Royal Rumble rewatch: 2002

At last, we have reached the finish line. After over a month of Royal Rumbles, I complete my journey 1 day ahead of schedule with the 2002 Royal Rumble match.

Winner: Triple H

Final Four: Triple H, Kurt Angle, Mr. Perfect, Stone Cold

MVP: Stone Cold basically by default. Him and Triple H are the only people that last over 20 minutes. He also had 7 eliminations, which was tied for the most with The Undertaker.

Best Moment: I just loved how Mr. Perfect was not only in this but made it all the way until the Final 3. Granted, they did nothing with him afterwards, but it was still great to see him back here and being treated as a serious threat right away.

Worst Moment: RVD got a huge pop came in at #29 and looked like he could be a serious threat to win. So when he was eliminated in about 2 minutes by Booker T, it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

Best Surprise: This Rumble had a lot of returns. Perfect and Goldust were revealed in advance. As far as I know though, both The Godfather and Val Venis were surprises as they returned to their old attitude era gimmicks.

Weirdest Entrant: Pretty much your standard crop of 2002 performers here, no body really stood out as particularly weird. Pretty much everyone in the match had an extended run with the company.

Best Elimination: I don't really know how I feel about it overall, but it's undeniable that Maven eliminating The Undertaker is one of the most memorable moments in Rumble history. The beatdown Taker gave him afterwards kinda ruins it for me and it's not like Maven went on to be this huge star, but it truly was a shocking moment since Undertaker was one of the favorites to win the whole thing.

Overall thoughts: Not the greatest Rumble to close this thing out. There was really a huge lack of star power here and they back-loaded all of the stars in the final 10-12 entrants so the middle of the match was just like, Christian and Chuck beating low-carders up for 10 minutes.

It certainly picked up near the end with all of the heavy-hitters coming out, but having them all come in at the end made a lot of their eliminations feel rushed. For instance, Kane, Big Show, RVD and Booker T (the final 4 entrants) all lasted less than 3 minutes in the match. I remember this match fondly because it really hit the sweet spot of my wrestling fandom as a kid, but going back today it doesn't do much for me.

Grade: 4 out of 10

Thanks for reading along anyone who has been following this along with me or even just saw a couple here and there. It's been something I've been wanting to do for several years now so I'm happy I finally did it. I may be back one more time for a full ranking now that I've seen every Rumble with fresh eyes.