PPV review
Ever since I was a young boy, the Royal Rumble has been my favorite event. I look forward to it like I look forward to Christmas or Opening Day of the baseball season. So with this year's version a few months away, let's look back at this event from 2001.
The first match was for the tag titles with Edge & Christian defending against The Dudley Boyz. This match was all right, nothing we hadn't seen these four do better in other matches. It had a good ending with E & C getting ready to do the Dudleyz' "Wassup!" headbutt, but Bubba rolled through and Christian ended up headbutting Edge in the crotch. One 3D later and The Dudleyz were the new tag champs. This match was nothing special compared to some of the TLC matches these two teams were a part of, but those aren't really fair comparisons I guess. Grade: B-
Then Drew Carey showed up to promote his new PPV and ends up flirting with Trish Stratus who at the time had a thing with Vince McMahon, so Vinnie Mac put Drew Carey in the Rumble, lol. At the time I first saw this, my friends and I couldn't wait to see if Carey would actually get any offense in during the match. Vince gave the spot to Drew that was going to go to one of the two members of Lo-Down, D'Lo Brown or Mosh. This was back when they were managed by Tiger Ali Singh which I had forgotten about. Another vignette was shown with the APA doing the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" routine, referring to their entrance numbers for the Royal Rumble match. Pretty funny stuff. I wish they could bring Ron Simmons back, even in a non-wrestling capacity. I'm sure he could do something to help JBL get the title back.
Chris Jericho versus Chris Benoit in an IC Title ladder match was awesome, with some great spots. I loved The Walls of Jericho on top of the ladder, that had to hurt Benoit. I also loved Benoit's suicide dive right into a chairshot, and also when Benoit was trapped under the ladder while Jericho climbed the ladder and Benoit bench-pressed the ladder to throw him off. The match wasn't just a spotfest either as these two tell a story every time they wrestle. These are two of the top ten talents in the history of the business. Grade: A
Ivory defended the Women's Title against Chyna which wasn't very good. Chyna squashed Ivory for a few minutes and then supposedly reaggravated a neck injury she previously suffered from a Right To Censor spike powerbomb. So Ivory was able to cover and get the win. Grade: D+
The WWF title match had Triple H challenging Kurt Angle for the title and it was a sweet match. Not to mention a little eye candy outside the ring in the form of Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and Trish Stratus. Hunter singled out Kurt's knee and lower leg for punishment and he was relentless. I love watching Helmsley wrestle a match like this because there's no end to the number of moves he knows to wear down individual body parts. Both guys looked sharp and Angle was a lot slimmer then I thought. As far as certain moves or spots, nothing about the match really stood out, but these guys worked a well-paced match that definitely holds up four years later. Grade: A
The Royal Rumble match is one of my favorites, right up there with 2004. So much to cover, I don't know where to begin. I guess there's some purists who would scoff at Drew Carey being in the Rumble, but I thought it was great. The way he didn't really enter until the Hardy Boyz had eliminated each other, and the way he tried to get them to help when Kane came out were great, and very believable. I loved having a bunch of hardcore guys in there at once, as the ring filled up with nunchakus, trashcans, trashcan lids, bowling balls, kendo sticks and more. All the guys tried to gang up on Kane as usual, but he eliminated every one of them. Kane kicked ass on this night, lasting in the Rumble for over 50 minutes. Seeing the *beep* Tonk Man was a good surprise as he was one of my favorites as a kid. I always rooted for the heels. Getting blasted by his own "gee-tar" was a highlight. The Rock came in and he was the all-star of the match. Every time you saw him he was fighting someone different and precariously hanging on the the ropes as 2 or 3 guys were trying to eliminate him. Tazz is one of my all-time favorites, hence the screen name, so I was pissed when he lasted for about 8 seconds. Even today, watching it and knowing what was about to happen got me angry. I know he wasn't the same guy that tore up ECW in the 90's, but he still could have been used better in the WWF. Bradshaw was pretty good in this match. It was interesting that he lasted the third-highest amount of time in this match while his partner Faarooq didn't even last 2 minutes. The ring got pretty filled up with mid-carders until Taker came in and cleared house with Kane, leaving them in the ring by themselves. Rock was still in the match but had been put through the announce table by an angry Big Show after eliminating him. It was awesome to see Taker and Kane stand side-by-side in the ring waiting for the next man to come out and to see Scotty 2 Hotty's expression as he reluctantly came to the ring. Triple H kicked Austin's ass before he could even make it to the ring and busted him open pretty good. It was cool to see Haku again, and I wasn't surprised that WWF used him for awhile after this PPV. By the time Stone Cold made it into the ring, he was wooping ass. The final four were Austin, Rock, Kane, and "The One" Billy Gunn. Hmmm, anyone hear that old Sesame Street song, "Which of these things does not belong here? Which of these things is not the same?" Seeing Austin and the Rock lock eyes from across the ring and go at it was great, a precursor to the awesome main event they would have in two months at Wrestlemania X-7. The end of the Rumble was great, with guys hitting their finishers on each other and Austin eventually eliminating Kane to go to Wrestlemania. Grade: A+
What a hot PPV. Three stellar matches that you should watch more than a few times, and the tag title match was ok too. I love the Royal Rumble and can't wait for the 2006 version!
P.S. Check my profile for other PPV reviews I've done. Check them out and let me know what you think.