angle vs. HHH. Angle won the title a few months back but HHH said he could get the title back whenever he wanted it. A few family strings were pulled and Vince’s son-in-law got the title shot. Since Angle couldn’t have a McMahon in his corner, he got Vince’s mistress Trish. This set Stephanie off and the ladies are in a bigger feud than the men. Oh yeah the men don’t like each other either.

WWF World Title: HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is defending. They fight over the arm to start as JR has to point out that this is heel vs. heel for a really weird setup. Lawler of course would rather talk about the women at ringside (to be fair, Stephanie looks great here). Angle throws HHH outside but the fans think the champ sucks. The signature chant hasn’t started yet so that’s still some fresh thinking.

Angle follows him out for some right hands to the face, only to get sent into the barricade for his efforts. Back in and HHH starts on the knee as the announcers discuss Drew Carey. Lawler actually brings up a good point by saying he made a huge name for himself by piledriving Andy Kaufman. What kind of attention would someone get for taking out Drew Carey? Angle whips HHH over the corner for a big crash and more “acting” from Stephanie. Another whip sends him into the steps and it’s Angle being even more aggressive.

A missed charge allows HHH to wrap the leg around the post though and a chair to the knee makes it even worse. HHH follows it up with a chop block and it’s off to the Indian deathlock. Well you knew he was going to work that one in somehow. The Figure Four follows up and JR is talking about all the things Gordon Solie would say about the hold. Trish tries for a save but Stephanie pulls her out for the catfight. Vince comes out to break it up as HHH looks on. Maybe getting some ideas for later?

HHH finally snaps back into it and drops some elbows on the leg. A DDT cuts HHH off though and a bridging German suplex gets two. Kurt goes up but gets low blowed, followed by a Razor’s Edge of all things for two more. You know it’s serious when HHH is using the Kliq moveset. Angle is back up with a suplex and the moonsault, only to bang his knee up some more.

They head outside and the ref gets bumped, with Lawler referring to Hebner as one of his best friends. Back in and HHH goes up, allowing Angle to run the ropes for a super armdrag. There’s no referee so HHH grabs the belt but walks into another suplex. Naturally the Pedigree connects for no count so here’s Austin to lay HHH out with a belt shot.

Rating: B. A little too much overbooking for my taste but the ending makes sense given HHH costing Austin the title a few weeks back (which the announcers finally bothered to mention after the match was over). Angle retaining is fine too as HHH vs. Austin doesn’t need the title and we can get to Rock vs. Austin at Wrestlemania that much easier. Angle still isn’t quite capable of hanging move for move with someone like HHH but he’s certainly able to do enough to cover up his few faults. The fact that he was only about fifteen months on the main roster at this point is almost scary.

The Rock, looking a little stoned, compares the Rumble to a big pot of jambalaya: there’s a bit of everything in it. The big question is whether the Undertaker and Kane are together and you know Rock isn’t letting an easy line like that get by. After talking about Undertaker tickling nipples, Rock says the Rumble could come down to him and anyone from Bull Buchanan to Perry Saturn to Steve Austin. He’ll win either way. Standard Rock here, with crazy charisma and presence without saying anything more than “I’ll win and don’t care who I have to beat”.

Long recap video on the Rumble. Does this really need an explanation? A bunch of people are in and about 25 five of them are kidding themselves into believing they could win.

Royal Rumble

Two minute intervals this year so they have a lot of time. Jeff Hardy is in at #1 and Bull Buchanan (of the RTC) is in at #2. Buchanan throws him into the corner but gets punched up to the top for his efforts. That goes nowhere so Matt Hardy is in at #3 in one of those old Rumble tropes. It’s kind of amazing how often this happens isn’t it? Buchanan is tossed without much effort and a fist bump gets us ready for the brother showdown. Matt can’t get him out in the corner so a suplex drops Jeff instead. Faarooq is in at #4 and it’s time to run over some Hardys.

Poetry in Motion into the Twist into the Swanton is enough to dump Faarooq though and it’s back to two. There go the shirts (and the schoolgirl cheers) as it’s time to slug it out. Drew Carey is in at #5 and the Hardys don’t even bother stopping their fight this time. They actually eliminate each other and Drew climbs in, much to the fans’ appreciation. Then the clock runs down and it’s Kane at #6, giving us the only thing JR could possibly say: “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.”

Drew tells the Hardys to get back inside and save him as Kane takes his sweet time in a logical move. Carey keeps up the intelligence by offering cash but it’s Raven coming in at #7 with a kendo stick for the save. In the smartest thing he could do, Carey eliminates himself and manages to not have died.

I’ve said this before but that’s one of the best celebrity appearances in WWE history. He came in, he did his thing, he took a spot from a nothing wrestler who would have been tossed in short order and we get a fun moment. About nine months earlier, WCW took a lesser celebrity and made him the World Champion. Now which of these two did things the smart way?

Anyway we’re on to the hardcore section now with Raven spraying Kane with a fire extinguisher, only to have Al Snow jump the gun at #8 and attack Raven from behind. The buzzer, uh, buzzes, and it’s Snow coming in legally this time. That means a bowling ball between Raven’s legs with JR saying it seems like a hurricane blowing through New Orleans. I’ll be leaving that one alone as the hardcore guys beat the heck out of Kane.

Perry Saturn is in at #8 with Lawler and JR losing their minds over Terri’s top. Saturn starts in on Kane’s knee as there are weapons all over the ring. Kane has finally had it with this getting beaten up thing and slams Saturn down but everyone gangs up on him to get Kane down. Then reality sets in that they have to get him back up and throw him over the top. There’s a reason these guys are stuck in the hardcore division. Steve Blackman is in at #9 and WHAT A COINCIDENCE THAT IT’S ANOTHER HARDCORE GUY! I know the line is it’s completely random but these things get hilarious at times.

The brawling continues until Grandmaster Sexay is in at #11. Weapons are swung until Kane has enough of the nonsense and eliminates Sexay with the trashcan. Everyone else follows him out and Kane is alone to face the Honky Tonk Man of all people at #12. For some reason he decides to ask Kane to stand back so we can have a song. One guitar shot later and Kane has his sixth elimination in about four minutes. Again: great usage of a legend there, if nothing else just to give the fans a breather and a transition between the sections of the match.

That next section begins with the Rock coming in at #13 so the slugout can begin. They knock each other down in short order though and it’s Goodfather in at #14….and being eliminated in thirteen seconds, counting entrance. Kane chokes Rock on the ropes with JR getting in the….I’m not sure what the right adjective is but he calls Kane a carnivore and Rock a big piece of Rock Burger.

Tazz is in at #15 and manages to last even shorter than Goodfather. Rock can’t get Kane out either so he settles for a Samoan drop. It’s Bradshaw in at #16 and both Kane and Rock are clotheslined down in short order. Rock takes Bradshaw down but walks into a clothesline from Kane as things stay slow (fine in this case as Rock and Kane have been fighting for a few minutes now and Bradshaw is getting beaten up by both of them). Albert is in at #17 and gets double teamed by Kane and Bradshaw.

Lawler of course asks about Trish and Stephanie with JR cutting him off as fast as he can. The four pair off but no one is eliminated until Hardcore Holly is in at #18. Rock has to survive an elimination attempt as Albert bicycle kicks Kane down (that looked impressive). A running clothesline takes Bradshaw down (for a change) but Rock can’t get Kane past the apron. K-Kwik (R-Truth, who is somehow STILL AROUND seventeen years later) is in at #19 and is promptly stomped in the corner.

Rock can’t get K-Kwik out (Seriously?) and it’s Val Venis in at #20, giving us Kane, Rock, Bradshaw, Albert, Holly, K-Kwik and Venis. The brawling continues with no one coming close to an elimination until William Regal is in at #21. Bradshaw manages to hang on this time as it’s Test in at #22 to keep filling the ring up. Regal is tossed to keep things even though with JR saying he was molested.

The returning Big Show is in at #23 to get rid of Test and K-Kwik, followed by chokeslams to Albert and Bradshaw. Venis and Holly go up and down next, followed by one to Kane for a BIG pop. Rock is smart enough to kick him low though and a spit punch eliminates Show in short order. That was quite the sequence and has the fans right back into things after a bit of a lull. Smart booking, again. Show isn’t done though and loads up the announcers’ table as Crash Holly is in at #24.

The chokeslam puts Rock (not eliminated) through the table and the fans are quieted again. Everyone left in the ring goes after Kane but it’s Undertaker in at #25 to save his brother. The ring is cleared in all of thirty seconds and it’s Kane vs. Undertaker in a staredown with Rock still down on the floor. Scotty 2 Hotty is in at #26 and I’m not even going to bother describing his painful experience. Undertaker and Kane look at the ramp for the next entrant and it’s Steve Austin in at #27….only to have HHH jump him in the aisle.

Rock gets back in to fight the giants as HHH sends Austin into the barricade, busting him open somewhere in there. With Austin down on the floor, Billy Gunn is in at #28. Right hands abound but Undertaker and Kane stomp Rock and Gunn down into the corners. Undertaker DDT’s Rock and punches him in the head but it’s HAKU (the reigning WCW Hardcore Champion but not under contract because WCW WAS STUPID) in at #29.

Austin is still down on the floor and my goodness that’s a lot of blood. Undertaker and Kane beat on Haku, who is nice enough not to eat them. JR and Lawler get in an argument over Austin being attacked because of course they do and it’s heel Rikishi in at #30 (which was already announced). Austin is up to hammer on him in the aisle though and we have a final grouping of Austin, Kane, Undertaker, Rock, Rikishi, Haku and Billy Gunn. Right hands and a clothesline get rid of Haku and we’re down to six.

Undertaker chokeslams Rikishi and sends Rock to the apron but hurts himself headbutting Rikishi. A superkick actually gets rid of Undertaker in probably the biggest success of Rikishi’s heel run. I mean, it’s also one of the only ones but it counts. For some reason Rikishi tries the Bonzai Drop on Rock, earning himself one of the dumbest eliminations of the year. We’re down to four as Undertaker’s motorcycle revving is rather distracting. Gunn hits a Fameasser on Austin and is eliminated for general purposes.

Rock gets in a DDT on Kane and finds himself in an opposite corner from Austin, meaning we have the modern Hogan vs. Warrior moment. The Wrestlemania preview is on and you can actually see the fans standing to watch it. There’s a Stunner to Rock and the Thesz press to Kane, followed by a low blow. A Rock Bottom cuts Austin off but Rock sends Kane through the ropes by mistake.

The big time slugout is on again but Kane comes back in and dumps Rock. Now THAT is a big deal for him…yet he was in a triple threat hardcore match at Wrestlemania. Wrestling is funny that way. Kane chokeslams Austin, only to walk around for a bit. A low blow gives Austin a breather so Kane grabs a chair. No worries though as a Stunner and some chair shots send Austin to Wrestlemania.

Rating: A-. This was the Rumble formula at a very high level with Austin not being a lock to win here (Rock was very much an option) and Kane as the story throughout the match. There were also some long sections in there, along with several stories being set up for the future. The company was on a roll at this point and it’s no shock that the Rumble was excellent as well. Great stuff here and one of the best ever.

Overall Rating: A. When the worst part of the show is an angle disguised as a match, it’s pretty clear that you have a winner. The Rumble and the ladder match here are both top notch and it’s no surprise that things are rolling along as well as they are here. The company was just on a roll at this point with no turning back (until they managed to botch the biggest storyline in wrestling history but that’s a story for later). Just a great show top to bottom here with the only weak spot being a three and a half minute match. That’s some pretty sweet territory and the amazing thing is Wrestlemania blew this away.

Ratings Comparison

Dudley Boyz vs. Edge and Christian

Original: B-

2013 Redo: B

2018 Redo: B-

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Original: A

2013 Redo: A+

2018 Redo: A

Ivory vs. Chyna

Original: N/A

2013 Redo: D

2018 Redo: D-

Kurt Angle vs. HHH

Original: B

2013 Redo: B

2018 Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: B

2013 Redo: B+

2018 Redo: A-

Overall Rating

Original: A

2013 Redo: A

2018 Redo: A

It always interests me when the first and third ratings are the same and the middle is different. Still though, great show all around, as it always has been.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/20/royal-rumble-count-up-2001-drew-carey-could-go-to-wrestlemania/

And the 2013 Redo:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2013/01/15/royal-rumble-count-up-2013-redo-2001-two-masterpieces-in-a-row/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2001
Date: January 21, 2001
Location: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 16,056
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Austin is back and that’s by far the biggest change from last year. He’s been on a warpath after Rikishi and I think HHH for running him down last year. Other than that there isn’t much going on in the Rumble. We also have Angle defending against HHH and Jericho vs. Benoit with twenty minutes and a ladder. I think we’ll have another solid show here. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is what you would expect: one out of thirty will win and the rest will fall.

Tag Titles: Edge and Christian vs. Dudley Boys

The Canadians have the titles and the Dudleys have concussions. It’s a brawl to start with the champions trying to bail very quickly. We wind up with Edge vs. D-Von to start as the challenger gets two off a neckbreaker. Off to Christian who is elbowed down for two of his own. Bubba comes in as Jerry makes fun of the Dudleys’ injuries. A side slam gets two on Christian and it’s off to D-Von vs. Edge again.

Christian finally goes for the back of D-Von’s injured head to give Edge control and we get into the meat of the match. Christian gets the tag and starts pounding away on D-Von’s head, followed by a neckbreaker from Edge for two. After a quick chinlock Edge hits a neckbreaker for two more as Bubba looks like he’s about to cry. Since it’s a Dudleys match, the fans want tables. Lawler wants gumbo.

D-Von breaks up a spike piledriver for reasons of wanting to stay alive, catapulting Edge into Christian. Edge and D-Von clothesline each other and the referee misses the ensuing hot tag. A Conchairto misses D-Von and there’s the seen hot tag to Bubba. A pair of hot shots takes down a pair of Canadians and there’s a Bubba Bomb to Christian. What’s Up hits Edge but wouldn’t that hurt D-Von’s head even more?

D-Von goes to get a table and the distraction lets Edge get a title belt. Bubba ducks the shot and gets a VERY close two off a rollup. 3D is broken up by a spear to Bubba and a DDT to D-Von but Bubba kicks out again. The champions try What’s Up but the Dudleys escape and the 3D on Edge gives us new champions.

Rating: B. This is one of those annoying matches where it’s really good and therefore there’s nothing to make fun of. These guys had some of the best tag matches the WWF has ever seen and this was no exception, with all four guys looking great out there. Notice something about Edge and Christian and the Hardys: they came from tag teams but they were allowed to grow up in said tag teams, meaning once they made the transition to singles matches they had a far easier time. That NEVER happens today which is why tag teams don’t make good singles wrestlers anymore. The crowd is white hot tonight too.

Drew Carey is here. He’s promoting an improv comedy PPV and somehow got in the WWE HOF out of it.

Vince says Austin will be in the Rumble despite what happened on Smackdown with HHH. What actually happened isn’t mentioned but whatever.

HHH tells Stephanie to not come to the ring with her tonight but she says she’ll be there to take care of Trish. Drew Carey comes in and pleasantries are exchanged. He talks about meeting Kamala in an airport and plugs his PPV a bit. Drew seems cool here at least. Stephanie offers to introduce him to Trish for some reason.

The APA shows each other their Rumble numbers. Crash comes in and says he’ll throw them both out even though they’re friends.

We recap Jericho vs. Benoit. Do you really need an explanation here? They suplex each other a lot and fight over the IC Title so tonight it’s a ladder match with Benoit defending. Oh and Benoit has hurt Jericho’s arm.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

It’s a slugout to start with Jericho getting a very early advantage. Benoit tries the Crossface but has to escape the Walls instead. Jericho misses a charge and hits the post before missing the springboard dropkick and crashing to the floor. Benoit posts him and goes for the ladder but stops to send Jericho into the steps. We’re only three minutes into the match though so Jericho stops Benoit’s climb. A ladder shot to the face puts Benoit down and the referee tells them they have thirteen minutes left.

Jericho lays the ladder across the top rope and of course goes face first into it as a result. Good to see that even Canadians follow the first law of wrestling. Benoit tries a suicide dive but Jericho puts up a chair, causing Benoit massive head trauma. Jericho tries to ride the ladder from the apron onto Benoit on the barricade but the other Chris moves out of the way. A ladder to the face stops Jericho again and now Benoit swings a chair.

Back in and Benoit loads up a ladder in the corner before ramming Jericho face first into it. Jericho gets up and puts the ladder in the corner again before tying Benoit’s legs between the rungs for a kind of Russian legsweep off the middle rope. Benoit comes right back with a dropkick to send the ladder into Jericho’s face and a hard belly to back suplex. The ladder is placed on the top rope again and Benoit’s face is whipped into it HARD. Jericho immediately follows up by see-sawing the ladder into Benoit’s face. Almost every one of these shots would be classified as FREAKING OW MAN.

A missile dropkick puts Benoit down again but he saves a climb attempt by Jericho. Benoit suplexes Jericho out to the floor and both guys are down again. Benoit goes up again but has to stop to kick Jericho away. Jericho gets up anyway and bends Benoit backwards into the Walls ON TOP OF THE LADDER. Benoit falls on his head but still kicks the ladder over to stop Jericho. AWESOME sequence there.

Jericho drills him with the ladder and goes up, but Benoit immediately pulls him down into the Crossface. Jericho taps out but it means nothing other than pleasure for Benoit here. Benoit sends him shoulder first into the post but Jericho comes back by sending Benoit face first into the ladder. The ladder is moved to the corner and both guys climb, resulting in Jericho being superplexed back down.

The Swan Dive hits the mat though and Benoit is in big trouble. Jericho puts the ladder on top of Benoit’s ribs, but the champion shoves it over anyway from the mat, sending Jericho face first into the buckle and out to the floor. Benoit goes up again but gets shoved out to the floor, allowing Jericho to sprint up the ladder and win the title.

Rating: A+. Take two Canadians, give them a ladder and 19 minutes and this is what you should expect. These two beat on each other HARD and the match was excellent as a result. They came up with some new stuff while mixing in basic stuff like HIT THE GUY IN THE FACE WITH A LADDER but it was so intense that it became a classic. Check this one out.

Drew hits on Trish but she says no because she’s involved with someone. Vince comes in and isn’t exactly cool with Drew being around Trish. More PPV plugging ensues and Vince says to promote the PPV, Drew should be in the Royal Rumble. Drew says sure why not.

Billy Gunn is worried about Chyna hurting her neck again in the next match.

Jericho says he proved Benoit wrong.

We recap Chyna vs. Ivory. The RTC (Ivory’s censorship group) hurt Chyna’s neck with a spike piledriver and tonight is about revenge. This forces us to sit through Chyna trying to be emotional.

Women’s Title: Chyna vs. Ivory

Ivory is defending here. Chyna immediately runs her over with a pair of clotheslines and a toss around by the hair. Stomping ensues and Chyna knocks her out to the floor. They head into the crowd so Chyna gorilla presses her right back to ringside. Back in and Steven Richards gets beaten up as well. In an ending to set up Wrestlemania, Chyna tries the Muta Handspring Elbow but hurts her neck (on the softest bump in the corner you’ll see in years) and Ivory gets the pin to retain.

Rating: D. Ivory was squashed until the end when she won off an injury. What are you expecting from a match like this? This was designed to get more attention on Chyna because no female could conceivably beat her, so making her Women’s Champion for her Playboy hype wouldn’t do much good. Nothing to see here at all unless you’re a fan of Chyna in leather.

Chyna gets looked at by Lawler, Gunn and medics, resulting in a stretcher job.

Trish and Stephanie run into each other and still don’t get along. I can’t decide if Chyna or Stephanie is a worse actress.

Drew Carey gets some gear and talks to Kane. Nothing funny is said and much glaring ensues.

Low Down, as in Headbanger Mosh and D’Lo Brown doing an Arab comedy gimmick (don’t ask) is told that the Rumble spot they won earlier on Heat will be going to Drew Carey. See, THIS is a good use of a celebrity. Who cares if Mosh or Brown isn’t in the Rumble? Carey isn’t exactly a huge star, but he’s more interesting than either of those two. He promotes his PPV, the WWF gets some publicity, life is good.

Fans at WWF New York talk about the world title match.

HHH breathes a lot.

We recap Angle vs. HHH. Angle is on the roll of a lifetime to begin a career, having won the title from the Rock and defended it against Undertaker. HHH got the shot through some corruption and says he’s allowed Angle to be champion this long. Trish is playing both sides of the field, being in Kurt’s corner tonight but obviously sleeping with Vince, who is on HHH’s side at the moment. Stephanie couldn’t act, but dang she looked good in leather pants while she argued with Trish.

WWF World Title: HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is defending. They trade wristlocks to start with Angle taking it to the mat before HHH takes it to the corner. A clothesline puts HHH on the floor as things slow down early. Back in and Angle escapes a suplex and hits three of his own for a near fall. HHH bails tot he floor and gets punched for his efforts, but he manages to send Angle into the barricade to slow things down.

Back in and HHH takes Angle to the mat which isn’t likely his best option. Since it’s a HHH match, we go old school with an Indian Deathlock. A dragon screw leg whip puts Angle down again but as he loads up another one, Angle takes him down with an enziguri for two. Kurt comes back with a whip to send HHH over the corner and out to the floor. This is slow to start but they have a ton of time.

They slug it out on the floor and HHH goes into the steps. Angle punches him around a bit more until a Stephanie distraction lets HHH crack Angle’s knee with a chair. Still good psychology so far and I’m digging the pace. We get our first Flair move as HHH hits a knee crusher onto the steps. They head back inside after about three minutes on the floor and HHH cranks on the knee even more.

Off to an inverted Indian Deathlock because we can’t quite reach the 80s yet. The facebuster gets two for HHH and it’s time for a bad looking Figure Four, although at least it’s on the correct leg. Trish interferes to try to break it up and we get a catfight on the Spanish announce table. Vince comes down to break it up as we completely stop watching the match. Vince carries Trish away but Stephanie pulls her off her dad’s shoulder. We haven’t seen anything in the ring for about two minutes now.

We FINALLY return to the match for a small package for two for Angle before it’s back to the knee. HHH gets kicked into the buckle and Angle grabs a DDT for two. A Russian legsweep looks to set up the moonsault but HHH hits him low to block. HHH busts out a Razor’s Edge out of the corner of all things for two. I’ve never seen him use that other than here. The Pedigree is countered into a slingshot into the post and Angle headbutts HHH in the crotch to boot.

Now the moonsault hits (I’m as shocked as you are) but he hurts his knee in the process. It only gets two as a result and Angle heads to the floor to walk his knee out. HHH dives off the apron and takes out Hebner by mistake. Angle goes into the post and we head back in where Angle runs the ropes (selling the knee? What’s that?) for an armdrag off the top. Angle tries to get Hebner up but HHH rams Angle into Hebner, sending Earl into the steps as a result.

HHH grabs the belt but Angle counters into an overhead belly to belly. Now Kurt gets the belt but HHH blocks into a Pedigree for no cover. Austin runs out and beats on HHH before hitting him in the face with the belt. He throws Hebner back inside but Angle is still down. A Stunner puts the bloody HHH down and Angle gets a VERY delayed pin to retain the title.

Rating: B. This was good but the overbooking brings it way down. Basically you have two matches here with the dividing line being the Vince/girls stuff. The match was starting off as a great psychological battle and it turned into an Attitude Era main event which it just didn’t need to be. This was disappointing after the way the match started.

Rikishi (#30) and Undertaker warm up for the Rumble.

Rock talks about how the Rumble is like a big bowl of jambalaya. As for Kane and Undertaker possibly being together, he doesn’t really care if they want to give each other a box of chocolates or kick each others’ faces in, because Rocky is throwing them both out. It could come down to Rock vs. Bull Buchanan, Rock vs. Perry Saturn, or Rock vs. Steve Austin, but either way he’s going to Wrestlemania. Rocky was feeling it here.

Rumbly hype video, where there are a legit high number of possible winners. Austin is the favorite but it’s not 100% as long as Rocky is in there. This is also one of the last years where they really pushed the idea that ANYONE could win.

Royal Rumble

Jeff Hardy is #1 and Bull Buchanan is #2. Bull charges into the ring and the beating is on fast. Jeff fights back and goes up top before hitting a headscissors. The intervals are two minutes again this year if you care about those kinds of things. They slug it out in the corner with no one getting an advantage until Matt Hardy is #3. Poetry in Motion and a double clothesline quickly dispatch Bull, so the Hardys fight for awhile.

The clock starts so the Hardys stop brawling as Faarooq is #4. Things don’t go any better for Faarooq than they did for Buchanan, resulting in a Twist of Fate and Swanton to knock him out as well. Jeff poses and Matt tries to dump him, resulting in some friction. Matt wins a slugout but gets caught by a Whisper in the Wind. Drew Carey is #5 and he wisely stands at ringside as the Hardys eliminate each other off the corner.

Drew is the only one left standing and the crowd seems amused. Then Kane is #6. JR: “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” Drew begs the Hardys to get back in as Kane stalks him. After about a minute, Kane gets in and Drew offers a handshake and then cash. Kane grabs Drew by the throat until Raven is #7. Drew wisely eliminates himself, high fives some fans and bails. This was perfectly fine as he was in there like 3 minutes and gave us a decently funny moment. Also he seemed to enjoy being there which is more than I can say for most celebrities. Good stuff.

Anyway, Raven pounds on Kane with a kendo stick and a fire extinguisher blast. Al Snow jumps the gun at #8 to pound on Raven who eliminated him recently. Snow legally comes in a few seconds later with trashcans and lids, followed by a bowling ball which goes into Raven’s crotch. Big gasp from the crowd for that one. JR: “It looks like a hurricane has blown through New Orleans.”

Snow and Raven pound away on Kane with everything they can find before FINALLY taking him down with a double drop toehold into a trashcan. Perry Saturn is #9 and goes after Kane’s knee which is pretty stupid in a battle royal. Everyone takes their shots at Kane and some triple teaming finally gets him to his knees. Steve Blackman with his hardcore fighting sticks is #10 as the hardcore segment continues.

Things slow down a bit as they are known to do in hardcore matches until Grandmaster Sexay is #11. Kane finds a trashcan and explodes, eliminating everyone in about thirty seconds. Honky Tonk Man, Lawler’s second straight relative, is #12. He brings his guitar and starts to sing until Kane destroys the guitar over his head and gets his sixth elimination in a row.

Kane is standing tall so here’s the Rock at #13 for our first big showdown. Rock goes off with punches and a jumping clothesline but Kane blocks the elimination attempt. Rock keeps pounding but runs into a big boot to put him down. Goodfather is #14 and Rock eliminates him after two punches. Kane pounds him down again, prompting JR to say “Kane is a carnivore chewing on a big piece of Rock Burger.” Lawler: “…..Rock Burger?” Tazz is #15 and lasts even less time than Goodfather.

Rock and Kane slug it out for a bit until Rock hits a Samoan Drop. Both guys are down until Bradshaw is #16. He’s cool with fighting both guys and hits the Clothesline on Rock. Rock comes back with the spinebuster but Kane clotheslines Rock down to take over again. Albert is #17 to keep up the size and power trend. Albert and Bradshaw pair off as do the other two guys but we can’t get an elimination.

Hardcore Holly is #18 as Albert hits the chokebomb on Bradshaw. A bicycle kick from Albert puts Kane down in a pretty impressive looking move. Rock tries do dump Kane but the dude in the mask stays in. K-Kwik (R-Truth) is #19 and is immediately slammed down by Bradshaw. Nothing of note happens until Val Venis is #20. The ring is getting full now with Kane, Rock, Bradshaw, Albert, Holly, K-Kwik and Venis.

Rock powerslams Kwik down and William Regal is #21. He also beats up Kwik who isn’t having a good night so far. Nothing of note happens again until Test is #22. He immediately knocks out Regal before pounding away on Albert. Big Show makes his return from a trip to OVW to try (and fail) to lose weight. He clotheslines Test out and dumps Kwik as well. Everyone not named Rock gets chokeslammed as Rock kicks Show low and eliminates him for the second year in a row.

As Crash Holly is #24, Big Show seemingly turns heel and chokeslams Rock through the announce table. Everyone goes after Kane and Undertaker is #25, meaning it’s finally time to get rid of some of these guys. The Brothers clear the ring other than the two of them and Rock left on the floor. The tall guys stare each other down and Scotty 2 Hotty is #26. Not exactly the brightest guy in the world, Scotty gets inside and is gone in about 45 seconds.

Austin is #27 but HHH runs out to avenge the earlier interference. Rock climbs in as the Brothers watch Austin get beaten up on the floor. Austin is busted open as Taker beats on Rock off camera. Billy Gunn is #28 to save Rock for some reason. Taker DDTs Rock down as HHH leaves. Haku, as in Meng, the reigning WCW Hardcore Champion, is #29. He goes right for Taker and pounds him into the corner and everyone pairs off. Rikishi is #30, giving us a final group of Rikishi, Haku, Rock, Austin, Undertaker, Kane and Billy Gunn.

Rikishi gets in a fight with Austin on the floor and everyone is in the ring now. Austin dumps Haku as Taker ERUPTS on Rikishi. A chokeslam puts Rikishi down but a pair of headbutts go badly for the Dead Man. Rikishi superkicks Undertaker out in a pretty big upset. As impressive as that was for him, he tries the Banzai Drop on Rock and deserves the elimination he gets.

We’re down to four with Kane, Austin, Rock and Gunn. Gee I wonder which one is going out first. Gunn escapes the Stunner and hits the Fameasser on Austin but gets thrown out anyway a few seconds later. Rock DDTs Kane down as Austin chills in the corner. Rock and Austin lock eyes and the fight is on. That’s Wrestlemania people. The spit punch drops a weakened Austin but he escapes the Rock Bottom. The Stunner hits but Austin stops to go after Kane and charges into a Rock Bottom.

Kane gets back up and gets sent through the ropes by Rock, leaving Rock vs. Austin for the moment. They slug it out some more and fight for an elimination, but Kane comes back in and dumps Rock in a shocker. That also gives Kane the record for most eliminations in a Rumble at 11. Austin kicks Kane low to put both guys down and Kane bails to the floor. Kane brings in a chair but walks into a Stunner. About four chair shots and a clothesline send Austin to the main event of the best show ever.

Rating: B+. It’s not as good as last year but it was awesome for the most part with some BIG star power out there. They did a great job of keeping you guessing until the end as Rocky winning here was a very legitimate possibility. Austin is back from his surgery and back where he was before, which is exactly what he needed to do. Very good Rumble with some nice surprises.

Overall Rating: A. While it’s not quite as great as last year, this is pretty easily the second best Rumble so far. The ladder match is excellent and the Rumble is quite good as well. The world title match is great too and there’s a solid opening tag match on top of that. The Women’s Title match sucks but it’s less than four minutes long. Great show again, but things would be coming down soon.

Ratings Comparison

Dudley Boys vs. Edge and Christian

Original: B-

Redo: B

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Original: A

Redo: A+

Ivory vs. Chyna

Original: N/A

Redo: D

Kurt Angle vs. HHH

Original: B

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: B

Redo: B+

Overall Rating

Original: A

Redo: A

I’m surprised that I liked it that much less last time. Still a great show.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/20/royal-rumble-count-up-2001-drew-carey-could-go-to-wrestlemania/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2001
Date: January 21, 2001
Location: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 16,056
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

So with another year gone, two things have happened. First and foremost, Austin is back. He’s a bit weaker than he was before, but he’s still the biggest star in the world. Other than that, WCW is on its absolute death bed, as it would be out of business in about two months. The company is hot right now and they know it, so here they had more or less their 10th free shot in a row at having a great show and knowing there’s next to nothing WCW can do to touch them.

The other big match is Angle vs. HHH for the title. There’s really not a lot to say about this show as the main thing really is just Austin. He’s not a lock to win though as Rock is a huge deal also. I don’t think anyone bought Angle as a main event level guy though, so he could win here and be fine. Either way, let’s get to this as I know at least the Rumble is good.

The intro is of course bland and talking about ho this is the one night where you can win a chance to go to Mania. I get that that’s the main point, but could you please be a bit less generic? It’s not going to kill you for once.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Edge and Christian

My goodness it’s a non gimmick tag title match! The best I can gather is that Edge and Christian have been using chairs on the Dudleys so there’s a regular tag match because of it. Oh wait, Edge and Christian are the champions here? Well that makes more sense I guess. They used the chairs to help give them an advantage. Ok that actually does help things out a lot. The champions try to run after about 4 seconds as apparently the Dudleys are injured from the chairs still.

Lawler is amused that they have concussions for some reason. Also for some reason they’re allowed to compete despite having concussions. Only in wrestling would that be perfectly fine. Bubba and Christian are in now and Bubba is holding his head without it being touched so if nothing else he’ selling. Jim and Jerry argue about teeth for no apparent reason. Bubba shouts way too much. It’s so weird to see Edge in the midcard and not incredibly over yet.

We shift into more of a traditional formula here with D-Von fighting for everything he’s worth while the referee naturally misses a tag. While Bubba has the referee’s attention since he never was that bright, D-Von avoids another double chair shot. Once the Dudleys take over, Edge shows off his idiotic side by bringing in a title belt but he misses. That’s fine, but he lays it down. Why would you do that?

Bubba is behind you, there’s no referee, so you lay down your weapon. He was still getting the hang of the top heel thing I guess. In a cool spot, the Dudleys set for 3D but Edge spears Bubba while D-Von has Christian up. It was cooler looking than it sounded. After Edge and Christian try to steal What’s Up, Edge gets hit by the 3D in an ending that felt kind of anti-climactic for some reason.

Rating: B-. This was a match between two teams that fought about a thousand times but it was nice to see them do it without weapons for a change. That’s not something you often see and the good thing is you could have a good match without them. That’s always a good sign and a nice bit of fresh air from these guys. It wasn’t great but it was a good choice for an opener.

Drew Carey is here.

Vince says that Austin will be in the Rumble but HHH keeps his shot. This is about HHH accidentally running into Austin and Austin beating the tar out of him which broke some agreement. The ruling was that Angle caused it so it didn’t actually break the order, which made it completely pointless.

We go to Stephanie and HHH’s dressing room. This was just after Trish was caught bent over in front of HHH so that’s the main topic. Trish is going to be at ringside tonight. Stephanie cannot act, period. Drew Carey comes in and gets tips about how to do PPV because he’s doing Doritos presents Drew Carey’s Improv All Stars. Yes that’s actually what he calls it. He also apparently ran into Kamala at an airport and he’s now a singer. Amazingly enough, that’s real.

Farrooq and Bradshaw show each other their Rumble numbers in a scene that was supposed to have gay overtones that failed completely. Crash comes in and threatens to eliminate them later.

We get the recap of Jericho vs. Benoit, which more or less is both guys saying they’re better and Benoit having the IC Title, so they put it on the line in a ladder match. Do you need any more build that Jericho vs. Benoit in a ladder match? I don’t think so.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

I’ve always loved the prove me wrong line that Benoit had. It was perfect for him as it was short and sweet and correct. That’s all you need a lot of the time. Jericho has a bad shoulder here too to offer some psychology to the match. It helps here as your arms can help you climb a ladder so if nothing else it fits the flow of the match here which can often be the most important part of the match.

They bring the ladder in and somehow we get even more physical than we already were in this match. This was some of Jericho’s best in ring stuff around this time as he was clearly having a blast. See, the difference between WCW and WWF is that here, Benoit and Jericho are likely going to steal the show. They did it in WCW as well but there they would likely just do the same thing again until they jobbed to a 42 year old that didn’t need a push at all.

Here, Benoit would be a workhorse that got all kinds of praise and big matches while in less than a year Jericho would be world champion. Ah here we go. It’s ladder and other weapons time. After some stiff shots in the ring, Jericho goes to the floor and grabs a chair. Benoit launches a suicide dive at him but goes straight into the chair in a great looking spot. And see, Jericho SELLS THE SHOULDER. How hard is that for people to learn?

This turns into a game of top this as they come up with more and more ridiculous ways to hurt each other with the ladder. One of them is Benoit being tied into the ladder on the second rope and Jericho hooking a side Russian legsweep on him, bringing the ladder down with them. There’s stuff in here straight out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Benoit gives Jericho a belly to back suplex over the top rope. That’s cool looking if nothing else. Climbing back in, we have a fight up on the top of the ladder, which leads to the spot of the match. Jericho knocks Benoit backwards, and puts THE WALLS OF JERICHO on him on top of the ladder. To say this looks both incredible and painful is a total understatement. That just got this match a much higher grade.

Benoit goes off the ladder but has the energy to kick it over to save the title. This is great stuff here. Back on the mat, Jericho gets caught in the crossface and taps, but obviously this means nothing. There’s at least some psychology here as Benoit already has Jericho’s shoulder hurt so he works on it. That’s at least smart. Since there’s nothing else to do, Benoit is picked up and just thrown into the ladder.

Why not? Sometimes the best solution is just to beat the other person up with the ladder. It’s working here if nothing else. In yet another great visual, we go to the top for a suplex but Jericho is shoved off. Benoit goes for the swan dive, and the whole crowd just rises to their feet to watch in amazement at what they’re seeing. That’s how you know you’re doing a great job: the crowd responds to you.

We finally get one of the first dead spots of the match which is perfectly acceptable in this case as they’re half dead. This lasts all of four seconds though as Jericho comes back in with a chair and just wears out Benoit with it while he’s standing on the ladder. Benoit gets pushed off and bounces off the ropes, then the apron and then the floor, which is enough for Jericho to get the belt. DANG that was painful looking. The highlight package of this match doesn’t do it justice.

Rating: A. This was a freaking brutal fight. They beat the living crap out of each other here and are going to be hard to top. For some reason this match isn’t really remembered, and that was the case even before Benoit was deleted from history. These guys went at it like no other and beat the living tar out of each other. Go find a copy of this as it’s definitely worth it. Great brawling match with tons of brutal spots.

Drew Carey hits on Trish and her chest which ends up with him entering the Rumble.

Chyna says she’s ready. She was still hot back then.

Jericho says that was a war but he’s happy.

We recap Chyna vs. Ivory, which is based on the RTC hating Chyna for being in Playboy (thank goodness!) and then spike piledriving her which allegedly broke her neck. Her line of I hate them while crying is a great thing.

Women’s Title: Chyna vs. Ivory

Around this time Chyna had this big pyro gun called the C-2000 that launched fireworks into the air which was kind of cool. Ross says that Ivory is sexually frustrated and menstruates 30 days a month. I’ve got nothing for that. If nothing else they got the description of her right: she’s more or less Lilith from Cheers.

Chyna was supposed to be this woman that broke all kinds of barriers yet she wrestled in more or less a leather two piece swimsuit. If anything, Ivory in her full body outfit is the one breaking more barriers. This has been ALL Chyna. She beats up Richards and goes for a handspring elbow and falls down holding her neck because of it.

That ends the match after Ivory’s body covers her. This led to her being completely fine and coming back to destroy Ivory in about 2 minutes at Wrestlemania to win the title and completely ruin it as there was no one but Lita that had a freaking prayer against her. She left the company maybe 6 months after this, never to be seen again. The stretcher part takes at least five minutes, which is longer than the match went. Her chest looks freaking amazing in that segment if nothing else.

Rating: N/A. This was an angle, not a match. It wasn’t any good anyway, so there’s just not a lot to say here. It lasted about three minutes and was pure dominance.

Stephanie runs into Trish. Hot women arguing ensues.

Drew Carey tries to introduce himself to Kane. Recap not needed.

Low Down, perhaps the dumbest idea ever, (D’lo Brown and Mosh as Arabs) argue with their manager about who should be in the Rumble. It doesn’t matter as Drew Carey gets their spot. Now this is an important point. Let’s compare this to WCW and David Arquette. Both Carey and David are about the same level of celebrity status and they’re here to promote something that not a lot of people are going to watch anyway. What does the WWF do?

They replace a jobber in a match where he absolutely won’t be missed. Think about it: what would Brown or Mosh do in the match? Hang around for about seven minutes and be destroyed by either Taker or Kane or someone like that. Would anyone really miss either of them being in there? Not in the slightest. Instead, you get a celebrity in the match where he might bring in a few fans to the show. See, that’s how you use celebrities.

You put them in a place where they don’t make a big difference at all, but they seem like they do. That’s smart business. You give up a little something and while you likely won’t get a big payoff, you might get a decent one. If not, you lost Mosh or D’Lo for one night. That’s something you can live with and if nothing else, Drew gets publicity and you look like nice guys. Now on the other hand you have WCW, where a celebrity of about equal status was there trying to promote something.

What does WCW do? THEY MAKE HIM WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, thereby making the wrestlers look pathetic, the title look like a joke, their PPV look like a bigger freak show than a pro wrestling show normally is, an more or less drive yet another spike into their own coffin.

Instead of having him do something stupid with Disco Inferno or something for like 5 minutes on Nitro, they said that this actor is on equal footing with the champions of the other major company at the time, which at that time would have been HHH. See why they went out of business so fast?

We hear opinions from the fans on who will win the title match tonight.

HHH is getting ready and sounds like Darth Vader.

We recap this feud, which consists of Angle hitting on Stephanie and Trish allegedly trying to sleep with HHH through some comedic mix ups.

WWF Title: HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle had won the title in the fall from the Rock and held it ever since, more or less in a huge Cinderella thing where no one could beat him and he just kept getting luckier and luckier, which is fine I guess. This is another hard match to comment on as both guys were just off the charts around this time as far as in ring work went. The good thing here is that they manage to balance the brawling style which dominated the era with some solid in ring work that both men excel out.

This is another match that’s hard to criticize or poke fun at because it’s working really well. You don’t often hear about these two having chemistry but it’s there. Sadly though, the match runs a bit long for the fans. It’s about 25 minutes, and for purist fans like most of us here it’s a treat, but the problem is that this is still the Attitude Era, so if a match has a good amount of technical stuff in it or psychology etc., it’s considered boring.

However there’s a part in here where it gets a pick me up as the two women come out and fight the heck out of each other. This is a bigger reaction than anything in the match. The problem with this match is simple. HHH is the undisputed top heel in the company as he was revealed as the guy that masterminded Austin being run down, but Angle was more or less built up as the midcard guy in over his head but still good enough to put the belt on.

Think of Punk’s original reign and you’ll get what I mean. The problem here though is that HHH is simply a bigger star and at this point a better wrestler than Angle. Angle would get a lot better but this is probably the peak of HHH’s in ring ability as he was just so perfectly evil at this point and the in ring work backed that up to perfection.

Anyway, you can tell that Angle is really finding his groove here as he’s getting a lot more intense than he used to be and is getting into that character that took the world by storm within a few years. This is mainly technical stuff as HHH uses the Indian Deathlock of all things, which no one buys at all, mainly because other than the Sharpshooter and the figure four, one of which is used and I’ll let you guess which one, no one taps to a submission hold.

In another blast from the past, HHH busts out a Razor’s Edge. Hall was gone by this point from mainstream wrestling so this was a bit more acceptable I guess. Also the ratings were so low that I don’t think they could be seen from the ground anymore so who cares? Anyway, Vince comes out to get the girls broken up, oddly enough picking this time to come out and get his hands on Trish. What a shock that is.

Anyway, after they leave and the crowd more or less goes with them, the referee goes down twice. The second was great as he was down on the outside and HHH throws Angle into the post and Earl just slams into the steps in a solid bump. HHH misses a belt shot but there’s no zebra impersonator. He does however get a heck of a Pedigree that Angle takes perfectly.

Austin runs out though and beats HHH up with Earl still down. At least in this case the bump the referee took looked awesome so you can validate him being down this long. HHH takes a belt shot so he’s down as Austin gets the referee back in there. He gets a Stunner in just for good measure and Angle keeps the belt. Angle would hold onto the belt until next month when Rock beat him for it to set up Mania 17.

Rating: B. This was a very solid match, but the run in at the end kind of hurt it. The problem with Angle’s reign was he never had a definitive win to cement himself as champion, much like Punk’s first reign, and it suffered a lot because of that.

I’m not saying you put him over HHH clean, but somewhere along the line he had to beat someone in a title match without help or cheating. Either way, HHH was great here and Angle was improving dramatically, so this was fine. I might have cut out 4-5 minutes, but it’s very solid all around.

Rock says he’s ready for the Rumble. It’s funnier than it sounds.

Royal Rumble

Jeff Hardy is first and Bull Buchanan is second. It’s so weird to see Jeff as a total midcard guy that’s known for doing nothing but high spots. I had to pause for a second there to get my composure. Rikishi is number 30. In a stunning turn of events, Matt is number 3. Why does Ross always say wait a minute? We don’t have that kind of time. Naturally Bull is gone in about twenty seconds. I will give them this: they actually fight each other.

The Steiners just wouldn’t do it and it sucked. Farrooq is 4th and they double team him of course. See, that’s a classic tactic but it works well. Jeff botches a double team spot. In other news, the sun came up today. The double team finisher leads to Simmons being thrown out. Now we get to the fun part as they just throw punches. Jeff gets a SICK Whisper in the Wind as Drew Carey is 5th. This was when he was actually a big deal so this was a cooler thing that it seems like.

I thought they were booing but they’re chanting Drew. Matt and Jeff put each other out so Drew stands alone. In a truly great moment, Kane is number 6. The look on Drew’s face and the reaction of the crowd and Ross absolutely panicking is just perfect all around. Kane walks around the ring and does the fire thing. Drew tries to get Matt and Jeff to come back then tries to pay Kane.

He gets put up in a chokeslam but Raven and his sweet music save him as number seven. Drew waves goodbye and eliminates himself. He walks to the back, high fives some fans and is never seen in the WWF again. See, that right there is how it’s done.

Drew was in there all of three minutes or so, he got a solid response from the crowd, he took the place of D’lo or Mosh who Kane would have put out in about 10 seconds and no one would have remembered, Drew comes out of it having lost no respect at all, and he got some publicity for his PPV. Everyone wins.

There was nothing wrong with this and it came off great. Anyway, Raven gets thrown through the ropes which allows Al Snow who Raven had injured to run out early and beat on Raven. His clock goes off so he’s in now and he brings weapons. One of these is a garbage can, and for the first time ever, it has garbage in it. He also gets a bowling ball which he rolls into Raven’s crotch.

In a chilling line, Ross says this is what New Orleans looks like after a bad hurricane. Saturn is 9th with Terri who is about to fall out of her top. All three guys work on Kane, and they prove that they’re idiotic by beating on him enough to get him on the mat, instead of, you know, OVER THE TOP. Blackman is 10th, and being the genius he is he beats on everyone not named Kane. This big long hardcore thing isn’t working for me or the audience either.

The division was just dead by this point and it’s showing badly. Grandmaster is 12th and now we get to the fun part. Kane goes to the floor and grabs a garbage can and just freaking kills everything in sight with it. He knocks all five out in about 20 seconds with some sick shots. Blackman tries to skin the cat and Kane just blasts him over the head which makes me chuckle.

Number 12 is the Honky Tonk Man who sings and plays the guitar. That seriously might be the greatest gimmick of all time. I mean really, a wrestling Elvis impersonator? That’s just amazing on a ton of levels. Seeing Kane, more or less a crazy sociopath behind Honky for this is hilarious. Honky is gone in about a minute and Rock is 13 to a big ole pop. Kane is a lot more muscular here than he usually is.

Goodfather is 14th and for some reason there’s a big Rumble R over the right side of the screen but not that left. That looks odd. Goodfahter is in for about 2 seconds as Rock puts him out. Ross gets in another of his out there lines by saying Kane is a carnivore chewing on a big piece of Rock Burger. Yeah I’ve got nothing. Tazz and his awesome music is 15th and he lasts longer than Goodfather, being eliminated in 8 seconds or so.

13 people have been eliminated. Kane has put 7 of them out. Bradshaw gets us into the second half, and oddly enough he had the longest world title reign of these three. That’s just weird to say. Albert is 17th, making the shortest man in this match at the moment is Rock who stands 6’5. Hardcore Holly is in at 18. We’re at kind of a slow point here as not a lot is going on.

K-Kwik, more commonly known as R-Truth is 19th. Bradshaw powerbombs the living tar out of him. That was painful as all goodness. Val Venis is number 20. He’s still in the RTC at this point. This match has a noticeable lack of energy to it which isn’t good at all. I think Rock came in way too early. He’s a big deal and he’s been in there awhile already. Right now Kane and Rock are the only two that are really up and doing much of anything.

William Regal, still a smiley heel is 21st. He has a lot of heat on him if nothing else. Test is 22nd. Not a lot is happening here at all and we need to get rid of some of the people in there. As I typed the word some, Regal is gone. Test, the guy that threw him out, would win the European Title from him before Mania. He then kicks the heckout of Venis.

Big Show makes his return at 23. Good GRIEF that man is fat. He throws out Truth and Test in about a second each and then chokeslams literally everyone other than Rock so they’re all down. Rock manages to get a low blow in and knock Show out before the next guy comes out. Show isn’t happy though and chokeslams Rock through the table in a cool looking spot. Crash is 24th.

Everyone joins together to beat on Kane. Rock is out on the floor. He’s selling perfectly too. Taker is 25th and it’s on. He saves Kane from a massive beatdown and they look at each other and Taker gives him a sign. Within 15 seconds, all five others in the match are gone so it’s Taker, Kane (he’s eliminated nine people here, which I think ties him for the record at the moment) and Rock who is still on the floor.

There had been talk of Taker and Kane hooking up again and apparently that was true. In an amusing spot, Scotty is 26th. Guess how this goes for him. The idiot actually gets in the freaking ring. In a flat out brutal beatdown, Scotty is punched, kicked, kicked in the face and takes a double chokeslam before they throw him out together. 27th is Austin, and to say the place pops is an understatement.

However, he doesn’t make it to the ring just yet as HHH is here. Rock is back in and all of a sudden this is awesome. See what happens when you don’t have any stupid fillers in there and you just put the big, talented stars in there?

HHH beats the tar out of Austin and cuts him open, which to be fair works because he jumped him from behind so Austin never had a fair shot. Billy Gunn is 28th and the level of awesome is just sucked out of this thing. Taker hits Rock with that sweet running DDT that I wish he would bust out a lot more often.

Haku of all people is 29th. Note: he was at the time FAR more famous as Meng. He was also the WCW hardcore champion at the time, but WCW in its eternal brilliance put a title on a guy that was getting paid per appearance and had no formal contract. His return lasted all of six month or so but it was kind of cool I guess. I thought it was more like a month, but whatever. He teamed with Rikishi which went nowhere and he because a Heat guy after awhile.

Ross’ blatant cheering of Austin and calling it a shame is really annoying. We get it: you love Austin. You’re supposed to at least try to be unbiased. Granted, I have to wonder how much of this is Ross and how much is Vince screaming in his ear. Rikishi is number 30 but Austin jumps him on his way in. Your final grouping is Rikishi, Haku, Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane, Taker and Austin. Austin puts out Haku to get us down to six.

Taker gets a good chokeslam on Rikishi which impressed me. They seriously tried to make Rikishi a legit big deal and to say it failed is the understatement of the year. To further my point, they actually let him put Taker out with a kick. I can’t stand Vince’s fascination with huge men at times. Seriously, he just put Rikishi over Taker.

Rather than having Rock, Austin, Kane and Taker as almost a dream final four, we get Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane and Austin as Rock puts Rikishi out. Billy gets a Fameasser on Austin but this I guess energizes him to allow him to put Billy out to get us to three. Austin is down in a corner, Rock puts Kane down and falls in another corner, and you know what’s coming. Rock wins the fistfight and the fans are clearly more into Rock than Austin.

Austin catches him with a Stunner as Kane is somehow still down. There’s a Rock Bottom to a great pop. It was kind of clear that Austin wasn’t as big of a deal as he used to be as Rock had surpassed him. This is the period that Rock lovers point to and say Rock was bigger than Austin. That’s like saying that Jim Brown, who was the best running back of all time and played in the 50s and 60s isn’t as good as Ladanian Tomlinson today.

Well duh of course not the man is in his 70s. Austin was past his peak here while Rock was in the middle of his. If Austin never left, Rock doesn’t hit this level, end of argument. If you believe otherwise, I’d love to hear your reasoning because it’s wrong. Anyway, Rock throws Kane through the ropes to give us more Rock and Austin. Lawler says he’s been waiting for years to see this. That’s odd as it’s been less than two years since their last Mania match but whatever.

Kane hits a chokeslam here as despite Austin being the relatively clear winner, it’s not for sure which makes this ending a lot better. Also it’s not like Austin is in there with Billy Gunn or someone completely ridiculous. Kane is a legit contender here which is making all the difference in the world. Kane gets a chair but Austin gets a counter and hits a Stunner.

Austin gets three very solid chair shots and a clothesline sends him to Wrestlemania, where he would take the title from Rock who would win it in a month and thankfully turn heel which thankfully Vince recognized was the only way to go. Basically, turn Austin heel had been the big movement online around this time as it was clear that Rock was the bigger face and it appeared that Vince was trying to make Austin bigger by sheer force. Luckily he woke up for once and we got Mania 17 out of it.

Rating: B. While not as good as last year’s this was still very solid. Austin winning made sense, the last two guys both also could have won, the midcard was well represented, and other than Billy, there was no one there at the end that wasn’t a legit winner. Carey offered a bit of flavor to the match and I think it helped.

It was something different, but it’s well remembered because it was well done. That’s proof you have a good moment. Kane was the story here though as they made him look awesome. His reward: a short run with the hardcore title because that’s how he’s respected. Anyway, this was very good stuff and above all else, it worked.

Overall Rating: A. This is a very good show. Every match has something good to offer, as the Chyna match was the worst but she looked awesome in it. There are five matches: four are for titles and the last is the Rumble. That’s a stacked card if there ever was one. Carey offered some mainstream appeal which is never a bad thing unless you completely screw it up and they didn’t here so that enhances this even more. This is definitely a top level show and certainly worth checking out.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2000
Date: January 23, 2000
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 19,231
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

After sitting through 1998 and 1999, this is my reward. What we have here might be the best Rumble show of them all with one of the best matches ever and a great Rumble on top of it. 2000 is the best in ring year the company ever had and this was a great way to kick that year off. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Cactus Jack challenging HHH for the world title in a street fight. This is that “one of the best matches ever” that I was talking about. The idea is simple: Cactus wants the title back and he’s facing HHH in a street fight, which means HHH is in WAY over his head. We’re in Foley’s hometown in Foley’s match with Foley’s most hardcore character. How can this not be a masterpiece?

Kurt Angle vs. ???

Angle is undefeated at this point. Kurt says he’s a real winner here, unlike the New York Knicks. This is goofy Kurt, which means he’s hilarious. He says that the mystery opponent must be scared to come face him, but the opponent needs to take a deep breath, come out here, and face Angle like a man. The self-help thing here is hilarious. The fans chant WE WANT TAZ….and here he is!

Kurt Angle vs. Tazz

Tazz pounds away on Angle and hits a HUGE backdrop to send him to the floor. Angle escapes a suplex in the aisle (painted like a street with a big cab hanging above the entrance, which looks like an alley. It’s really cool) and takes over. Back in and Kurt hits a forearm for two and chokes away in the corner. A belly to belly puts Tazz down but Angle goes up and gets crotched. Tazz hits a super Tazplex for two before getting rolled up for two. Angle gets two more off a bridging German before walking into a release German from Tazz. We unleash the suplexes on Kurt before the Tazmission ends Angle’s undefeated streak.

Rating: C+. This was short, but to say it was an effective debut is an understatement. The place ERUPTED when Tazz won which is exactly the point of the opening match. See, this is what you call LISTENING to the audience. WWF knew they had to appeal to the ECW fans and what better way than to have Tazz debut here? Today, Tazz would be in some comedy match and would likely lose, because Heaven forbid that the fans get what they want in one city for one night.

Angle does a stretcher job.

We go to the Hardys in the back and get a clip of them and the Dudleys putting each other through tables. Terri, the Hardys’ manager here, is told to stay in the back. She would be gone from the team soon, thank goodness.

Tazz says Angle is just the first victim.

Dudley Boyz vs. Hardy Boyz

I believe match #1 or #2 in a series of roughly 8000 and it’s an elimination tables match. Bubba praises John Rocker of the Braves who had recently gone on a massive anti-New York rant in Sports Illustrated. The Hardys hit the ring and the match starts fast with Bubba hitting the Bubba Bomb on Jeff. No tags here thank goodness. Bubba sets up a table in the ring but before he can get another one, Jeff takes him out with a HUGE flip dive.

Jeff gets sent into the steps as Matt escapes a powerbomb through the table. D-Von suplexes Matt as Jeff CRACKS Bubba in the head with a chair. In a SICK spot, Jeff tries to run the railing but Bubba throws the table at Jeff, knocking him out of the air. That sounded GREAT. The pairings trade off and Bubba loads up the backsplash through the table, only for Jeff to come back and try a double superplex. D-Von moves the table but doesn’t stop the suplex.

Matt brings in a ladder because this might as well be a TLC style match. We head to the floor where the ladder is set up in front of a table with Bubba on it. Matt dives through Bubba through the table just as Jeff dives in from off camera with a splash, sending Bubba through the table in another awesome looking spot. So it’s 2-1 now with Jeff leaning a table up against the barricade. The steps are set up on their end and a table is set up like a bridge between the steps and the apron.

D-Von is placed on the bridged table but moves before Matt dives through him. He moves AGAIN to avoid a diving Jeff, sending him through the leaning table. Cool sequence there by Ninja D-Von. Apparently Bubba doesn’t have to leave. Ok that makes things more interesting. The Dudleys set up two steps in the ring and put a table across them before hitting a HUGE powerbomb on Matt to eliminate (in a sense) him. The tables are LOUD tonight too. Jeff gets beaten into the aisle but Matt quickly follows, only to get WHACKED in the head with a chair.

The Dudleys stack up four tables in front of the entrance (it’s the MSG setup where the entrance is opposite the cameras). Matt gets put on the tables and Jeff is CRACKED in the head again to break up the save attempt. Bubba climbs onto the taxi over the aisle to splash Matt, but remember that wouldn’t win the match. Jeff climbs up after him (I’m not sure where D-Von went) and blasts him with a chair, knocking him through two of the tables (still doesn’t win). Matt puts D-Von on the table and Jeff dives off the taxi with the Swanton through D-Von through the table for the win.

Rating: B+. This was AWESOME with all four guys being young and hungry here. The Dudleys were out to prove themselves and the Hardys were out to show they could hang in a fight. They had already proven they could fight in a violent match like the ladder match, but this was a brawl instead of a high flying match. REALLY fun stuff here though and well worth a look if you haven’t seen it. The Dudleys would get the titles next month, setting up the first triangle ladder match at Mania.

Angle gets a concussion test and complains that being choked out is illegal.

It’s time for the Miss Rumble Bikini contest with Sgt. Slaughter, Tony Garea, Moolah, Johnny V, FREDDY FREAKING BLASSIE and Andy Richter from Late Night with Conan O’Brien as judges. Jerry gets to emcee of course. The contestants are Ivory, Terri, Kat, Jackie, BB (You shouldn’t remember her) and Luna. The idea here is that Kat legitimately took her top off (full exposure too, the only intentional female nudity in WWF history) at Armageddon and more nudity was promised here.

Ivory doesn’t want to do it but eventually does. Terri does her usual skin colored one which we’ve seen before. Lawler freaks out over her bending over the ropes. Jackie…no one cares. BB isn’t bad but again, the whole point of this is for Kat to win. Luna won’t show. Kat is in a bikini made of bubble wrap. Creative if nothing else. The judges start tallying their scores but here’s Mae Young to enter as well. She takes off her robe, and THERE is the nudity (it was fake). Mae wins to complete the joke. Lawler’s reaction of “OH MY GOD I SAW THEM” is priceless. Mark Henry comes in to save our collective retinas.

The recently hired Coach doesn’t have much to say from WWF New York.

Chyna and Jericho, the co-IC Champions, argue over who gets to wear the belt to the ring. There was a double pin in a title match and they became co-champions as a result, which is a pretty creative idea.

Angle says he’s still undefeated. Rock would pin him on Smackdown a few weeks later.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly

You know Jericho is fired up to be in MSG. He talks about how awesome his championship celebration will be, as it will make the millennium celebration look like his sister’s seventh birthday party. Holly piefaces Chyna down to start before getting in a slap fight with Jericho. Chyna gets sent to the floor for the Slaughter fall, leaving the blondes to fight for a bit. Holly hits that perfect dropkick of his but Jericho comes back with the forearm.

They slug it out until Holly tries a rana (huh?), only to get caught in the Walls. Chyna makes the save, basically turning heel at the same time. Chyna sends Holly to the floor and gets drilled by Jericho. Holly and Chyna go to the floor where Jericho tries a dive but slips and only hits Holly. Back in and there’s the handspring elbow and DDT from Chyna to the Canadian for two. Everyone heads to the floor where Jericho saves Chyna from a chair shot. Back in and both champions go up for a kind of double splash for two.

They both tried for a cover and a fight breaks out as a result. Chyna escapes a belly to back suplex and hits Jericho low, followed by a Pedigree for two on Holly. Chyna goes up but gets caught in a modified Doomsday Device (cross body instead of a clothesline) for a very close two. That probably should have been the finish. Now Jericho loads up a superplex but gets crotched for his efforts. Holly gets superplexed by Chyna but gets two on her off the bounce. Chyna chairs Holly in the head and puts on the Walls, only to have Jericho break it up and hit the Lionsault for the undisputed title and a BIG pop.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good and too short to get bad. It could have been on Raw but see, back in 2000, there was this crazy idea of finishing angles on PPV. I know that’s insane now and everything ends in a big match on Raw or rather just stops happening one day, but back in the old days, they ended like this. Match was fine.

Rock is worried about two and only two men in the Rumble: Crash Holly and Headbanger Mosh. Cole (minus facial hair) suggests maybe Rock should be worried about, say, Big Show. Rock says go make a glass of shut up juice (not one of his better catchphrases) and tells Big Show he doesn’t care what he thinks. He guarantees to win the Rumble right here in New York City and the place eats it up. I want one of those jerseys he’s wearing.

Jericho says he said he’d win and he’ll lead the Jerichoholics like a pied piper.

Tag Titles: Acolytes vs. New Age Outlaws

The Outlaws are defending and there’s a backstory that doesn’t deserve to be listed. Who would have thought that THIRTEEN YEARS LATER the Outlaws would be on house shows for the WWE again? The Outlaws are heels here but they’re over like free beer in a frat house here in New York. The APA storms the ring and the beating is on quickly. Bradshaw and Billy officially get us started with Billy taking a fast beating. Both guys tag as the referee is adjusting his ear piece.

Faarooq imitates Dogg’s dance before getting double teamed a bit. Bradshaw breaks up the shaky knee drop and everything breaks down. The Clothesline kills Billy and there’s the spinebuster to Roadie….but Billy pulls the referee out. The ref is bumped and Road Dogg is hit with a double powerbomb. X-Pac runs in and kicks Bradshaw’s head off. The Fameasser to the future JBL retains the titles in like two and a half minutes. This had to be cut for time. The Outlaws would lose the titles to the Dudleys next month and that would be the end of the team.

Dogg rhymes about keeping the titles.

We recap HHH vs. Cactus Jack. HHH won the title the night after Summerslam from Mankind via cheating. Big Show got the title at Survivor Series but lost it back to HHH in January. Mankind stood up to the newly formed McMahon-Helmsley Era and got beaten down for his efforts. Foley got fired and we had a fake Mankind get humiliated. Rock then said that every single wrestler would walk out and form the Rock Wrestling Federation if Foley wasn’t rehired. See how different storylines could be back then? Mankind got HHH to agree to a street fight at the Rumble but got beaten up for his efforts.

This led to an AWESOME promo on Smackdown, where Mankind said he wasn’t ready to face HHH in a street fight, but he knew someone who did. He took off his mask and ripped open his shirt to reveal Cactus Jack, scaring HHH to death. These two, as in Cactus Jack and HHH, had fought in 1997 in the match that basically brought hardcore to the WWF and they did it in MSG, with Cactus winning clean. This was an excellent story and there was a VERY real feeling that Cactus could pull this off, because HHH was in WAY over his head. Check out the build to this match as it’s some of the best stuff you’ll EVER see.

WWF World Title: Cactus Jack vs. HHH

Street fight. It should also be noted that Foley lost about 30 pounds inside of a month and a half and is by far the slimmest you’ll ever see him look here. HHH does the long slow walk to the ring which makes things feel even more epic. Stephanie heads to the back which is probably a good thing. Dang I miss that big title. It’s SO much better looking than the stupid spinner version. Even now when it doesn’t spin it doesn’t look like something special but rather something like a toy. The belt on HHH looks classy.

Cactus looks like and animal and HHH looks terrified. Jack wins a quick slugout and pounds HHH down into the corner. We head to the floor for a swinging neckbreaker on HHH and a legdrop onto the apron knocks the Game back to the floor. HHH is rammed into various metal objects but comes back with a bell shot to take over. NOW we get to the fun part as the first chair is brought in.

Back in and Jack charges right into a chair shot like an idiot. Granted for him, that’s playing the character right. HHH goes to unhook the buckle instead of covering for some reason and Jack pops up to clothesline the champ down. There’s a legdrop onto a chair onto HHH’s head for two and we head outside again. HHH gets backdropped into the crowd and the beating begins again. JR: “They’re out in the sea of humanity.” Jerry: “Humanity? JR we’re in New York.”

HHH gets rammed into something made of metal that we can’t see and they head into the aisle. Cactus sets up a wooden pallet and suplexes HHH onto it before screaming in his face. This isn’t falls count anywhere mind you. There’s a trashcan to the head and HHH gets rammed into the steel doors. The fans chant for Foley as he gets suplexed onto the trashcan. The crowd is just RUTHLESS against HHH here as they head back to the ring. The aisle is really short so it’s not a long walk.

Jack rams a knee into HHH’s head to drive it into the steps and it’s back inside now. This is almost all Jack so far. There’s the 2×4 in barbed wire but HHH hits him low to get the board away. Some shots to Cactus’ ribs and back have him in trouble and HHH looks at the board as if to say “did I just do that?” Cactus blocks a shot to the head and hits HHH in the balls with the board. The double arm DDT puts HHH down as the referee takes the board out of the ring, drawing the loudest booing of the ngiht.

Cactus wants the board back and beats up the Spanish announce team who the board was left with. He gets a board (clearly not the same one but that’s likely for safety reasons) and after the referee is crushed, HHH gets hit in the forehead with the wire. The board is driven into HHH’s forehead and he’s busted something fierce now. The referee is back up now and we get the most famous spot of the match with Jack ripping the wire across HHH’s cut to make him scream.

Cactus tries to piledrive HHH through the announce table (same thing he won the 97 match with) but HHH counters with a backdrop. JR: “The champion is bleeding like a horse.” When does a horse bleed? HHH is bleeding from his leg which is a rare sight to see. The place LOUDLY cheers for Foley and we head back inside. The Pedigree is countered into a slingshot into the post and a bulldog on the wire gets two.

HHH has a spot called to him about the steps before the Cactus Clothesline takes them both to the floor. Cactus charges but gets hiptossed into the steps, banging his knee in the process. You know a Flair disciple like HHH knows how to work on a knee. Back inside and HHH clips him down before picking up the barbed wire for another shot to the knee. HHH pulls out some handcuffs in a flashback to last year.

Cactus fights back and hits HHH in the head with the cuffs in a smart move. The cuffs are locked up a few seconds later though and HHH starts pounding away. The steps are brought in but Foley comes out of nowhere with a drop toehold to send HHH face first into the steel. A low blow keeps HHH down and Cactus bites away. HHH gets back up and grabs a chair which he literally BREAKS over the back of Cactus. They head outside again and Cactus takes some shots to the head from the chair.

Cactus says hit me again but before HHH can crush the skull, Rock pops out of nowhere and blasts HHH in the head with a chair of his own. A cop comes in and unlocks the cuffs, freeing Cactus. HHH starts backpedaling fast but gets caught on the Spanish Announce Table. The piledriver hits this time but the table DOESN’T BREAK.

We haven’t gotten violent enough yet, so here’s a bag of thumbtacks. Stephanie comes out (complete with snakeskin choker in a nod to Cactus) and HHH comes back with a backdrop onto the tacks. There’s the Pedigree but Cactus kicks out at two to blow the roof off the place. It doesn’t last long though as a Pedigree ONTO THE TACKS finally ends Cactus.

Rating: A+. FREAKING OW MAN! If there’s a match that made a guy into a legitimate force better than this one made HHH, I’d love to see it. This was an absolute war with both guys destroying each other for about 27 minutes. The place never gave up on Foley and it’s easily one of his best matches ever. This is one of the best brawls ever and yet again it’s well worth checking out.

HHH is taken out on a stretcher but Cactus pulls him back into the arena. There’s a barbed wire shot to the head and the place cheers like crazy for Mick some more.

Linda is at WWF New York to talk about HHH’s title reign. Wait no she’s not. She would NEVER be involved with something involving bloodshed. And Stephanie is oh so precious and does SO much work for charity don’t you know.

Royal Rumble

The intervals are “two minutes or less” according to the Fink. We get a quick look at Shawn’s miracle save in 95 which would play a role in the coming weeks. D’Lo Brown is #1 and Grandmaster Sexay is #2. Feeling out process to start with Sexay countering Brown’s running powerbomb into a rana. A middle rope missile dropkick puts Brown down and Mosh, complete with cones on his chest, is #3.

Kai En Tai, two guys ticked off about not being in the Rumble, runs in and are immediately thrown out. Nothing else happens for a minute or so until Christian (with his AWESOME solo theme called Blood Brother. Look it up) is #4. Nothing happens again so here’s Rikishi to a POP at #5. Mosh, Christian and Brown are quickly dispatched, leaving Grandmaster and Rikishi.

Scotty 2 Hotty is #6 to complete the trio…..and it’s time to DANCE! The place absolutely loses it over this until Rikishi clotheslines and eliminates them both. Note that it is NOT a heel turn and just business, which Too Cool is ok with. Rikishi dances a bit more on his own and the place is still erupting.

The company took notice of those eruptions too, and the three of them wound up feuding with the Radicalz for the next four months or so, resulting in Too Cool getting the tag titles and Rikishi getting the IC Title. In other words, they were given a stupid gimmick, got it over, and were rewarded. Today, you get to lose the US Title to Jack Swagger and become a jobber to the stars if you get yourselves over. As I typed that, Steve Blackman came in at #7 and was eliminated.

Viscera is #8 and you know New York loves itself a fat boy battle. Big Visc rams into him a few times but misses a charge and three straight superkicks put him him. Big Boss Man is #9 and won’t get in, drawing some good heel heat. He stays out on the floor until Test is #10. Test pounds away on Boss Man to finally get all three guys in there. Boss Man hits Test low but Rikishi hits Test low to put both guys down.

British Bulldog is #11 as things slow down a bit. There’s a low blow for Rikishi as well and Bulldog tries to get him out until Gangrel is #12. Kai En Tai comes out again and Taka is thrown over the top into a 360, landing face first on the floor. FREAKING OW MAN. This would be played multiple times over the rest of the match, much to Lawler’s amusement. Edge (starting to mean something and over in New York) is #13.

Boss Man takes a Banzai Drop and Bob freaking Backlund is #14. He comes out to Hail to the Chief as he’s legitimately running for Congress in Connecticut at this point. You would think that would have been a tip for Linda’s future but alas no. Everyone goes after Rikishi and dumps him out to get us to the second part of the match. To recap, we’ve got Boss Man, Bulldog, Test, Gangrel, Backlund and Edge in there at the moment. Jericho is #15 to his third or fourth big pop of the night.

Jericho goes right for Edge in a match that would be for the world title eventually. That doesn’t last long though as Jericho dumps Backlund, who yells at some fans before leaving. Actually he goes into the crowd to look for Connecticut registered voters. For a guy as bland as he was back in the day, Crazy Backlund is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.

Crash is #16 and gets a double spanking from Edge and Bulldog. Ok then. Edge is sent to the apron by Bulldog so he punches the British Boy in the balls. Chyna is #17 in the far less remembered Rumble appearance. She goes right for Jericho and suplexes him out in about 30 seconds but gets knocked out by Boss Man almost immediately. Faarooq is #18 and here’s the Mean Street Posse who is also out of the Rumble. Those three and Kai En Tai were all thrown out of the Rumble on Heat so five more guys could be added in.

Anyway Faarooq is quickly dumped and Road Dogg is #19. The crowd does his entrance for him but he runs right into a low blow. The fans want Puppies, a term Road Dogg invented. Crash survives an elimination and Al Snow is #20. Roadie throws out the Bulldog and Val Venis is #21. Funaki runs in on his own and is thrown out almost immediately again. Prince Albert (Tensai) is #22 and there goes Edge.

The ring is getting too full now with Boss Man, Test, Gangrel, Crash, Road Dogg, Snow, Venis and Albert. Dogg continues his strategy: hide in the corner and wrap all four limbs around the bottom rope. I’ve heard worse ideas. Hardcore Holly is #23 and we’re getting down to almost only big names left. Crash gets knocked to the apron but gets back in AGAIN.

Now we get to the final part of the match as The Rock is #24 to bring everyone to their feet. Boss Man is the first victim, being eliminated by a spit punch. Venis and Test double team him but Rock hangs on in the corner. He beats up Hardcore for a bit as Billy Gunn is #25. He goes right for Rocky but since no one believes Billy Gunn is going to eliminate Rock, the Great One throws out Crash to give himself something to do instead. Dogg has shifted over to another corner now.

Big Show, Rock’s opponent for this match, is #26. Rocky pounds on him immediately but Albert sticks his fat head in Rock’s business. Show dumps Gangrel and Test before going to stomp on Rocky. Bradshaw is #27 and is out in about 30 seconds at the hands of the Outlaws and the Mean Street Posse. Kane is #28 complete with the still sexy Tori. Venis gets thrown out almost immediately and Show stupidly gorilla presses Gunn down instead of out. Kane knocks Albert out as Godfather is #29. The Ho’s are especially good looking tonight.

Funaki comes out for the fourth time. JR: “For the love of Pete.” Jerry: “No that’s Funaki.” X-Pac is #30 which was announced in advance. The final group is Road Dogg, Al Snow, Hardcore Holly, Rock, Gunn, Show, Kane, Godfather and X-Pac. Snow dumps Holly and Show puts Godfather out. Rock dumps Snow to get us to six. Billy dumps a talking too much Roadie just before getting dumped by Show.

We’ve got X-Pac, Kane, Big Show and Rock as the final four. I’ve seen far worse. Rock throws out X-Pac but the referee is with Kane who is fighting the Outlaws on the floor. Pac gets back in and the guys pair off. Show sends Rock into Kane for a big boot as the giants choke each other. Pac kicks Rock down and Kane hits a pretty good enziguri and an even better slam on Big Show. Pac kicks Kane out and a Bronco Buster on Big Show.

Rock dumps X-Pac and we’re down to two. The spinebuster sets up the Elbow but since IT’S JUST A FREAKING ELBOW DROP, Show gets up and chokeslams Rock down. Show takes WAY too much time though and Rock holds onto the top rope, sending Big Show out to go to Wrestlemania. Awesome ending to an awesome match.

Rating: A. AWESOME Rumble here with the absolute right ending. This was the Rock’s Rumble and there was no other person who should have won it. The only part that was a little dull here was the middle but it’s certainly not bad. This followed the three part structure as all great Rumbles do and as usual, it worked like a charm. Great Rumble and one that might have a claim to best ever.

Rock says he’s going to Wrestlemania when Big Show comes in and knocks him to the floor. Show stands in the ring as Rock leaves to end the show.

Overall Rating: A+. This is one of the best shows the WWF has ever put on. Period. There isn’t a bad match on the whole card, the crowd is ON FIRE all night and you have two excellent matches to round out the show. I can’t imagine anything in the next 12 years surpassing this one and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Outstanding show.

Ratings Comparison

Tazz vs. Kurt Angle

Original: A-

Redo: C+

Hardy Boyz vs. Dudley Boyz

Original: A

Redo: B+

Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly

Original: C

Redo: C+

New Age Outlaws vs. Acolytes

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

HHH vs. Cactus Jack

Original: A+

Redo: A+

Royal Rumble

Original: A-

Redo: A

Overall Rating

Original: A

Redo: A

Still great and still the best Rumble ever.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/19/royal-rumble-count-up-2000-match-of-the-decade-maybe-yeah/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 2000
Date: January 23, 2000
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 19,200
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

At this point, the wars are over. WCW is practically dead and the WWF just keeps pouring it on. The main thing that’s different than last year though is simple: Austin is gone. With the company so far ahead that they would have to be WCW to manage to lose the lead they had built up, Austin was finally allowed to take the nearly yearlong break that he so badly needed to get his neck fixed once and for all.

With him out of the way, the Rock and HHH have stepped up. To all Rock fans, get this through your heads: without Austin taking this time off, Rock would be a fairly big star at best. He’s not bigger than Austin, he never was bigger than Austin, and he never will be bigger than Austin. He got as big as he got because of Austin not being there and that’s all there is to it.

Anyway, a lot of the roster is filled out now as we have guys like Jericho, Angle, the Dudleys, Show and I believe the Radicalz would debut the next night or eight days later so they were just over the horizon at this point. Your other main event tonight is HHH vs. Cactus Jack in a street fight, which was one of the best matches I’ve ever seen and since I want to get to it, we’re starting now.

The opening video is about how insane Cactus is and how sane HHH is. That was the real point of the street fight tonight: getting HHH over as a crazy man. In other words, Foley is doing what he might be the best ever at, and that’s even better than Flair: getting people over and making them look better than anyone else ever could. There’s no mention of the match at all here, which is odd. After a brief intro from Jerry and Jim, we’re ready to go.

Kurt Angle vs. ???

Angle was the undefeated rookie wonder here and he had issued an open challenge here or something like that. He’s the clean cut kid here that no one could touch at this point. It had leaked out who the opponent would be, but not to the general public. Angle of course gives a speech talking about how great he is. The crowd is very hot already as is customary of a New York crowd. He gets some cheap heat by ripping on the Knicks, which is just fine. Cheap heat is still heat.

This is less than a week after the MSG Raw before Survivor Series so I’m fired up about the Garden in general. Actually the fans are chanting for the guy he’s about to fight so I guess they know who’s coming. Angle was just ridiculously great in this role. The music hits, and the symbol that we’ve been seeing for a few months comes up for Taz, who is the mystery guy. The crowd pops like a cherry for him too. I mean they are LOUD.

Angle beats on him for a few minutes until Taz gets his hands on him and let the suplexing begin. After a German, a head and arms, and a T-Bone, the Tazmission debuts in the WWF and Angle is out cold in about 20 seconds, ending his undefeated streak and making Taz look like an insane killing machine. Now that is how you debut a guy. Once Taz got going, he DESTROYED Angle. Angle is taken out on a stretcher as apparently it was a choke and not a sleeper.

Rating: A-. Yeah it’s just over three minutes long, but DANG. That was a nearly perfect debut as Taz looked awesome there and Angle put him over like a master despite having only been around a few months at this point. Taz dominated here and was supposed to get the push that Benoit wound up getting, but because of Hardcore Holly messing up a spot with a candy jar at Mania, Taz had an eye injury and had to take a lot of time off, so Benoit got the big IC title push instead.

Matt, Jeff and Terri are in the back to talk about the first ever tag team table match. Terri actually looks good here. They “won” her in the Terri Invitational Tournament (initials) so she’s their manager for awhile. This doesn’t last long as they realized Terri had no talent so that ended that. She was split from them by Mania I think. Anyway, the Dudleys have been putting people through tables so Matt and Jeff put them through some on Smackdown, leading to this match.

Taz says that he’s going to go right through this company.

Hardy Boys vs. Dudley Boys

Like I said, this is a table match. The Dudleys have been around for a few months here and were the best team that people had seen in forever as no one had seen two guys this violent in a mainstream promotion for more than a few weeks before. And no, Public Enemy doesn’t count due to a lack of talent. Bubba is still a southern stutterer here.

We get a John Rocker reference as Bubba says that’s his new favorite player. For those of you that have either forgotten him or haven’t ever heard of him, he was a decent relief pitcher for the Braves who went on this insane tirade one day, bashing just about every religious or ethnic group in existence and complaining that New York had all of them. It was a big deal and he got in a lot of trouble for it.

He was HATED in New York because of it so just saying his name was instant mega heat. There’s a taxi hanging above the entrance. The entry way is really cool as it looks like an alley or a street to play up the street fight later on. In this you have to put both people through tables so we’re guaranteed an extra table or so. Thankfully we don’t have the pointless tagging thing here.

Don’t you love how ECW had just gotten on television nationwide in late August and within five months three of their biggest stars ever are opening a WWF PPV to HUGE pops from the New York crowd? Yet Vince said he never stole stuff from them. Keep telling yourself that Vince. You just happened to have these three guys get their biggest exposure yet back to back in a gimmick match made famous in ECW in front of their second most important city?

I’m not saying it’s bad because it’s a great idea, but Vince stole these guys. Again, smart, but not original at all like he would like you to believe. Naturally Jeff is flying all over the place. Bubba takes a SWEET chair shot from Jeff. He follows that up by running along the barricade at Bubba, but the member of Team 3D picks up the table and just chucks it at Jeff, slamming into his head for a great sound effect. See, this is a great example of not overbooking a match.

With these four guys, there’s zero need to try to do something big and complex. Just tell these guys to go out there and beat the heck out of each other using weapons and high spots. Honestly, what more do you need these guys to do? You just let the guys go out there and rock the place. This was the real answer to the Cruiserweights in WCW: bigger guys just going out there and having over the top gimmick matches. It seems to be working fine here, and it got people’s attention.

The Hardys get the advantage again and they set for a double suplex on Bubba from the middle rope, but D-Von moves the table. I’ve always loved spots like that, as the guy is more or less saying he doesn’t care if his partner is hurt or anything, as long as he doesn’t go through a table. That’s brilliant. Here’s your token ladder, which foreshadows and references past and future matches which is hard to do.

There are some SICK chair shots in this. Matt has Bubba on a table on the floor but D-Von almost makes a save. Matt shoves him straight into a fan which was a not so good looking spot. Matt gets the leg drop to put Bubba through, but from out of absolutely nowhere, Jeff jumps at the same time in a half splash half elbow half manbearpig onto Bubba. I mean he came from nowhere. Think Shelton jumping onto the ladder to stop I think Van Dam at Mania.

We have a huge HOLY CRAP chant as D-Von takes another great chair shot. Bubba can barely stand. I think he can still be in the match and it’s not an elimination. I’m not sure if I like that or not. In ANOTHER nice sequence, D-Von is on a table on the floor and Matt dives at him. He moves and stands in front of another table and dives out of the way so Jeff crashes through that one.

That looked like something out of a Die Hard movie. Bubba is back now and I’m completely into this match. They point out that since the Dudleys didn’t put them through tables, it’s not over. At least they follow the rules of the match. They set up an elevated table and power bomb Matt through it, which Ross says will cause some erection dysfunction. Don’t ask. I’ve always liked the euphoric thing Bubba did when he went through the tables. It was just cool.

The finish here is somehow the coolest part. They head to the entry way where the Dudleys set up double tables. They go up to the top of the set and get on the taxi, where Bubba tries to get a powerbomb. Jeff fights out of it and hits Bubba with a chair to knock him straight back off of it, which looks cool enough as is. After that, D-Von gets put on the table and the Swanton Bomb ends this freaking awesome match.

Rating: A. THIS WAS AWESOME! The spots were completely insane and the chemistry was undeniable here. The crowd ate it up too so it sounded great. There was no story here and there wasn’t supposed to be. There’s nothing wrong with just a wild brawl when it’s done right and this was a great example of that. Just all kinds of fun and the fans bought every bit of it.

Angle is very groggy and acts like he has a concussion where he’s only concerned about being undefeated. It’s funnier than it sounds.

We’re now going to have the Miss Rumble pageant. This is coming off the heels of the Kat taking her top off at the last PPV and actually showing on screen for about 2-3 seconds which was a HUGE thing as nudity was actually shown on WWF TV with no issue about it. Of course then the PTC freaked the heck out about it as the company was apparently corrupting children’s minds by showing an adult image on a show that an adult had to order for their children on a show called Armageddon.

Dang, Vince really is trying so hard to corrupt the minds of the youth. It would be so simple to allow a 12 year old to see such a thing. All they would have to do is order a PPV while making sure to sound like an adult on the phone, find some way to keep their parents from noticing them watching it when a show they didn’t order is on, hide the cable bill from their parents and then manage to pay for the show themselves despite likely not having a checking account or a credit card.

I mean really Vince, at least have SOME kind of way to prevent kids from seeing the show. Anyway, this is a beauty pageant and according to the rating, there would be more nudity here. The judges are Slaughter, Tony Garea who no one under 35 knows, Fabulous Moolah, Johnny V and Freddie Blassie who gets a great pop. Lawler is the host for this. First up is Ivory who is wearing a big sweatshirt. Terri is second to a solid pop.

Jackie, who no one likes at all, is third. Fourth is a woman named Barbara Bush who was nicknamed BB and was an EMT or something. She lasted all of a month or two. Luna is 5th as this is going to take awhile. Kat is the final one and she gets a solid pop. She’s women’s champion at the moment. Of all people, the celebrity judge is ANDY RICHTER from “The Conan O’Brien Show.” Seriously that’s what they call it.

This is your standard thing so I’ll skip most of the details. Lawler’s jumping up and down is kind of funny. No one has ever cared about Jackie at all and no one does here either. This really is moronic. Luna, despite wearing a gown that is just buttoned in the front and a thong under it, won’t disrobe. Kat’s is made of bubble wrap. Yep, that’s your Women’s Champion.

Naturally Mae Young comes out and wants to compete also. She disrobes and takes her top off. The look on Lawler’s face when he sees them is priceless. That’s your nudity for the night, and yes, we see them. Mark Henry who was for no apparent reason dating Mae at the time comes out to cover her up. Mae wins unanimously. WZ actually had a link on the main page to a still shot of Mae’s chest. I wish I was making that up.

We go to WWF New York which is new to meet the debuting Coach. Man that place would have been awesome to go to.

Don’t try this at home. Good advice.

Jericho and Chyna are in the back arguing about who should wear the belt. This was a very interesting angle they did where they were co champions. In other words, they could both defend the title individually but if say Jericho lost, Chyna lost too which made it something different. Unnecessary, but different.

Angle says that since he was choked out, he’s still undefeated.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly

This is for the undisputed title. Holly is there because he’s beaten both of them one on one and it’s an even numbered year so we have to give him his next failure of a push. Seriously, he got more pushes than a grandmother that stands in front of a flight of stairs. Chyna was a big deal at the time as a woman legitimately competing with men was unheard of yet she was pulling it off.

Jericho is over to say the least. Jericho was awesome on the mic at this point as you could tell he was just so happy to be out of WCW. This is a standard match for the most part, which means one person goes down and the other two have a short singles match until the third comes back. Jericho is by far and away the favorite here. Chyna hits the handspring elbow which for the life of me I still don’t get the point of.

Chyna and Jericho keep vying to outdo each other and it’s not that interesting. Why in the world did Holly need to be in this? I just don’t get that. Holly takes a slow but decent Pedigree but kicks out anyway. They’re doing a lot of near falls near the end here, which at least is building a bit of drama. It’s not a bad match, but it’s just not that interesting. Jericho hits a Lionsault on Chyna to become undisputed champion, and that’s that.

Rating: C. Like I said, this wasn’t bad but it just wasn’t interesting at all. Holly flat out didn’t need to be in there since he wasn’t even involved in the decision. This wasn’t much, but it was ok and certainly watchable.

Rock, rocking the SWEET Brahma Bull jersey, is in the back with Cole and says that there are two people he’s worried about in the Rumble: Crash Holly and Mosh. Cole questions this so Rock says go have a glass of shut up juice. He calls out Big Show and says that he wants it to wind up as those two in the final pairing. The charisma here is completely ridiculous it’s so high. He really was a god on the mic.

Jericho cuts a traditionally great promo talking about how he’s going to lead the Jerichoholics to the promised land like a pied piper while holding up the Interchrisinental Title.

We recap the APA vs. the Outlaws, which is here because the APA won a battle royal thing.

Tag Titles: Acolytes vs. New Age Outlaws

After about a two minute entrance we’re ready to go. This match lasts two and a half minutes. The Acolytes beat the champions up. Or do they beat them down? I’m not sure actually. After a short mini match, X-Pac runs down and beats up Bradshaw, allowing Billy to his the Fameasser for the win.

I know that sounds like nothing but there’s just nothing at all to talk about. They brawled for 45 seconds, the Acolytes beat up the champions for a minute or so, then Pac was there for the finish. They much be setting up HHH/Foley for more time or something, which I’m fine with.

Rating: N/A. I can’t rate something this short at all.

Road Dogg says that even though they got their beaten up they’re still the champions. You can’t argue that one.

We recap HHH vs. Foley, which started with HHH beating Show clean for the belt and having the McMahon-Helmsley Era run things. Foley calls them out and he’s fired due to losing a pink slip on a pole match. A fake Mankind (Mideon) showed up to make fun of him. Rock and the rest of the roster threatened to leave and form the Rock Wrestling Federation unless Foley was reinstated. Mankind comes back and HHH beats the heck out of him after agreeing to the street fight.

Then, in one of the coolest moments of this era as far as I’m concerned, Mankind comes out and says he’s not ready to fight HHH in a street fight, but he has a replacement ready to go. He pulls open his shirt and takes off the mask and turns into Cactus Jack. HHH is FREAKING and then gets his head handed to him by Jack, setting this up. The level of awesome that Foley was in this multiple personalities thing was just insane on so many levels.

WWF Title: Cactus Jack vs. HHH

Jack gets a crazy pop and HHH might as well be a Red Sock. Stephanie looks great as usual. I love HHH being so nervous about getting in the ring as it really plays up his being out of his element. The intros take just shy of eternity, but you hear in HHH’s My Time song the words The Marks, The Suits, McMahon. I guess those are people he doesn’t like, which is kind of cool. Finally we’re on.

Foley is called Mankind time after time by Ross. Ross is stuttering like no other. HUGE Cactus Jack chant gets going. It’s all Jack so far. And just as I say that HHH hits a bell shot to the head. Naturally it doesn’t do much. In shades of Rumble 98, Jack runs straight into a chair shot like he’s running home after a day of simple torture as a child. The crowd is hot here as Jack puts the chair on HHH’s head and drops a leg on it.

And that can shatter a skull right Cole? Ross says HHH might be the best technical champion in company history. I’m not even touching that one as it’s so freaking stupid. We hit the crowd and the crowd is making this match better. It’s been hard hitting so far but we’ve been at this five minutes so far. We’re in the entry way now and HHH is getting killed. Remember that the entry way is set up like an alley, so the trash cans being there at least make sense.

This is ALL Cactus here. I love how Foley can become such a better threat with the gimmick change. It really is brilliant. The crowd is rapidly approaching ECW levels here. Basically HHH keeps using his regular stuff and Jack keeps going insane on him with violent stuff. It’s a great bit of storytelling mixed in which almost never happens in these matches. Jack goes under the ring with HHH down and pulls out a 2×4 wrapped in barb wire. Oh yes.

Ross is of course freaking. Due to the idiot of a referee, HHH gets the board and puts Foley down with four stiff shots with it, all to the back and front. That’s brilliant actually as Foley is wearing a shirt which likely has padding underneath it. While I can’t imagine that’s real barb wire, the image is great and for people that aren’t sharp enough to see what’s going on here, it’s a great way to make this match seem about 10 times more violent.

It’s the little things like that which can make a match and it’s doing so here. A board shot to the lower back which is considered a low blow stops the momentum HHH has built up. I love how with low blows half the time they’re not even close to the groin. The crowd booing when the barb wire board is thrown out is just classic stuff. Twelve minutes in we have our first cover. That’s another nice touch as it makes it seem like it’s about the violence rather than the pin here, which is what it’s supposed to be. In case you can’t tell, I really like this match. Granted Foley is my all time favorite wrestler and this was by far his best period, so there we are.

The referee goes down and a barb wire shot to the face puts HHH down. Ross is selling this as insanity on a great level. HHH is bleeding and it’s a good one. One is right next to his eye which looks even sicker. In a sick looking spot, HHH is trying to get out to the floor but Foley takes the board and the wire and puts it over the very cut forehead of HHH and just pulls back. The screaming is perfect as this match is tearing it up, even the Mr. kind.

Ross here is great on the mic as he’s not getting insane through the whole match. He gets way into it in bursts which makes those moments seem more impressive. That’s the big issue with guys like Cole. He gets into the match WAY too early and it takes away from the later big spots. Ross gets into the big spots but other than that he’s rather calm which helps to build up later stuff, thereby adding credibility to the good stuff.

That’s the mark of a great commentator: they don’t take anything away from the match but they add so much to it, like Ross is doing here. I usually can’t stand him but this is great stuff from him. Jack goes through a table when he goes for a piledriver to get us back to even. HHH’s leg is bleeding, which is a very nice touch. Oddly the table that was destroyed wasn’t Spanish. That’s very odd indeed. DANG that’s a thick cut in his leg.

Cactus hits a bulldog onto the barb wire. One of the major keys here is that it’s completely unclear who is going to win. At the time, no one knew. That can completely make a match as in my eyes it’s the most important thing there is in wrestling. On the floor again, HHH gets a hip block onto the steps and Foley rams his knee into it. Using his generally good psychology, HHH goes for the knee with the barb wire.

The good thing is it’s still a sick thing to do despite how much it’s been used so far in this match alone. From nowhere HHH finds handcuffs and tries to put them on Foley, which after a brief comeback works. This is already a bit uneasy to watch but this is bringing flashbacks to last year. If nothing else there’s a bit of slack in these unlike last year so it looks a bit less awful if nothing else. Jack puts up a heck of a fight despite being in essence armless here. That’s just impressive.

I’ll go with this for how brutal this is: HHH actually breaks the chair from hitting Jack with it so hard. Has that ever happened before? With them back in the entry way, Jack begs HHH to hit him again, but Rock pops in from nowhere to half kill HHH with the chair. A cop pops in and unlocks Jack’s arms and we’re at it again, as the fans are right back into this thing. The piledriver works this time, but the table DOESN’T BREAK.

Think about that. How sick would that look? I mean HHH just stopped cold all of a sudden. We’re back in the ring now, as Jack pulls out a bag of thumbtacks. You have to remember, this is before Abyss made those look like watercolor paints. They were hardly ever used but they’re busting them out here. Jack goes into them via a backdrop just after Stephanie comes out. She’s wearing a leopard print choker, which is the same as Cactus’ boots in a nice little touch.

After that, the Pedigree gets two in what might have been the second cover of the match. Then to finish us off, in one of the sickest spots I’ve ever seen, Cactus gets Pedigreed onto the tacks for the pin. Jack is DEAD. HHH gets the belt and goes to the floor and just collapses. Stretchers come out and of course Jack is up to attack HHH one more time.

They would have a Cell match at No Way Out which was awesome as well where Foley would officially retire, and other than one match which was a surprise he kept true to that for the most part. I’m fine with short comebacks and occasional matches to put people over as he does so often. This made HHH look legit which is exactly what it was designed to do. This was awesome.

Rating: A+. Yes I’m being generous on the grades for this show, but DANG. These two half killed each other out there in easily the best brawl for the title I’ve ever seen. This was insanely violent and HHH came off looking great. There was a legit threat for Foley to take the title here which helped the drama a lot as well.

The blood was great and it added a completely new aspect to HHH’s character that’s still around today. These two beat the tar out of each other and it’s saying a lot when it’s Foley who has the job of making HHH look this great put into his hands, and luckily it worked and it worked very well. Go watch this match as it’s worth it. I’ve heard this match called the match of the decade and off the top of my head I can’t think of a better one.

After some generic interviews, it’s time.

Royal Rumble

D’lo Brown is number one and Grandmaster Sexay is 2nd. He gets a huge pop and we get more bad jokes about him not being Lawler’s kid. We’re doing 90 seconds here. X-Pac is 30th for reasons that would entail him winning some match no one remembered. Let the generic stuff begin. Granted they’re following a classic so there we go. I hate that laugh that Grandmaster does.

Mosh is third, dressed with two foot long cones sticking out of his chest. Kai En Tai runs out, despite not being in the match. They’re easily dispersed so that was completely pointless. They weren’t allowed in due to lack of room in case you were really bored. Mosh is hurt so we’re back to the original pairing while he hangs on the ropes. Christian, who has some of the most awesome music I’ve ever heard at this point, is 4th.

This is always the awkward part of the match as there aren’t enough people to have anything going yet and these guys have a combined chance of zero to do anything so few people really care but it’s better than nothing. Rikishi is 5th, 8 months before it turned out he tried to kill the biggest star in the world. He dumps everyone other than Grandmaster before anyone else comes out. That Rikishi Driver was a freaking awesome move.

Shockingly enough Scotty is 6th and we have the trio in the ring. You know what’s coming, and oddly enough I like this. It makes sense here. They’re all friends and even though it’s every man for themselves, this makes a lot of sense. The fans are very into it so that’s fine, and it doesn’t last long as Rikishi puts both guys out at the same time. I’m ok with that actually as it didn’t last long and it made sense.

Also, there’s still one guy there so it’s not like the next guy has to stand around waiting for a minute and a half. Things like this can work when done right, and this was done right. Also, the fans loved it so that automatically makes it far more ok. Rikishi’s nipples are really close together and it’s very odd looking. After they’re gone, Rikishi dances on his own a bit more. Steve Blackman is in at 7 and is gone in about 45 seconds.

See this right here is something the Rumble can be great at. Rikishi is a somewhat big star here, but he’s getting to show off here and he looks far more impressive now than he did when he came in. That’s a very simple way to get someone over and it worked here. Viscera is 8th and he actually hits a belly to belly on Rikishi. Three super kicks and a shoulder block and Big Daddy V is gone. Again, by just putting out a guy at a time he looks great and dominant.

They’re pushing him without him actually winning a match. Boss Man is 9th but he very slowly gets in. He stands on the floor and lets someone else come in to help him, which is smart. Granted this was considered a violation of the rules back in I think 94 but we can ignore that I think. Test comes in at 10 to a big old pop. I know it sounds absurd now, but he really could have gotten a brief title run sometime around here.

He should have gotten it at Survivor Series, but granted I can’t complain about going with Show when they did as he was completely dominant around that time. British Bulldog is 11th. One good thing here is there’s no dead weight in there to slow things down. Having people like Mosh and Grandmaster to fill out the roster is fine, but there’s no point to having them stay in there a long time, and here you can see why.

They were in the Rumble and there was no chance of them doing anything, so they got out early. It’s clear that the people in there now are higher up on the ladder and they’re in later, which makes them even possible dark horses to steal the thing. That’s very smart booking and some of the best I can ever remember for the Rumble.

Gangrel is 12th to get some jobbers in there which is fine to an extent. Kai En Tai runs out again and get thrown out with Gangrel just KILLING Taka. The bump he takes over the ropes is great as he over rotates and his face slams into the floor and bounces off. Edge is 13th to a solid pop. We get the Taka bump again to the delight of the king. BOB BACKLUND is 14th to a great pop.

Does this guy age? He’s 51 here and looks like he did 20 years ago. A ton of guys get together and throw out Rikishi. I’m impressed by Backlund. He looks great all things considered. Jericho is 15th as I’m loving the booking here. A few things are happening. They’re having little mini stories thrown in here and there to keep the match fresh and it’s working like a charm. It’s keeping the crowd entertained and they’re responding very well.

It’s a smart way to build up to the final guys which is the best way to go. This has been a very good Rumble. Jericho puts out Backlund. Crash Holly is 16th as I’ve never seen the resemblance to Elroy Jetson that everyone says exists. Chyna is 17th as Lawler starts picking everyone as being Rock. She puts Jericho out by suplexing him over the ropes but Boss Man puts her out seconds later.

To recap we have Gangrel, Edge, Test, Boss Man, Bulldog and Crash and they’re joined by Farrooq. The Mean Street Posse comes out as apparently they’re mad about not being in either. Boss Man puts out Farrooq due to their interference. Road Dogg is 19th. We’re kind of hitting a dead spot here as Al Snow is in at number 20. Road Dogg puts out Bulldog as JR makes dog jokes. Venis is 21st. Funaki is thrown out for the third time as Taka is apparently hurt.

That clip never gets old as they show it again. Prince Albert (A-Train) is 22nd as Edge is thrown out by Snow and Venis. Hardcore Holly is next. Amazingly enough, he gets no reaction. Rock is 24th to a HUGE reaction. There goes Boss Man. Billy Gunn is next as we’re getting close to the ending now. There goes Crash by the Rock. Road Dogg has hidden in the corner and has his arms and legs wrapped around the ropes. That’s rather smart.

Big Show is 26th. Rock hits him before he gets in and the pop is there. Test is gone in about 4 seconds. Gangrel lasts a bit longer than Test did against Big Show, making it about 8 seconds. Show still has long hair here so he looks more intimidating. Bradshaw is 27th and the Posse helps the Outlaws put him out with ease. Kane is 28th and we’re getting to the good part now. Tori looks AMAZING in this little black dress.

Kane puts out Snow in a few seconds and then Albert shortly thereafter. Godfather is 29th. I remember my father thinking he could have won this. Thankfully we don’t have a 20 second shot of the women to waste time. Funaki is back again and the joke is stupid now. X-Pac is in at 30 so our final group is X-Pac, Rock, Show, Kane, Snow, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Godfather and Holly.

Again note how this is a good thing: there are potential winners in there instead of just one guy that you know is going to get it. Holly is out and we’re down to 8. There goes Godfather as I type that. Snow is gone. Gunn puts out Road Dogg and Kane puts him out within a span of 5 seconds to bring us down to Rock, Show, Pac and Kane. At least the biggest four of the final 9 are left. Kane goes under the ropes to fight the Outlaws for no apparent reason.

X-Pac is thrown out but no one sees it. Kane and Big Show fight over a chokeslam as Kane slams him in a cool spot. Pac puts out Kane despite not being in there officially I guess. The Bronco Buster sucks the life out of this thing for me. Show throws him out with ease and we’re down to the best pairing possible with Big Show and Rock. The elbow gets a great pop. Show gets a chokeslam though to get crazy heat.

Show sets him for kind of a powerslam move which at least makes sense to throw him over but Rock grabs the top rope and Show goes over instead while Rock slides in under the bottom rope. Later on there would be a story where Show says that Rock’s feet actually touched and he had video to prove it. That led to Rock vs. Show at No Way Out for the Mania spot which Show won.

Vince came out and said that yes, Big Show was going to Mania, but the deal never said Rock wasn’t, so we got a triple threat. For no apparent reason, that match happened on Raw the Monday before. Linda then came out and said that it would be a four way at Mania, including the unretired for one night only Mick Foley.

There was a McMahon in every corner as they made sure that the main event of Wrestlemania was again about them instead of the wrestlers. But enough about that as this Rumble was great.

Rating: A-. This is how the Rumble is supposed to be done. Take a look at how they did this. You had the guys that were there to fill in the 30 spots in there first to make sure they were in and had an actual chance. Then we got the smartest move of the match: having Rikishi dominate.

This does a few things: it allows the jobbers to be cleared out as well as making Rikishi look good AND it offers a bridge to the next segment of the match where guys like Test and Boss Man could come in and hang around until we got to the final batch of guys. That’s very smart booking and it made this match work very well.

The Kai En Tai jokes were funny for the most part but it got to being overkill at the end. I was very happy with this whole match though as even though I knew the ending like the back of my hand, it worked and had me entertained. Excellent Rumble.

Overall Rating: A. This is a GREAT show. There’s one stupid part with the tag titles but if that was done to give the two main events more time then I’m completely fine with it. There was still a match there and they didn’t try to put an emphasis on a match that few would have been the most interested in rather than taking away from two great main events.

This was validation that the company could thrive without Austin and while I think he brings a lot to the table, he needed to go away for awhile to let some others get to his level. That was the issue: Rock or HHH or other people couldn’t get up to where Austin was because he was so high up there that it was impossible for anyone to touch him. His time taking time off gave everyone else a year to catch up, which was exactly what they needed. Definitely worth checking out.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 1999
Date: January 24, 1999
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 14,816
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole

What did I ever do to you people? I try to give you all a variety of stuff and somehow I always wind up with freaking Russo. Isn’t me freaking out over 2000 WCW enough for your bloody thirsty evildoers? Anyway, it’s Austin vs. McMahon at #1 and #2, along with Rock being borderline criminal against Mankind in an I Quit match. Let’s get to it.

The opening video makes no secret of the fact that this is all about Austin vs. McMahon. The World Title match isn’t even mentioned.

Of note: the theme song here would become Vince’s theme for pretty much ever.

Road Dogg vs. Big Boss Man

Road Dogg is Hardcore Champion after beating Boss Man (half of the Tag Team Champions and part of the Corporation) to win the title. Therefore the solution: let them have a regular singles match. Ah the powers of Russo. Even Cole is trying to figure out why the Corporation wouldn’t want a chance to get a title. Boss Man is still one of the only people I’ve ever seen who stands on the bottom rope for his pre-match posing.

Dogg gets shoved down to start and we get an early hair pulling complaint. I hope he files the proper paperwork for that. Or he could just punch Boss Man in the face instead. Boss Man misses a charge in the corner and gets crotched as Lawler tries to explain why this isn’t a title match. I’ll give him points for trying but it really makes no sense. Boss Man gets more aggressive but is told this isn’t a hardcore match.

The distraction lets Dogg crotch Boss Man against the post but he punches and kicks Dogg down with ease. They’re clearly trying really hard to have a regular match but neither guy seems to know how to do it. We hit a bearhug from…..well from the person you would expect to use a bearhug in this match. Dogg actually raises the roof to get the crowd on his side but gets dropped with a knee to the ribs.

The referee checking on Dogg allows Boss Man to unhook the turnbuckle pad and we’re just waiting on it to come back and cost him. Boss Man wins another slugout but gets caught in a sleeper. That goes nowhere so Dogg has to slam him off the top and it’s slugout the fourth. A flying forearm and the shaky knee get two for Dogg but he walks into the Boss Man Slam for the fast pin.

Rating: D. So their big idea was to have one of their most popular acts wrestle a style out of his element against an opponent not capable of wrestling that style and then lose. I’ve said it before but it deserves repeating: Vince Russo is really not that bright when it comes to putting together shows.

We recap Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock. Gunn had, ahem, exposed himself to to Shamrock’s sister Ryan. Ken went psycho (again) and set this up with his Intercontinental Title on the line.

Intercontinental Title: Ken Shamrock vs. Billy Gunn

Gunn is challenging but has a bad ankle coming in. Shamrock is the part of the Corporation and the other half of the Tag Team Champions. It’s actually Gunn being the aggressor to start by choking Ken down while Lawler is in full on heel mode here, completely supporting Shamrock for wanting to destroy Billy. A clothesline and delayed vertical get two for Gunn but he misses a charge and goes shoulder first into the post.

Shamrock slowly kicks away until he ducks his head and gets caught in a Fameasser for two. So what exactly is Gunn’s finisher then, as that was treated like a nothing move. Gunn misses a charge and falls out to the floor so Ken can send him hands first into the post. I say first falsely implying that any other part of his body hit the post as well.

Shamrock takes some time to jaw with the fans, allowing Billy to come back with something like a Stroke off the apron and onto the announcers’ table. Well at least that looked good. Back in and Ken starts going after the ankle nearly ten minutes into the match. We get some very slow kicks to the ankle as Cole can’t remember Gunn ever submitting. Uh, right. Anyway, Shamrock pulls him down by the hair and gets two off a fisherman’s suplex.

The referee gets bumped and a double clothesline puts Gunn and Shamrock down as well. Cue Val Venis, who had recent issues with Shamrock, to take the champion down with a DDT. Gunn makes his comeback as there are fans in towels doing Val’s gyrations in the crowd. Billy hurts his ankle again coming off the top and the ankle lock retains Ken’s title.

Rating: D+. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember a less necessary run in. It didn’t change anything and they could have done the exact same finish without Venis coming out there. On top of that, the fans are actually pretty quiet. Believe it or not, there isn’t a lot of interest in thirty five minutes of a thrown together nothing team beating one of the most popular teams of all time in back to back matches.

Shane McMahon tries to fire up his dad for tonight.

European Title: X-Pac vs. Gangrel

X-Pac is defending of course. Feeling out process to start, which isn’t the smartest move in the world for a match that isn’t likely to go more than six minutes. X-Pac quickly takes him down and drops a leg for two. It’s already time for the rapid fire kicks in the corner but the Bronco Buster only hits corner. Gangrel is smart enough to follow up with a belly to belly for two and we hit a quick chinlock.

That goes nowhere so Gangrel throws him into the air and into a big crash, only to miss a top rope…..we’ll say elbow. X-Pac starts his comeback with a pair of spinwheel kicks because he’s a man of limited awesome. The champ tries a high cross body but Gangrel rolls through for a three but the referee says two anyway.

Lawler actually has a good explanation by saying the first count was for X-Pac’s cover and the other two were for Gangrel. That’s not what happened but it’s as logical of an explanation as they were going to find. Back up and Gangrel tries to throw X-Pac into the air, only to get pulled down into the X Factor to retain the title.

Rating: C-. Actually not bad here with Gangrel being a totally serviceable worker most of the time. That being said, there’s almost no story here as the announcers didn’t have any reason for these two to be fighting. At least the fans finally had something to cheer for a change though as it’s been a lot of energy killing losses so far.

DX says they’re a family but tonight it’s every man (and woman according to Chyna) for themselves.

Here’s Shane McMahon to introduce Luna Vachon, who he says is winning the Women’s Title due to Sable having a bad back. Sable comes out and says ring the bell. I have no idea what connection Shane has to this feud and the announcers didn’t seem to bother explaining the story.

Women’s Title: Luna Vachon vs. Sable

Sable is defending and this is a strap match. Luna bails to the floor to start but gets pulled face first into the post. Back in and Sable chokes away as Shane calls Luna hot. Sable can only get two buckles though until Luna pulls her down. That earns Sable a whipping and some kicks in the corner, only to have Luna hit a quick backbreaker.

Luna starts dragging her around to three buckles with Sable slapping them as they go. Of course Luna doesn’t notice because wrestling logic is screwy. Sable flips over Luna and goes for the fourth buckle but Shane gets on the apron for a distraction, which somehow doesn’t count as a break in the momentum. Not that it matters as Sable’s insane fan jumps the barricade and decks Luna, allowing Sable to hit the fourth buckle and retain the title.

Rating: F+. I really can’t stand these gimmick matches getting less than five minutes but they’re a Russo staple. The problem here is there’s no real reason to have all these stories going on, along with no time to build up any drama and advance the story of the match. In other words, it’s too little material in too little time and it drags the whole thing down.

The Corporation debates over who gets to eliminate Austin and win the $100,000 bounty Vince has put on his head tonight.

We recap Mankind vs. the Rock. Mankind won the title on January 4 and Rock wanted a rematch. He offered various stipulations to Mankind before saying he quit trying. That was enough to get Mankind to agree because he knew he would never quit. Therefore it’s time for an I Quit match for the title. Mankind summed it up very simply with a question to Rock: “How does it feel to be in a match you can’t win and I can’t lose?”

A fired up Rock guarantees to win because he’s just that awesome. Watching Beyond the Mat has kind of ruined this for me as it showed Mankind standing about two feet away while Rock was talking here.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Mankind

Mankind is defending and this is an I Quit match. Also of note, Mankind had to face Mabel (Viscera) on Sunday Night Heat, resulting in a bad rib injury. Rock gets pounded into the corner to start and Mankind hits his running knee to the head. Some right hands won’t make Rock quit yet though so Mankind hits him with the microphone. They head outside with Mankind going knees first into the steps in one of his trademark bumps. Is there any shock that he can barely walk around today?

Rock goes over to do commentary so Mankind blasts him in the head with a chair, only to draw another no. The Mandible Claw knocks Rock mostly out but he won’t quit. Mankind tries to take him into the crowd but charges into a belly to belly right back over the barricade for a big crash. Back to ringside with Rock loading up a Rock Bottom through the Spanish announce table but it quickly breaks under their weight. Since it wasn’t really worse for either guy, Mankind is right back up and sending Rock into the post.

The fight goes up the aisle with Rock shrugging off right hands and DDTing the champ on the floor. For some reason Rock thinks it’s smart to bring in a ladder but a hard shot still won’t make Mankind quit. Rock climbs the ladder next to the technical area and Mankind follows him up to a little catwalk. A low blow stops Mankind and Rock rams him off the stand and onto the equipment, causing an explosion and the loss of the arena lights.

The match basically stops as Shane comes out but Rock says there’s not going to be a doctor because Mankind is going to quit. Mankind can barely move so Rock drags him back to the ring as this is now a much slower pace. With nothing else working, Rock handcuffs Mankind behind his back and it’s about to get ugly.

Some right hands and rams into the buckle have Mankind bleeding but he kicks Rock low to get a breather. Another low blow has Rock in trouble (and the receding hairline doesn’t do him much good either) but of course he won’t quit. A clothesline puts Mankind down and now it’s time to get scary.

Rock puts a chair over Mankind’s face for a People’s elbow but he still won’t quit. Now we get the infamous part of the match as Rock hits him a ridiculous eleven straight times in the head with Mankind not being able to defend himself in the slightest. Even Lawler says that’s enough after two shots. Mankind is completely out as Rock puts the mic to his mouth and a recording of Mankind’s voice from weeks ago says he quits to give Rock the title back.

Rating: B-. That ending is too much to take and is almost more brutal than the Cell match against Undertaker. The beating just kept going and going with Mankind looking weaker and weaker every time. Apparently Rock hit him about three times as much as he was supposed to and Foley’s family was terrified (justly so) over what they saw. The rest of the match is good enough but the ending is one of the scariest things you’ll ever see in wrestling, or anywhere for that matter.

We recap Austin vs. Vince which just happens to be taking place in the Royal Rumble. There’s no secret about the fact that this is all about those two and to be fair that’s the only thing anyone wanted to see. Austin is #1 and Vince is #2, meaning we’re going to see them for at least ninety seconds. Vince has also put a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s head, in case you didn’t have enough stories going on yet.

Also earlier tonight, Austin crushed some cars with his monster truck and then beat up the Stooges in the arena. I’m not sure what that adds to anything but it’s a thing that happened. As usual, such is life in Russo’s WWF.

Royal Rumble

Austin is in at #1 and Vince is in at #2 and the intervals are ninety seconds. Fink takes FOREVER to do the full rules and Lawler is telling him to shut up. Fair point too as he’s explaining what does and does not constitute eliminations. Of note here, we get the debut of Vince’s chiseled physique which was a real shock as no one had ever seen his arms before. Austin pounds away to start (shocking I know) but opts not to throw Vince out as Golga (Earthquake in a mask as part of the Oddities, which is one of the most bizarre character changes I’ve ever seen) is in at #3.

Golga goes after Austin but gets dumped in fifteen seconds. Vince bails under the ropes and goes into the crowd to give us a chase scene. They fight into the concourse as Droz is #4 and this is where the match starts to fall apart. If Austin and Vince are going to fight through the back, why have Golga get eliminated when you could do Golga vs. Droz? It’s not much (save for a battle of really strange names) but at the moment, the fans in the arena are paying to see Droz stand around doing absolutely nothing.

This is even more proof that Russo is a good idea man but has no idea how to run an actual show. It’s not even a complicated concept: you need to give the fans something to watch. I know there are more people on the other side of the camera but you can’t forget the people who paid money to come see you. It’s poor planning and shows a severe lack of thinking, which is Russo in part of a nutshell.

Speaking of Russo, we see Austin getting beaten down by the Corporation until the camera cuts off. That means we cut back to Droz who is….standing there. Yeah this is really what you’re paying to see: a guy standing in the ring doing nothing. Edge comes in at #5 to give us something but the fans are now dead because they’ve lost Austin and Vince (neither of whom were eliminated) but they’re stuck with two uninteresting guys that have no chance of winning.

After nothing of note, here’s Gillberg (with full Goldberg entrance) at #6 to keep this stupid. Gillberg is out in just a few seconds as we cut to Austin unconscious in the ladies room. Steve Blackman is in at #7 as Austin is stretchered out. The clock is flying by now as they need to get some action going to revive the crowd. Dan Severn is in at #8 as the lack of star power is already making this horrible.

We see Austin going into the ambulance, which to be fair is more interesting than four nothings (remember that Edge wasn’t a big thing for a long time to come) wasting time in the ring. Tiger Ali Singh, one of the biggest misfires you’ll ever seen, is in at #9. Blue Meanie is in at #10 and we’re somehow a third of the way through this.

After Austin and Vince, the biggest name in the match so far has been…..geez I guess Droz. What this match needed was a midcard act to clean out the deadwood (Shamrock perhaps) until some popular act (maybe the Outlaws) came in to balance him out. Put Shamrock in at about #8 and the Outlaws in at about #13 and #16 respectfully, then pick up the pace again later on. But no, let’s have this huge bunch of nothing in the ring to kill the crowd until we get back to Austin vs. Vince at the end because Heaven forbid Russo come up with anything besides one idea.

There’s no one at #11 but we cut to the back (again) to see Mabel destroying Mosh and taking his spot. Blackman and Severn are quickly put out with Singh following them a few seconds later. Road Dogg is in at #12 to FINALLY give the fans someone they care about. Meanie is dumped as well, leaving us Edge, Mabel and Road Dogg in the ring.

Edge is eliminated a few seconds later but there go the lights because we haven’t had an angle in a few seconds. It’s the Ministry of Darkness (is there a reason Undertaker isn’t on this card?) to eliminate Mabel and here’s Undertaker to hypnotize him, leading to Mabel becoming Viscera. Therefore, we have ANOTHER lull as Dogg is all alone.

Gangrel is in at #13 and doesn’t last thirty seconds, giving us the third lull of the first half of the match. Add that to the fact that save for Austin and McMahon who haven’t been seen in twenty minutes, the first eleven entrants are already gone, making the first third of the match completely worthless. Kurrgan is in at #14 and beats on the Dogg until Al Snow is in at #15, only to be eliminated in less than a minute.

Goldust is in at #16 to interrupt Dogg vs. Kurrgan II. Dogg knocks both of them down and gets the fans breathing again with a SUCK IT. Here’s Godfather at #17 as it occurs to me that three of these people will be Intercontinental Champion in less than three months. They go from boring everyone here to having a title in that span of time. Again, only Russo.

Kane is in at #18 to FINALLY give us someone who might have a prayer of a chance at winning this thing. He clears the ring in thirty seconds but here are people from the mental institution to reclaim Kane, who eliminates himself and runs through the crowd. So yeah, we now have NO ONE IN THE RING, meaning that when Shamrock comes in at #19, he has nothing to do but stand around as we wait for an opponent. Oh wait Vince comes back to do commentary as we’re just sitting around.

As we wait, allow me to point out that save for the first two, the first eighteen entrants have all been eliminated, making nearly two thirds of the match completely worthless. Billy Gunn comes in at #20, wearing one boot. Heaven forbid we get anything going through as Shamrock takes him down with a kick to the bad ankle. Gunn throws him into the corner for a break but Ken goes after the ankle again.

Test is in at #21 but let’s cut to Mabel being put in a hearse. As luck would have it, an ambulance pulls in with Austin driving, because he was able to wake up, commandeer the ambulance, and drive back here in the span of half an hour. We FINALLY go back to the ring where Gunn low blows both guys. Big Boss Man is in at #22 to line up the Corporation members for Austin, who comes down and chases Vince off. Shamrock is quickly dumped and Vince is back on commentary.

It’s HHH at #23 as you can see the star power starting up because we couldn’t have them in there earlier in the match because of whatever reasons. People start taking worthless shots at Austin, who blasts Gunn with a hard clothesline. Val Venis is in at #24 and Austin dumps Gunn, giving us Vince, Austin, Test, Venis, Boss Man and HHH. X-Pac is in at #25 as Lawler wants to know why no one is going after Austin. Fair point, but the answer would be “because the script says they shouldn’t.”

X-Pac kicks Austin in the face and it’s Mark Henry at #26 to a far bigger reaction than you would expect. Jeff Jarrett is in at #27 as there’s just nothing going on between these entrants. The stupidity continues as X-Pac is the only one going after Austin and it’s likely not even due to the money. D’Lo Brown is #28, still feeling guilty for making Terri Runnels suffer a miscarriage. Austin easily dumps Test and Boss Man gets rid of X-Pac a few seconds later.

Henry clotheslines HHH and Jarrett goes after Austin, prompting Vince to praise him in something that sounds bizarre today. HHH gets rid of Jarrett and it’s Owen Hart taking his place at #29. Owen and Brown double team Austin until HHH makes the save, presumably to get all the money for himself. Austin slips to the floor and throws water at Vince. Chyna is the first woman in the history of the Rumble at #30 and immediately dumps Henry. That earns her an elimination from Austin and we’re down to Austin, Vince, HHH, Venis, Brown, Boss Man and Owen.

We get Austin vs. HHH in a fall preview but HHH has to eliminate Venis. Austin uses the distraction to Stun HHH and toss him, leaving us with four in the ring. Brown misses a dropkick on Austin (why are these two fighting in the final five of the Royal Rumble?) and everything slows down AGAIN. Owen enziguris Austin but gets backdropped out. Boss Man punches Austin down and D’Lo hits the Low Down, only to have Boss Man throw him out.

A Stunner is enough to get rid of Boss Man and we’re down to Austin vs. Vince. Well of course we are. They fight on the floor (read as Austin beats him up even more) before Vince hits a quick low blow instead. That earns him a Stunner but Rock comes out for a distraction, allowing Vince to dump Austin and win the Rumble.

Rating: F. Do I even need to explain this one? You had Austin, possibly at the peak of his popularity, and even he couldn’t get anything out of the fans. It’s further proof that you can’t just treat your fans like garbage the entire night and then expect them to pop for your one idea.

On top of that, these shows continue to not be able to hold up. Can you imagine if this happened today? No one would buy Vince as keeping the title shot because there was no way that could happen. This result was designed to get people to watch Raw the next night to see how Austin was going to get out of this one. That’s fine at the time, but it really doesn’t hold up on a second viewing in the slightest.

It really is amazing when you consider that Russo somehow put together the worst Royal Rumble ever, followed by maybe the worst Wrestlemania of all time just two months later. Why in the world would someone think that he should be given even more power and authority? This was one of the biggest disasters I’ve ever seen and it’s almost painful to sit through all over again.

Shane and the Stooges come out to celebrate, meaning it’s time for beers. This goes on for a bit until a two minute highlight package takes us out.

Overall Rating: F+. Let’s recap here. On a six match card, you had two face wins with X-Pac and Gangrel. In other words, the face wins came in the most meaningless matches on the card. As I said in the redos of some WCW pay per views, you have to give the fans something to cheer for. This was one of the worst major shows I can remember in a long time and it’s almost all because of Russo not knowing how to write a wrestling show. This is one of those rare shows with almost nothing positive going on and it’s really amazing that they actually put this on and expected people to be entertained.

Ratings Comparison

Big Boss Man vs. Road Dogg

Original: C-

2013 Redo: C-

2016 Redo: D

Ken Shamrock vs. Billy Gunn

Original: D+

2013 Redo: C+

2016 Redo: D+

X-Pac vs. Gangrel

Original: B-

2013 Redo: C+

2016 Redo: C-

Sable vs. Luna Vachon

Original: F

2013 Redo: D

2016 Redo: F+

The Rock vs. Mankind

Original: B

2013 Redo: B

2016 Redo: B-

Royal Rumble

Original: F

2013 Redo: F

2016 Redo: F

Overall Rating

Original: D-

2013 Redo: D

2016 Redo: F+

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/18/royal-rumble-count-up-1999-please-make-it-stop/

And the original redo:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2013/01/12/royal-rumble-count-up-2013-redo-1999-disturbing-to-watch-for-multiple-reasons/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 1999
Date: January 24, 1999
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 14,816
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole

As much as last year’s show was a necessary evil, this show is just evil in general. The company is firing on all cylinders right now but it’s much more about drama than anything else. Mankind won the world title in a shocker 20 days before this, beating the Rock in an impromptu match on Raw. Tonight is the rematch in an I Quit match, which is the only match Mankind knows he can’t lose to Rock. It turns out to be one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen in wrestling. Also the Rumble is nothing but a backdrop for Austin vs. Vince, which isn’t a good thing either. Let’s get to it.

Luckily for me, I’ve been reviewing the Raw’s leading up to this show, so the stories will actually be fresh in my mind for a change.

This version opens with some interviews by guys in the Rumble, talking about how the bounty on Austin (Vince has offered $100,000 to whoever knocks Austin out) has them extra fired up. Chyna getting #30 is also discussed.

Opening video is what you would expect. Also the theme song for this show is No Chance, which would become Vince’s theme song after tonight. The idea is that Austin is #1 in the Rumble and Vince is #2, meaning if Austin wants to go to Wrestlemania, he has to run the gauntlet.

Big Boss Man vs. Road Dogg

Roadie is Hardcore Champion but this is non-title and a regular match. Dang it I forgot Boss Man is a tag champion here so I can’t call one of them a champion. Boss Man runs the ropes to start so Roadie tells him to suck it. The fans get on Boss Man so he shoves Road Dogg into the corner and pounds away. The Big guy misses a splash in the corner and Dogg pounds away. The announcers ask a very good question: why isn’t this for the title? Vince could make it for the title if he wanted, but instead he makes it non-title? Why?

Anyway, Road Dogg crotches Boss Man on the post to take over but gets knocked to the floor by an elbow. Back in and Boss Man pounds away but Dogg steps on his foot to escape. That lasts for about five seconds as Boss Man kicks him in the face to take over again. We hit the bearhug and Boss Man thrusts his hips into Dogg’s crotch. There’s an image I certainly didn’t need.

Dogg bites his way out of the hold but gets kneed right back down. The buckle pad is taken off and Boss Man gets two off a spinebuster. Boss Man wins a brief slugout and chokes away again. Lawler cheers for Boss Man but Dogg grabs a sleeper to get himself a breather. Boss Man goes up for some reason and is slammed down almost immediately. Dogg comes back with his usual and gets two off the shaky knee, but the Boss Man Slam ends this out of nowhere.

Rating: C-. Meh. That’s the only word that came to my head after watching this. At the end of the day, when the Outlaws play things seriously, they get pretty dull. Boss Man was fine in this role and he played it as he always did, but that doesn’t mean he should be having twelve minute matches with the Road Dogg. Not a bad match at all, but I don’t quite get why it existed.

We get a quick recap of Billy Gunn vs. Shamrock. Gunn hit on Ryan Shamrock (Ken’s sister) and Ken snapped, giving Billy a title shot for some reason as a result.

Intercontinental Title: Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock

Surprisingly enough Gunn is the aggressor to start but Ken is a bit of a better ground fighter, giving himself control. Billy comes back with a clothesline on the double (tag/IC) champion as things slow down. A suplex gets two for Gunn but he misses a charge into the corner, allowing Ken to fire off some kicks. Ken fires off more kicks to the chest and back of Gunn and gets two off a spinwheel kick.

Billy comes back out of nowhere with the yet to be named Fameasser to buy himself a breather. He pounds away in the corner but Shamrock dumps him to the floor before pounding Billy into the barricade. The beating continues as Gunn is sent into a chair to keep Shamrock in control. They fight to the apron where Gunn makes a quick comeback, hitting a kind of Stroke into the announce table.

Back in and Shamrock goes right for the knee to take over. No ankle lock yet though as Ken busts out a Robinsdale Crunch of all things. Well if nothing else he has good taste in leg moves. For those of you younger people, it’s basically Shamrock wrapping his legs around Billy’s leg and crushing it between his own knees/legs. A HARD kick to the head puts Billy down again and we hear about Billy’s bad ankle from Raw. Not that he has tape on it or has been limping for the first ten minutes of the match or anything, but apparently he has a bad ankle.

Billy comes back with a clothesline but the referee is bumped. Cue Val Venis who also has issues with Shamrock to DDT the champion, giving Billy a two count. Gunn pounds away but goes up (with a bad ankle because he’s an idiot) and crashes on the ankle. Ankle lock and we’re done.

Rating: D+. Too long here and the Venis thing didn’t change anything at all. Billy’s ankle injury was pretty stupid because you didn’t really need the stuff from Raw to set up what happened here. Shamrock got a solid midcard push around this time and even had some cups of upper midcard coffee (only $5.95 at Starbucks!). The Corporation and DX would keep feuding for a few more months.

Shane fires Vince up in the back.

European Title: Gangrel vs. X-Pac

The vampire is challenging. This is another of those matches that is there so they can have another title match on the card, meaning there’s no story that I can think of. Road Dogg might have gotten a blood bath recently but that’s about it. They hit the ropes very quickly to start with Pac grabbing an armdrag to take over. Gangrel grabs a headlock but they speed things up almost immediately again.

Pac hits a quick legdrop but misses a kick in the corner to shift momentum again. We hit the chinlock to give the guys an earned breather. The champ fights up and gets thrown into the air for two. Gangrel misses a top rope elbow and Pac gets two off his jumping clothesline. A big spinwheel kick takes Gangrel down again and X-Pac hits the Bronco Buster.

The third spinwheel kick in about four minutes takes Gangrel down, but Pac gets crotched on the top, continuing a theme tonight. Pac tries a cross body but Gangrel rolls him through for a botched near fall by referee Teddy Long (he countered three but Pac’s shoulder was up). Not that it matters as the X Factor retains the title a few seconds later.

Rating: C+. Referee’s botch aside, this was a nice surprise. Gangrel is hardly known for his in ring abilities but he looked pretty good out there tonight. Pac was better here against a smaller guy as usual, and we got a good match out of it. After the two longer and not great matches earlier, this was a nice pick up.

DX says they’re united tonight but the $100,000 bounty makes it every man (Chyna: “And woman”) for themselves. Billy was nowhere to be seen here for some reason.

Here’s Shane to be ring announcer for the next match for no apparent reason.

Women’s Title: Luna Vachon vs. Sable

Scratch that ring announcer line as apparently he’s here to accept Sable’s forfeiture of the title. This was supposed to be a strap match which had a total of 18 seconds of build on Raw. That’s not an exaggeration either. They came out during another match and that was the only mention. Luna attacked Sable on Heat before the show tonight and injured the champ’s back, but Sable wants to fight anyway.

This is the four corners variety so Sable can look TOUGH here. Sable shoves her into the corner and whips Luna to the floor. She keeps whipping Luna and gets three corners but Luna makes the stop. We get more choking and whipping before Luna drags Sable around with both of them getting the buckles at the same time. You know, like in every other strap match EVER. Shane gets up on the apron before Sable gets the buckle, but Sable’s psycho fan Tori uses the distraction to deck Luna, giving sable the win.

Rating: D. Sable was insanely over back in 98, but at this point it was starting to wear thin. I always felt sorry for Luna who never got to win the Women’s Title. She really would have been a good choice for an evil chick for some blonde heroine to beat, but instead we got worthless lumps like Jackie. Nothing to see here but it could have been worse.

The Corporation says it’s everyone for themselves.

We recap Rock vs. Mankind, which we’ve covered already. Rock lost the title on January 4 on Raw so he wanted a rematch. Mankind kept saying no until Rock said he’d quit trying, which Mankind immediately accepted. The idea is that Mankind has never quit and has been through so much punishment that there’s nothing Rock can do to beat him.

Rock says that he isn’t just some other guy to Mankind, and he’s going to be the first man to make Mankind give up. If you’ve never seen it and have a stomach for blood, I can highly recommend the documentary Beyond the Mat, which is about the behind the scenes world in the WWF and this match is a focus of the film. This promo was being filmed by the documentary cameras and Mankind was about three feet from Rock here. More on this later.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Mankind

I Quit rules here. Rock is in his workout gear, which means his male breast enlargement surgery scars haven’t quite healed yet. There isn’t a single bit of sarcasm or humor in that statement. Mankind is defending and had to fight on Heat against the 500lb Mabel. Also the champ has recently gotten his most well known theme song, but it’s still the original version here which doesn’t have the clapping in it yet.

Mankind takes over early and hits his running knee to Rock’s head in the corner. He pounds away on Rock but Rock isn’t ready to quit yet. Some mic shots to the head keep Rock down but he still won’t say it. The Cactus Clothesline puts both guys on the floor but Rock gets in a shot to take over. They head to the commentary desk where Rock talks some trash to King before getting hit in the back by a chair.

Back in and there’s the double arm DDT from the champ. Mr. Socko makes an appearance to put the Claw on Rock. King: “But you can’t talk with your mouth full!” The hold puts Rock out, meaning he can’t say he quits. Not the smartest move in the world there Mick. We brawl into the crowd but Rock hits a kind of suplex to take them back to ringside. There’s the bell ringing spot (Rock puts the bell on Mankind’s head and rings said bell) before singing a bit as only Rock can pull off in the middle of a match.

Rock loads up the Rock Bottom on the table but it gives way, crashing them to the floor. They slug it out some more and head up the aisle where Mankind clotheslines Rock down. Up to the tech area now and Rock hits the snap DDT onto the concrete. It’s ladder time (almost kind of foreshadowing in a way) but Rock gets crushed underneath it before he can use it. Mankind misses an elbow drop onto the ladder and both guys are down again.

Rock sets up the ladder next to the tech area and they climb up to a ledge in front of a balcony. The slugout ensues and Mankind is knocked off the ledge and onto the electrical stuff which shoots sparks and knocks out the arena lights for a few seconds. Mankind is mostly dead on the floor so here’s Shane to come out and ask Rock to chill a bit. Rock says he’s going to make Mankind say he quits, but he won’t ask him. You know, because Mankind isn’t going to say it and Rock knows this. Cole of course doesn’t get it and whines for about five minutes about it.

We head back into the ring where Mankind is basically out on the mat. Cole: “How is Mick Foley standing?” HE’S FREAKING LAY…..never mind. It’s not worth trying to get through Cole’s thick head. Anyway, Rock finds some handcuffs and this is about to get bad. Rock starts pounding away at Mankind’s unprotected head. Somewhere in there the champ was busted open.

Mankind comes back with a pair of low blows and headbutts (remember his arms are handcuffed behind his back). Rock clotheslines him down….and grabs a chair. We get the Corporate Elbow on the chair on Mankind’s head, but that’s just the beginning. Mick won’t quit, so Rocky hits him in the head (remember, unprotected) twice with HARD chair shots. Here are three more to finally knock Mankind down and out to the floor.

Even Lawler says that’s enough, but Rock hits Mankind in the back and side of the head with the chair. There is blood EVERYWHERE. Rock has a clear shot at Mankind’s back but instead waits for him to stand up and hit him in the head again. ANOTHER shot (we’re up to about 12 now) to the head puts Foley down and Mankind SCREAMS that he quits. Note that Mankind isn’t moving an inch and there’s a noticeable echo to his voice which there hasn’t been all night. That would come into play on Raw the next night.

Rating: B. This is a REALLY hard one to grade because the last five minutes are nothing but disturbing. We saw a guy completely defenseless and having his head smashed in with a piece of metal by a world class athlete. Pre Benoit or post Benoit, that’s a completely unnecessary risk and a terrifying thing to see. I love these two fighting, but this was legitimately disturbing.

Again, if you’ve never seen it, check out Beyond the Mat. It shows Mankind’s wife and family in the audience in terror watching this, but you can only hear the sound of the chair shots. If it was a horror movie it would be absolutely chilling. Also it shows Foley in the back looking at himself after the beating and the first time he looks in a mirror he stops almost cold. This went WAY too far.

We recap the Rumble, which is literally all about Vince vs. Austin and Austin’s path back to the title which begins tonight. Vince keeps screwing Austin out of the title but he’s kept coming back to get another shot. That’s most of the year in a nutshell actually.

Earlier tonight Austin came in on a monster truck limo for no apparent reason. He got in Vince’s face earlier as well, resulting in the Stooges getting beaten up.

Royal Rumble

There’s a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s head and we have Austin at #1 and Vince at #2. I think you can see what’s coming from here. The intervals are 90 seconds here. Howard goes into a REALLY long winded explanation of the rules, causing Lawler to freak out on him. Vince of course takes the chance to show off his impressive physique. Austin immediately pounds away as Cole sums up Vince vs. Austin: “How often do you get to see an employee rip the CEO of a Fortune 500 company apart?”

Austin destroys Vince for a few moments with basic stuff until Golga is #3. There’s the Thesz Press and Golga slides in but Austin knocks him out in 15 seconds. Vince rolls to the floor and heads into the crowd with Austin chasing after him. They brawl (read as Austin punches him and Vince staggers away) up the crowd as there’s no one in the ring. Droz comes in at #4 with no one to fight. See, why did Golga have to be eliminated? It doesn’t sound great but having Droz vs. Golga is better than nothing.

Anyway, Vince and Austin brawl into the back and into a ladies’ room where the Corporation jumps Austin. Naturally the camera feed is lost so we don’t see what actually happens. We come back to the arena to see Droz just standing there. The years away from meaning anything Edge is #5 to actually give us some action. After about 45 seconds, Gillberg is #6. The hilarious entrance takes forever and Edge dumps him in about five seconds.

We cut back to the bathroom and Austin is out cold on the floor. Steve Blackman is #7 as the low level stuff continues. I mean, at the end of the day NO ONE in the ring at the moment is going to be bought as a serious contender here. Austin is being treated by EMTs as Blackman fires off kicks to Edge. Dan Severn and his wet t-shirt are #8. He and Blackman have the WWF style MMA fight as we see Austin on a stretcher. That’s about the fourth time we’ve cut to Austin and away from the ring.

Tiger Ali Singh (think an Indian Ted DiBiase with ZERO charisma) is #9 as we see the ambulance drive away. The five nothings in the ring continue to waste our time until Blue Meanie is #10. Again in way less than 90 seconds, there’s no #11. We cut to the back (running theme tonight) and see Mabel beating up Mosh to take his place in the match. He immediately dumps Severn and Blackman plus Singh. There go Meanie and Droz, leaving us with Edge, Mabel and Road Dogg who is #12. Road Dogg dumps Edge and there go the lights.

Taker’s music hits and we have the Acolytes and Mideon in the ring beating up Mabel. They dump him out, yet AGAIN leaving us with just one person standing there. Taker and Bearer pop up and stare down Mabel, apparently hypnotizing him, which would lead to Mabel becoming Viscera. Gangrel is #13 with his rocking entrance music. There goes Gangrel so we stand around a bit more.

Kurrgan is #14 and destroys Dogg with power stuff. Psycho Al Snow is #15 and helps double team Kurrgan. Snow tries to get on the ropes for more leverage and is immediately dumped by Dogg. Goldust is #16 and Kurrgan gets double teamed again. With the big man down, Roadie tries Shattered Dreames on Goldie. Kurrgan saves Goldust for no apparent reason and it’s Dogg that goes down instead.

Godfather is #17 but the Ho’s leave, ticking off the fans. After about 30 seconds of Godfather being in the ring, here’s Kane at #18 to FINALLY give us some star power. The ring is cleared in about 30 seconds and the place goes nuts for Kane. Since having Kane as a dominant monster to set up a showdown with another big name would be interesting, the people from the insane asylum come out to try to institutionalize Kane (just go with it), so he eliminates himself.

Shamrock is #19 with no one to fight. Vince comes back out to do commentary. Billy Gunn limps to the ring at #20 and is immediately taken down with a leg shot. The beating goes on for awhile until Test is #21. We cut to the back (AGAIN) to see Mabel being beaten into a hearse. An ambulance pulls up and it’s being drive by a certain bald headed Rattlesnake. Because clearly a guy can be beaten down, wake up less than 20 minutes later, get out of an ambulance bed, take over the ambulance, and get back to the arena in under half an hour.

Austin comes back to the ring as Boss Man is #22. Austin chases Vince around and into the ring but gets jumped by Shamrock. That’s it for Kenny so here’s HHH at #23, giving us three tall guys with long blonde hair. Billy goes after Austin for the sake of the money as Vince plays cheerleader. Vince tries not to slip into commentator mode as he talks about people wanting the money.

Val Venis is #24 and Austin dumps Billy. X-Pac is #25 and Val pounds on Austin. He kicks Steve to the floor as we’re just waiting on the Austin and Vince interaction. A spinwheel kick from Pac puts Austin down as Mark Henry is #26. Henry swings for Austin but decks Boss Man instead. Jeff Jarrett is #27 and nothing happens again. Pac kicks at a lot of people and hits the Bronco Buster on Boss Man.

In a somewhat famous bit, HHH is clearly heard asking Val if he can hang on if HHH throws him over the ropes. After that punch to kayfabe’s stomach, D’Lo Brown is #28. Austin dumps Test and X-Pac to give us some more mat space. Boss Man and Jarrett team up to try to eliminate Austin but he fights them off again. There goes Jarrett as Owen Hart is #29. Austin spits at Vince as the ring is way too full.

Chyna is #30, giving us a final group of Chyna, Austin, Vince, Boss Man, HHH, Venis, Henry, Brown, Hart and Chyna. Chyna manages to dump Henry but is knocked out almost immediately by Austin. HHH throws Val out to get us down to five. There’s a Stunner to dump HHH and get us down to five guys. Austin avoids a dropkick from Brown and they fight in the corner a bit.

Owen hits the enziguri on Austin and is backdropped out just a few seconds later. Boss Man takes Austin down and Brown hits the Low Down. Brown poses too long though and Boss Man tosses him, only to get tossed by Austin. We’re down to Austin vs. McMahon and the beating is on. Austin destroys Vince with a chair shot and the boss is in big trouble. We head back inside and Vince hits a quick low blow to give himself a breather. Austin comes back with the Stunner and beats on Vince until Rock comes out. Rock and Austin have their staredown, allowing Vince to dump Austin and win the Rumble.

Rating: F. No. This was a failure on every level. The premise was stupid, the execution was TERRIBLE, and Vince winning makes the whole thing a big joke. We had THREE part where the booking resulted in the ring being empty. Who in the world thought that was a goo….oh yeah this is still Russo Time. Absolutely horrible here and the worst Rumble of all time, pretty much by far.

Vince has a BIG celebration to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. The Rumble SUCKED, the title match was decent, and the rest of the show was either bad or forgettable. That’s more or less 1999 in a nutshell. On top of that, this would all mean NOTHING by the next week, as we had Halftime Heat coming up to give Mankind the title back, as well as Vince forfeiting his title shot at Mania, resulting in Austin going anyway. Just awful overall.

Ratings Comparison

Big Boss Man vs. Road Dogg

Original: C-

Redo: C-

Ken Shamrock vs. Billy Gunn

Original: D+

Redo: C+

X-Pac vs. Gangrel

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Sable vs. Luna Vachon

Original: F

Redo: D

The Rock vs. Mankind

Original: B

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: F

Redo: F

Overall Rating

Original: D-

Redo: D

It still sucks.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/18/royal-rumble-count-up-1999-please-make-it-stop/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

Royal Rumble 1999
Date: January 24, 1999
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 14,800
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

The company is in full control of the Monday Night Wars at this point as WCW is managing to find ways previously unimaginable to mess up their company. We’re about three weeks after the Fingerpoke of Doom here, so to say the people are annoyed with WCW is an understatement. In essence, the WWF has a free show here where they can more or less do whatever they want as long as the ending works and they’ll be praised for it.

Your two big things going on at the moment are obviously Vince vs. Austin and then the great but kind of forgotten feud of Mankind, the reigning WWF Champion here, vs. Rock in the I Quit match. The company has also started to shape itself for the future, as people like the Hardys, Edge and Christian, Val Venis and Test are all around now.

They’re not a big deal yet, but it’s coming. There’s a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s head from Vince tonight in the Rumble, so it’s in essence Austin vs. the world. That sounds decent so let’s get to it.

Personal story: on this night I was coming home from Winchester which was 30 minutes from Lexington. Halfway my dad’s car broke down and we had to walk an hour to get to a house to use a phone and I missed the show. The feed was messed up so the show didn’t air anyway but I was ticked. My dad had said that the car having 250,000 miles on it wasn’t a problem at all and he didn’t need a mechanic. Good to know pop.

Before we start we get an exclusive interview with Road Dogg saying he’s working twice tonight. Boss Man says he wants the bounty. He never should be allowed to talk. Mark Henry wants the money as well. Jarrett uses the term storylines which just doesn’t sound right for some reason. Him talking about Austin is just amusing as Austin is the reason Jarrett is gone from the company forever.

Allegedly Jarrett and Austin were in a smaller company together once and Austin wasn’t happy with his pay and he was looking at his check one night. Jarrett said that it’s not going to get any bigger by staring at it, which Austin took as Jarrett saying Austin wasn’t working hard enough.

Austin got the top spot in the WWF and made sure Jarrett was never allowed back. Once WCW went under, Jarrett started TNA since he had nowhere else to go. Cornette talks about Chyna being #30 and says she’s in for a surprise but never says that she can’t do it which is a nice little touch.

The video says that Austin has No Chance, which is also the theme song for tonight. In case you didn’t know, that’s where Vince got the song from. Oh I forgot: Shawn was Commissioner at this time. Austin will be #1 and Vince will be #2 in the Rumble so there we are. Vince’s acting was pretty good back then actually. After our standard intros we’re ready to go.

Road Dogg vs. Big Boss Man

Roadie is face now while Boss Man is head of security for Vince’s Corporate Team. I swear you needed a scorecard to keep track of all this stuff back in the day. Dogg gets a hugs pop here as he’s got the intro down. He’s hardcore champion here but this is nontitle. Dogg wasn’t a great wrestler, but he found something that worked for him and he RAN with it.

Boss Man and Shamrock are tag champions here but they would lose them the next night to Jarrett and Owen. Boss Man tries to scare him and is told what to do which involves an imbibing of Road Dogg’s….yeah. The crowd is way hot here. In something unrelated, Mankind got beaten up in a match with Mable on Heat that will come into play later. The announcers can’t figure out why the Corporation didn’t make this for the Hardcore Title.

Naturally this is mostly a brawl, which granted I guess makes sense given who is in there. Lawler asks if Cole ever exercises his right to be silent. Cole transitions into saying Vince has been exercising to get ready for tonight. Wow. This is more or less all Boss Man. While choking Road Dogg on the ropes, Boss Man shouts to Lawler. He’s WAY too loud here and is clearly miked up. Jerry is full blown heel here which is what he was best at so there we are.

Roadie starts his comeback and hits the really stupid three punches called the Shake Rattle and Roll for two because no one with any self esteem would get pinned by that. Boss Man hits the slam out of nowhere for the pin. I mean he was down and being covered and Road Dogg came off the ropes and got hit with it.

Cole offers a pearl of wisdom by saying that this would have been different had it been under hardcore rules. In other words, he’s saying if it had been different it would have been different. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the voice of Raw!

Rating: C-. It was kind of long but very standard stuff. There’s nothing special here, which I think was kind of the problem. Either way, I think this worked pretty well given what they had as Boss Man was little more than a joke while Road Dogg was a gimmick wrestler. Given what they had to work with, this went as well as possible.

We get a quick recap of Billy vs. Shamrock. More or less, Billy hit on Shamrock’s very hot “sister” to get us this match.

Intercontinental Title: Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock

So wait. Why did they go with the two singles matches here? You have the most popular tag team in the company and have them face the tag champions in back to back singles matches? I get that the titles were going to Owen and Jeff the next night, but you couldn’t have a cheating heel win here? The Outlaws were always better as a team, yet they’re going single here. I don’t understand that one at all.

Shamrock had some great facials most of the time. He looked freaking insane and it helped his character a lot. After some bad punches to start, Cole says that a clothesline Shamrock hits was unreal. No, I’m pretty sure he hit him with it. Less than two minutes into this and we’re in a chinlock. That can’t be a good sign. Ken literally kicks Gunn to the floor. After going outside and Billy literally missing the post, we go through about 8 minutes of pure average stuff.

It’s not great, it’s not horrible, but it’s just average all around. That means it’s kind of interesting but at the same time you might as well not even be watching at all. In a move that stuns, yes STUNS I say, the world, the referee goes down. They desperately tried to make Gunn a big deal time after time and it never worked, just like here. Venis runs out and nails Shamrock because they were also feuding over his sister.

I can’t blame them as she was hot. Billy somehow botches a running splash. How can you do that? He jumped early I think. How is that possible? After going to the top and missing, Billy hurts his ankle. Guess what happens. Ok so let’s see: storyline based on sex, rather pointless run in, illogical booking as Gunn had all the momentum in the world coming up to this, and an overly long brawl. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this was a Russo match. And by George, IT WAS!

Rating: D+. Again, this was the same as the last one was: kind of pointless. Why did these guys need almost 15 minutes? Why not just give the fans what they want, as in the Outlaws as a team? There’s zero reason here to have them both in singles matches here when another team is going to get the title shot the next night. Why not, maybe Owen and Jeff get singles matches here? Are you telling me that Owen vs. Shamrock wouldn’t be better than Shamrock vs. Billy?

In the back the Stooges and Shane are trying to pump up Vince. The heat here on Vince is unreal.

European Title: Gangrel vs. X-Pac

Don’t waste your time looking for a reason for this as it doesn’t exist. Random title matches aren’t always bad though. Good grief that music was beyond awesome. Take that New Moon. It’s coming out in two days so I’m a bit annoyed with it. This feels like a match from Attitude or War Zone or something. Those are way old school video games in case you don’t know those names. It’s weird to think that Gangrel was the leader of the Brood yet has had by far the least success.

Both of these guys have a thing for sucking so at least there’s a theme. X-Pac is called the greatest European Champion ever. I’m not touching that one. We have our first heart reference. I’m actually liking this match. They’re keeping it simple, which is what I think this title is best at. It never really was a huge deal but it was played well I think. Gangrel is limited in the ring so they’re keeping it simple. Naturally that’s all thrown out the window with another big heart reference and the Bronco Buster.

I hate that move. It looks stupid, it wouldn’t be that effective, and above all else: IT LOOKS FREAKING STUPID! Seriously, what was the appeal of that thing? X-Pac shows off his versatile offense by using his third spin kick in less than 4 minutes.

We get a decent little screw up from Teddy Long as Gangrel reverses a cross body and Long accidentally counts three with Pac’s shoulder up at about two and a quarter. He waves it off and the fans just let him have it. Soon thereafter we finish as Gangrel tries to throw Pac into the air but he counters with a huge X Factor to end it. Sweet ending there.

Rating: B-. This was actually good. They did the smart thing here and kept it simple which is the best solution sometimes. Why over complicate something that’s fine the way it is? It was a decent time at just under five minutes and for a token title match, this was just fine.

DX is in the back and say that tonight it’s every man for himself. Chyna, who I would do lots of evil things to if she looked like that now, says or woman for herself.

Shane comes out to pure generic music as No Chance wasn’t the official song yet. He introduces Luna. For some reason he hated Sable at this time for no apparent reason.

Women’s Title: Sable vs. Luna

This is a strap match. Why is it a strap match? I don’t have the slightest clue but that’s the Attitude Era for you. Luna hurt Sable earlier so apparently we have no match. Sable’s bad acting is almost funny. She just won the title in a match where again it was all about her being pretty and having nothing to do with talent or anything like that. Luna was good in the ring but she never got a freaking run with the title because of the witches like Sable.

Sable says the match is on, making the segment with Shane completely pointless. Oh geez it’s a corners match so this could be awhile. It’s very difficult not to make strap on jokes here. Shane says this is about Sable taking advantage of his father. I shudder to think of what that might imply.

Since this is a strap match, the ending is one person touching all three corners with the other following and doing the same then the ending. In this case, Tori, who was just known as Sable’s stalker at this point, nails Luna to keep the belt on Sable and keeping us all in this hell world.

Rating: F. There was nothing of note here and we had to put up with Luna’s unshapely figure. It wasn’t much at all and lasted like 4 minutes. This was a waste of time with Sable of course being made to look great as she always did.

In the back the Corporation is talking about the match tonight. Shamrock is REALLY short.

We hit the recap of Rock and Mankind. The idea here is that Mankind took the title in the night where Tony Schiavone said that he did, causing a ton of people to change the channel. Rock wanted a rematch and listed off all kinds of stipulations that Foley refused to agree to.

Finally Rock said he quit and Foley shouted that he accepted Rock’s challenge of an I Quit match. He followed that up by summarizing this match perfectly: “Rock, how does it feel going into a match that you can’t win?” That’s your match right there. This was a great recap of a great feud that’s kind of overlooked which is a shame.

Rock says he’ll win in a lot more words than that.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Mankind

This match is notoriously difficult to watch due to what happens in it, but let’s get going. As Foley comes to the ring we see a clip from earlier in the show where he had a “warm up” match on Heat with Mabel who hit some splashes on him to soften him up. Remember when Heat used to actually mean something? I miss those days. Almost right off the bat we get a great line from Lawler. Cole says that he can’t see Mankind saying I Quit.

Lawler says you don’t see it you idiot. Note: Foley’s family is at ringside. Mankind is completely dominating at this point. That ends after the knees to the steps spot that always looks ridiculously painful. Rock gets on a headset during the match which is another thing that he always did which was at least entertaining. This is brutal already. We get the sock 5 minutes into the match. How brilliant of an idea was that?

It’s something so completely stupid and basic but it caught fire like few other things ever have. Rock goes out from it so Foley starts talking on the mic that the referee carries and says he’s going to split open that ridiculous eyebrow. We hit the crowd and now we’re ready to go. Foley is way over at this point and was more or less the champion of the people which was the reason the people’s champion thing for Rock worked so well. It really was amusing.

Rock gets the bell and the hammer and puts the bell to Foley’s head and rings it. You know, instead of hitting him with the bell or the hammer. Rock tries to Rock Bottom him through the Spanish table but it breaks. It went off prematurely. This is working because it’s Mankind who was supposed to be just a guy that wouldn’t quit no matter what against a great athlete like the Rock. I’m completely buying into the idea here, which granted it might be that Foley is my all time favorite wrestler.

We’re up by the entry way now as Lawler channels Gordon Solie. A DDT on the floor doesn’t make Foley give up. Rock pulls out a ladder which would kind of foreshadow one of their next gimmick matches. They go up a ladder for no apparent reason and fight on something like a scaffold. Rock hits a running shot and Foley goes into the equipment and gets electrocuted, prompting the lights to go out and Cole to shout out Christ Almighty. That’s a bit much.

Apparently Foley may be dead despite rolling around on the floor and making noise. Shane comes out too as if nothing else they’re doing a good job of making this look serious. Rock says no doctors because Foley is going to say he quits no matter what. I love how Rock says the words I Quit while talking there so technically he just lost the match.

Foley is more or less dead as they go back to the ring. While he’s laying on the mat, Cole asks how he can stand. That got me to roll my eyes at the stupidity of it, as Rock gets handcuffs and we move into the segment that’s been called the most brutal in company history. Foley can get his hands up and Rock just goes nuts with all kinds of free shots. In an impressive sequence, Foley gets the advantage despite having no free hands. That’s very cool to see actually.

And Rock gets a chair. Oh this isn’t going to be easy to sit through. With Foley on the mat, Rock puts the chair over his head and drops the elbow, which apparently shatters Foley’s skull. So, an elbow to the chair which is laying on his head cracked his skull but being rammed into all kinds of things didn’t? I can’t stand Cole. Anyway, Rock has the chair, and starts swinging at Foley’s head with it.

You have to remember, Foley’s hands and arms are useless at this point. He can’t get them up to even cushion the blow at all. The original plan was for Rock to hit him I think 3 times with it and then Foley would be out cold and they would do the finish. However, Rock didn’t do that. He wouldn’t put the mic near Foley for the finish so Mick had to just keep getting up. Rock hits him with literally t0 shots, all unprotected to the head.

He has chances to hit him in the back or anywhere else where at least it wouldn’t have looked as bad, but Rock went for the head every time. You can tell the announcers are having a real problem with this as even Lawler who has been behind Rock all night long is saying that’s enough in that voice of his where you can tell he’s being legit about something. Rock hits perhaps the sickest looking chair shot I’ve ever seen to the back of Foley’s head to knock him down again. Foley is DEAD.

Rock says a bunch of stuff on the mic and then shoves it at his mouth, and a prerecorded tape of Foley screaming I QUIT from a promo a few weeks ago plays to give Rock the title again. This was really confusing at the time as Foley was clearly out cold yet the voice was really loud.

I had missed that segment from Raw so I was confused as hell. Anyway, this was absolutely brutal at the end and Foley was legit messed up bad from this match. Rock had to give him a big apology for it and I don’t think Foley’s family has been to a live match of his since, which I can’t blame them at all for.

Rating: B. This really was a solid match. The gimmick aspect was indeed brilliant as Foley would never say he quit and in the match he didn’t. The chair shots were WAY too much as everyone was clearly not comfortable with how far Rock took that.

Foley and Rock had great chemistry together and you could see it every time they were on the screen together. There was no need to go that far with it though and it showed clearly. Foley would get the belt back in 2-3 weeks at Halftime Heat before losing it in a ladder match on Raw that no one remembers.

We talk about the Rumble and the bounty because the 12 promos about them weren’t enough. Also we get a long video about Vince vs. Austin which we know already as well.

Royal Rumble

Like has also been said all night, Austin is first and Vince is second. The intervals are 90 seconds this year, which means about 75 in reality. Howard takes WAY too long for the rules which draws all kinds of heckling from Lawler. Literally, he talks for over a minute. Vince has no music at this point which just is odd as hell. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Vince with his shirt off so the physique is something unheard of.

Of course Austin beats the living hell out of Vince and the crowd is on fire for it. Austin drops an F bomb by mistake which means nothing. This right here should have been the main event of Wrestlemania. Golga, more commonly known as John Tenta or Earthquake is 3rd. The fans are dancing with him if nothing else. Golga jumps Austin after a Thesz Press but is gone in about 10 seconds as Vince and Austin hit the floor and run away through the crowd.

Austin is so ridiculously popular it’s scary. Droz, a very sad story indeed, is 4th and because of the brilliant booking so far, has nothing to do but stand in the ring and wait on someone to fight. In the back we see Austin chase Vince into a bathroom where the Corporation is conveniently waiting on him to beat the hell out of him. After about 20 seconds, Edge is fifth. Remember that Austin and Vince are still in this but they’re just not here at the moment.

Edge and Droz get something going so we don’t have an empty ring. If nothing else they’re two young and mostly over guys that are getting a chance to show what they can do. The problem is no one cares and there’s no way anyone but Austin or Vince will win this thing, which is the problem with the Rumble as a whole. About a minute after Edge is in Gillberg, who might be the funniest gimmick is in at 6th.

In case you don’t know he was a parody of Goldberg, complete with holding sparklers and having fake chants piped in, but unlike WCW, they pushed them as fake. Edge drops him in about 8 seconds. We cut to the Corporation beating on Austin, because that’s far more important than what’s going on in the ring. Don’t you love Russo? Seventh is Steve Blackman as we’re in jobber land already.

Hey, let’s go back to that bathroom because we haven’t done that enough lately, as Austin is being put on a stretcher and taken away. Droz is trying to be part of the LOD at this point, as Hawk was just a mess in real life and in storylines. Dan Severn is number 8, because we need another glorified jobber here. He held the NWA title for years, having to drop it because of MMA stuff. Austin is shown AGAIN, this time being taken to an ambulance.

They mess up and catch him moving his arm just because we have to be real or something, which makes no sense but nothing on this show does so there we are. Tiger Ali Singh is ninth. Think Million Dollar Man meets Muhammad Hassan minus any semblance of talent. Time for an Austin cut, as he’s leaving the arena. Apparently the eight minutes or so that Droz and Edge have been fighting constitutes a long time. Blue Meanie is 10th as we’re flying through this tour of jobber ville.

He’s in the Job Squad here in case you’re that bored. Apparently the Brood and the Job Squad are feuding. Yes, that’s correct: two more or less useless factions are feuding, and still no one cares about either of them. Brood had cool music if nothing else though. Maybe 40 seconds after Meanie,

Mable is 11th, but he doesn’t come out just yet because it was supposed to be Mosh. Mabel attacks him so he can take his place. IT’S DRAMA TIME! I’m quite bored here so I have to make fun of stuff where I can. He’s gimmickless here and is just beating on people. He puts out Tiger, Blackman and Severn in about 10 seconds. Oh come on. After MAYBE 30 seconds Road Dogg is next.

They’re just saying forget it with the time here. Everyone but Edge and Mabel are gone so it’s Road Dogg, Mabel and Edge and never mind as Edge is gone now. They go at it but the lights go out and we have Taker music. We come back to have the APA and Mideon beating on Mabel to put him out. Taker, in full demon priest mode here, looks at Mabel and I guess hypnotizes him or something as he is beaten down.

He would become Viscera the next night which was his character for the rest of his career as still no one would care. This was WAY over the top and yet again, we have one person in the ring. Remember, Austin and Vince are still in. Gangrel, rocking his awesome music, is 12th. The people in the front row dancing badly to his music is funny. Other than Austin and Vince, Road Dogg is the biggest star in here so far.

Gangrel is out in about 12 seconds, so we have nothing going on again. Rock on Russo! This is riveting, RIVETING I SAY! They just drop the clock again as about 30 seconds pass before Kurrgan of the Oddities is 14th. I really hate this match. Seriously, we’re halfway through this thing almost and we’re watching Kurrgan vs. Road Dogg. Al Snow gets us to 15 as I flip through my DVD collection since it’s far more interesting to look at match listings that I’ve already seen before.

Snow lost Head for some stupid reason that likely went nowhere. Dogg puts him out in about 45 seconds. We get Road Dogg vs. Kurrgan for the 2nd time tonight as Rock and Austin are in danger of being passed for best feud ever. Goldust is next as he’s entered that point in his career where no one cares about him as he’s just Goldust. There’s nothing freaky about him anymore and he’s just a guy in gold that no one really cares about.

The last ten here better be freaking AMAZING. Dogg mocks Goldust and sets up for Shattered Dreams, but we can’t have Dogg beat up anyone so Kurrgan saves him. Godfather is 17th as we’re thankfully flying through this. Of course he’s got Hos with him which gets a bigger pop than anything else as I’m suddenly ashamed of being a fan of the Attitude Era. This isn’t wrestling. There’s nothing redeeming about this.

Let’s see what we have here. A pimp, a man that molests other men for no apparent reason, a guy that dances badly and is proud of the fact that he’s a social outcast, and a guy constantly making rather sexual references. What is possibly appealing here? Kane is 18th as he at least has a ton of jobbers to beat up.

Kane has recently been rebelling against the Corporation, meaning he’s now just shy of being a face for the first time other than for 6 days at this time last year. He clears the ring inside of 30 seconds. Hey, we’ve got one person in the ring AGAIN! Dang he’s getting a pop for this. So let’s see. We have a former world champion who is quite over and dominating. My goodness we’re on to something here! We have a guy that could be a legit challenger to the standard winners!

This could make Kane a legit…oh screw it you know where this is going. Naturally he’s in the match less than a minute as a group of men in white coats come back, allegedly to put Kane back in a mental institution. He beats them up and jumps over the top rope, eliminating himself.

Shamrock is 19th, and due to the brilliance of this booking, has to stand in the ring and do nothing for 90 seconds, killing any heat the Kane built up for him. We could have had a decent showdown between a crazed monster and a submission machine. How does that sounds? Shamrock vs. Kane? It wouldn’t main event a Wrestlemania but it could have been interesting if nothing else, but instead we have Shamrock literally standing in the ring just waiting for something to happen.

See, this right here is why this Rumble is complete and utter crap. This is why fans HATE Russo’s booking. Yeah a lot of stuff has happened here, but there is ZERO substance to it. We’ve had nothing but jobbers in here so far until Kane showed up, and after he gets one of the biggest reactions of the night and looks awesome, a stupid angle that went nowhere gets rid of him. Russo is notorious for trying to fit 100 different angles into a single match and that’s what he’s done here.

Instead of having a decent match which could have happened had this been booked right, and had there been anyone other than Austin and McMahon coming in at one and two. That’s the issue here: anyone with a brain can tell you that 3-30 don’t even need to show up. It’s going to come down to Vince vs. Austin, which is fine I guess as it’s the only possible ending, but they screwed this up so badly by having them come out first.

Instead, have Austin come in at like 25th or 26th and clear the ring, THEN have Vince come in at 30 to set up the showdown. The Corporation runs in for a big brawl, and then do the finish. There, see what that accomplishes? All night long you know that Austin is going to be in there somewhere, but you don’t know where. He’s going to face big odds, but no one knows how big. The other guys can build themselves up a bit and get the crowd into it.

Austin was certainly getting the biggest pop of the night, so anything anyone gets after that is going to be lackluster. Why not instead have Austin saved until closer to the end, so that he still gets his big pop but everyone else gets a nicer one as well? There’s more drama, the fans will be more into the rest of the match, and it takes some pressure off of Austin while still giving you the finish you wanted. Instead, let’s have a ton of dead spots and jobbers fight each other.

Look at earlier on. Why did Golga have to be eliminated so fast? Instead of having Droz vs. Golga (which sounds like a Japanese monster movie if I’ve ever heard one) for a few minutes, we have Droz standing there. I know that’s not the most appealing match in the world, but it’s SOMETHING. It’s not a guy standing around waiting on something to happen, but rather an actual, you know, wrestling match.

Why would we need that though when we can have pointless angles and spots that bring the match to halt after halt? This is a great example of how Russo’s booking can ruin a match in one easy lesson. ANYWAY, Vince comes out just before Shamrock to do commentary. Oh joy indeed. Billy Gunn is 20th because instead of a fresh match we need a repeat of the one from earlier in the show. Gunn is limping at least but for some reason only has one boot on.

To contine this match’s stupidity, on one ankle Gunn uses a gorilla press. I can’t stand this match. I truly can’t. Test is 21st as we cut to the future Ministry kidnapping Mabel. Oh my goodness let the shocks continue! Just at the EXACT same time as that’s happening, STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD is back in an ambulance.

WAIT A MINUTE YOU FREAKING IDIOTS! Are you really trying to convince me that in less than 30 minutes, Austin was knocked completely unconscious, strapped to a stretcher, put in an ambulance, woke up, managed to get enough wits about him to get off the stretcher, get control of the ambulance, drive the ambulance back to the arena in a city that I’d assume he doesn’t know the street design of, and get back into the parking lot?

And all that in less time than it takes to deliver a pizza? And no one finds this even the SLIGHTEST bit odd? No one at all? Yeah I still hate this match. Actually this isn’t a match. It’s a performance piece or something stupid like that. Vince is of course SHOCKED. I love how he’s shocked over things he booked. Oh come on Austin isn’t even sweating. Give me a break. Austin walks into the arena as Boss Man’s music plays since he’s 22nd.

To further take away from the people in the ring that are doing the work on this show, Austin chases Vince. They get in the ring and Austin puts out Shamrock and gets jumped again. Oh look Austin has a rope from somewhere. This is like a bad SNL sketch or something. HHH, to a HUGE pop so you know he’s not winning, is 23rd. Since he was so popular he would be turned heel at Mania in a HUGE twist. Everything is huge back then remember as this is now WCW 2.

HHH beating on Austin just feels right. Val Venis is 24th. To recap we have Boss Man, Austin, Test, HHH, Gunn and Venis in the ring and Vince at ringside. Austin puts out Gunn. Nothing of note is happening here for the most part. X-Pac is 25th and I still could care less. Allegedly he’s the lightest competitor in Rumble history. And naturally since that involves company history, it’s nonsense. Pierroth from the 97 rumble is smaller.

Austin is knocked to the floor under the ropes and comes in off the top rope of all things. That was odd if nothing else. Henry, ANOTHER sex based character is the first of the final 5 guys. This is just after the very stupid transvestite bit between Chyna and Henry. Don’t ask. This just needs to end like NOW. Jeff Jarrett is 27th. Naturally Debra is the bigger deal here. Other than her face she looks ok actually.

As HHH is beating on Venis, we hear a very familiar voice ask Val “If I throw you can you hang on?”. Nice one there Hunter. To further the brilliance of this match, we’re discussing whether Vince would pay by cash or check. D’lo is 28th along with PMS. This was, you guessed it, another sex based angle called Pretty Mean Sisters, which implied that they had clients that they screwed up because they were so upset with men.

Test and X-Pac are thrown out. Vince saying that Jeff Jarrett is the man made me chuckle. Owen is 29th as Jarrett is thrown out. HHH saves Austin which was just weird as hell to type. Austin hits the floor and throws water on Vince because he’s a BAD MAN. Chyna is 30, making our final batch of people Austin, Vince, Boss Man, Chyna, Henry, Brown, HHH, Venis and Owen. I wonder who will win.

Chyna puts out Henry and then Austin puts her out, making her big moment last all of 30 seconds. Vince cheering on HHH makes me wonder if he knew what was coming. That’s just amusing. We realize the issue of the money as no one wants to let anyone else put Austin out so they keep saving him. Venis is gone as is HHH, leaving the final five as Vince, Austin, Owen, Henry and Brown.

Owen hits the enziguri on Austin but gets thrown out anyway as Austin is apparently tougher than Shawn ever was. Brown hits the sweet Low Down on Austin as Boss Man throws him out. More no selling from Austin as he throws out Boss Man and we’re down to Austin vs. Vince again. Amazingly the Rumble is on the floor and in the crowd again. This is idiotic. Let’s bring a chair in because we haven’t had enough of those tonight right?

Vince hits a quick low blow to buy himself some time once we’re back in the ring. Austin has stone cold balls apparently as he hits a Stunner out of nowhere. Here’s Rock for the distraction, and we make the Rumble look like a joke as Vince throws out Austin to win it. A massive heel celebration follows as Austin chases Rock out.

Rating: F. I’m sorry to the people that worked hard in there, but this was awful on so many levels that I can’t let it pass. This match alone sums up everything that was wrong with the Attitude Era. There were a ton of sex based characters that were weirder and weirder each time. There was no story other than two guys that weren’t in the match for the majority of the time.

No one cared about 28 people in there. The ending was a give away, and the whole thing just sucked all around. There were three times where we had a maximum of one person in the ring due to some stupid angle. That’s just unacceptable all around, just like this match. This was a failure and easily the worst Rumble of all time.

Overall Rating: D-. The best match of the night might have had Gangrel in it. That sums up just about everything you need to know here. This was just a mess as the Rumble sucked, the early stuff sucked, and the title match was actually difficult to sit through. Foley and Rock’s incredible chemistry together saves this from a complete failure though, but not by a lot.

I hated this show and it took me almost 4 days to get through it which is by far and away a record for these reviews. This was just crap all around and not worth watching at all. The title match is good, but that’s all that’s worth watching here at all. Go on Attitude Era freaks. Defend this thing. I want you to. I need the target practice.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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