20 years ago, WWE was in a very interesting place. The company had just come out of the Invasion angle. Triple H made his thunderous return several weeks prior. The nWo were gearing up for their debut, and several months later, Rey Mysterio burst onto the scene. The first-ever Brand Split was coming up as well.
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The roster was on the cusp of being as stacked as it ever was. With all the upcoming changes on their way, the Royal Rumble was a pretty decent show with a few memorable moments and surprises. Like every show, there’s plenty of backstage news about the in-ring action. It’s actually pretty amazing to think that 20 years later and several members of this roster are actually still at the top of their game.
7 Doing Shots With The Deadman
In quite possibly one of the wildest Royal Rumble eliminations of all time, Tough Enough champion Maven caught a quick dropkick on Big Evil and sent him over the top rope. Rather than take the elimination gracefully, The Undertaker headed back into the ring and obliterated the poor guy, and left him lying in the popcorn stands. Maven was on the NotSam wrestling podcast with Sam Roberts’ podcast and told a story where The Phenom had suggested that in order to get better color, take aspirin since it thins the blood. However, the Tough Enough star was allergic, so they did shots of Jack Daniel's instead.
6 Flair Wasn’t Supposed To Wrestle
The day after the Invasion angle ended, Ric Flair arrived at Raw to let Vince McMahon know that he now owns half the company. Knowing that there’d be no way the two of them could ever co-exist, the two fought in a street fight at the Royal Rumble.
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While on-screen, Flair won the match, The Dirtiest Player In The Game had been beaten down by years spent in WCW and his self-confidence was shot. The plan wasn’t for Naitch to get back in the ring and simply have the onscreen Authority role. But the street fight had been the first few steps in Flair regaining his confidence.
5 Storyline Deleted
Early on in the Rumble match, Matt and Jeff Hardy entered the fray at numbers nine and 10 respectively. They even embraced one another during the match. If that doesn’t seem so out of character for the brothers, at this point in time it was interesting. Just several weeks prior, the Hardys were at odds in and out of the ring. Just a little over a month prior at Vengeance, Jeff defeated Matt, with Lita as guest referee. With the angle tanking faster than a Swanton, it was decided that the Rumble was a great place to just embrace and end the storyline rather than force-feed the fans an angle they weren’t invested in.
4 Chris Jericho Owns The Great One
When you’re able to defeat the two biggest stars in the WWE in the same night to claim the first-ever Undisputed Championship, it’s a feat you’re going to brag about for the rest of your career. Of course, Le Champion, Chris Jericho certainly does that, but the bigger accomplishment might be that he constantly had The Great One’s number. During this time in both of their careers, Jericho seldom lost to the Rock. Yes, The Rock had beaten Jericho several months before, and he would defeat him on SmackDown as well. But in the months that Jericho was the Undisputed Champion, Rock did all he could to help Y2J get over and that meant looking up at the lights.
3 The Last Intercontinental Title Change
Every so often, the Intercontinental title is a vaunted one that plenty of mid-carders vie for. During this period, not so much. But that didn’t mean people weren’t trying to make the title special again. Heading into the show, Edge was the defending IC Champion. He headed into this show to defend against master technician, William Regal.
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They didn’t have a lot of time but were still able to have a hard-hitting match that saw Regal defeat Edge for the title. The match happens to be the last time that the Intercontinental title has changed hands at the Rumble.
2 A Perfect Return
Coming in at number 25 was the surprise return of the legendary Mr. Perfect. The former Intercontinental champion lasted 15 minutes and assisted Kurt Angle in eliminating Stone Cold Steve Austin.
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The ovation Curt Hennig received caught the brass off-guard and Vince McMahon decided that Perfect’s one-night guest spot would turn into a supporting role and resigned Mr. Perfect to a full-time contract.
1 Longest Men’s Rumble Ever
The last Royal Rumble before the era of the 2002 OVW class featured wild moments like The Undertaker’s attempted murder of Maven and the Hurricane’s mighty double chokeslam attempt on HHH and Austin. The Royal Rumble match itself ran one hour and nine minutes and to date is the longest 30-man Rumble match of all time. The only one that lasted longer was the 40-man Rumble in 2011 and the Greatest Royal Rumble in 2018.
