2001 ROYAL RUMBLE

AGAINST ALL ODDS the 2000 Royal Rumble was totally the best of the Royal Rumble shows so far despite the absence of one "Stone Cold" Steve Austin who finally had the neck surgery that he had needed since Owen Hart (may peace be upon him) hit that pretty sick sit-out tombstone piledriver at The Summerslam 1997 "Hart and Soul." Our voice-over guy tells us that if Wrestlemania is the path to immortality than the Royal Rumble is the first step to ultimate glory and here we are in New Orleans, Louisiana and depending on how you personally choose to demarcate the epochs of pretend fighting history we might very well be in the dwindling days of the era we call Attitude. I actually read the Attitude Era entry at wikipedia and as with all historical periods or moments worth thinking about there is little consensus on when the Attitude Era can properly be said to have begun or to have finished so let us just say that we are certainly getting there. We are also fast approaching what many feel to be the coolest thing ever Wrestlemania XVII and yeah actually that really was pretty cool wasn't it.


Our opening contest is a Tag Team Championship bout in the fine tradition of tag team bouts that open Royal Rumble ppvs and this one will be contested between the Dudley Boyz and the defending champions, Edge and Christian, who I learn are five-time tag team champions at this point. WE WANT TABLES is the crowd's understandable request and given the competitors involved it would seem to be a reasonable one as well. Edge and Christian were guys who were like *dorky* a little bit at this point; that was their thing. I must confess that I did not really get into Edge until he was having SEX WITH LITA LIVE ON MONDAY NIGHT RAW TAKE THAT MATT HARDY and I didn't really understand Christian's genius yeah genius until the Captain Charisma era with the lamé hoodies. It is not that I was unimpressed with the ridiculous stunts of the Tables, Ladders and Chairs matches when I eventually saw them so much as I was watching so very little wrestling at the time they were happening that I was not really in a position to make an informed judgment so I just assumed they sucked because of the vampire stuff from before; this was unfair of me. This match is OK but it is not setting the world on fire at this point. HOWEVER: a failed "concerto" leads to a *hot tag* of Bubba Ray Dudley for whom Edge and Christian do a very fine job of bouncing around, especially Edge but *especially* Christian and lol I LOVE that wasssssssuuuuuuuuuuuup top rope headbutt to the groin thing man I LOVE IT and the pace is fast and furious here as the Dudleyz attempt their excellent 3-D finisher which Edge breaks up with a spear and lolololol now Edge and Christian are going for the waaaaaaaaasssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup thing which Jim Ross denounces as heinous for some reason but Bubba rolls up Edge in a way that exposes Edge's groin to the oncoming headbutt of Christian and we are but a single 3-D away from NEW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS YES IT IS THE DUDLEY BOYZ with the win in a good match. Apparently they overcame concussions to do so? I guess that's part of the story. 


lol Drew Carey is here tonight ladies and gentlemen and sure why the hell not


HEEEEEY somebody is holding up a sign that depicts the beautiful provincial flag of beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada and they are sitting right behind JR and the King so perhaps I will see it again and lol there is "Faith No More Fan" if that is indeed his name or at least designation man how does he keep getting these seats? There are backstage bits where people are carrying on as though there is not a camera in the room with them and thus discuss private matters setting things up for later but whatever I am going to wait for everything to be settled . . . *in the ring.* I don't like the whole APA thing but I do like how their shirts say ALWAYS POUNDING ASS as it reminds me that Bradshaw has a reputation for soaping dudes up in the shower does he not? 


An INTERCONTENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER MATCH is up next pitting Chris Jericho against Chris Benoit making his Royal Rumble debut and there is a classy montage of all kinds of cool moves these guys have done to each previously accompanied by music meant to suggest that all of these things are epic and maybe they are but what is most striking is the number of times they show Benoit deploying his "tokui waza" or "preferred technique" and that I will remind you is the CRIPPLER CROSSFACE the technique he deemed most suited to the task of *murdering his own son.* Benoit is rightly booed for his future transgressions against the laws of both man and nature as he makes his way down the aisle and hey remember that time a guy prank called Dave Meltzer and was like hey Dave with Benoit's short arms, could he ever win a ladder match? and if he won the King of the Ring, would he be able to put the crown on? The former question is the most relevant to the match at hand right now, but the latter is the more hilarious in my view. This is I think the first time I have watched a Benoit match since he double murder suicided and we all saw his sad father on the news. Chris Jericho is my rooting interest here I think because he is better on the mic and also recognizes that a woman gave birth to him and also to his children and he doesn't just realize that he *lives it every day* by not murdering his family and really that is all it takes to be a hero in my view. Benoit goes for the INFANTICIDE CROSSFACE early and lol man this is weirding me out.  


It's interesting to watch these two "work" together for a number of reasons I guess but one that I am thinking about right now is that everything Benoit did looked really tight and snug whereas the knock on Jericho has always been that while he is clearly very good at the entire pretending-to-fight package as a wholet, many of his moves look "light" so in a weird way Benoit wasn't the greatest opponent for him because it really called attention to the only flaw in an otherwise first-rate fake fighter AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH BENOIT JUST DOVE TO THE OUTSIDE AND JERICHO HIT HIM IN MIDAIR WITH A FUCKIN CHAIR lol that was *amazing* and it happened right after Jericho took a pretty sick fall outside after running into the ladder in the corner and I mean that was pretty spectacular OR SO I THOUGHT until like eight seconds later when the chair give happened lol oh man. With every big shot to the head that Benoit endures here however you've got to ask yourself if what you have just witnessed was the particular blow that turned off the part of your brain that everyday tells the rest of your brain not to murder your family. This makes the experience darker. Also something I had forgotten is just how fuckin short this guy was, like way shorter than Jericho who is a guy who wears lifts (presumably out of shame). And the thing is Benoit clearly abused steroids to truly stupendous effect no doubt to make up for how he was so short but the effect of that besides destroying his nutsack (and its contents) is to make him actually look even shorter because he is like eight feet wide and four feet thick and of course scarcely three apples tall. 


So far these guys are coming up with pretty good ways of hitting each other with a ladder or causing the other grappling competitor to fall into it dramatically but the best bits have not actually involved the ladder dramatically like for instance there was the ridiculous chair shot dive and just now Benoit has back suplexed Jericho right over the top rope to the floor and like if that was a Royal Rumble elimination it would at worst be on the long list for best Rumble eliminations going man. lol ok now there is a cool spot that depended pretty heavily on the ladder actually: Jericho just applied like a ninety-degrees-off variation (or two hundred and seventy I guess depending on your frame of reference) of the Walls of Jericho *on the top of the ladder* and it was pretty great. 


Moments later we have Jericho tapping for ages in the Crippler Crossface and maaaaaaan it is just fuckin dark and I am not at all austere and no fun on the subject of Chris Benoit; it is awesome to make fun of Chris Benoit in my view. But honestly it is kind of fucked up watching him right here OH MY BENOIT MISSES A DIVING HEADBUTT FROM THE TOP OF THE LADDER and Jim Ross suggests that this might be the damnedest match he has ever seen. Not long thereafter Jericho literally seizes the World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental Championship and I believe he holds the record does he not for most Intercontinental Championship "reigns"?  That was a good match but lol it is going to be pretty fucked up watching Benoit do stuff over the course of the next few Royal Rumbles but probably it will just get funny.


Drew Carey is backstage chilling with Trish Stratus and telling her all about his upcoming pay per view improv special which is probably the best idea I have ever heard and Trish seems bored and also seems to be wearing very supportive undergarments. She went to York University which is not as good as the University of Toronto (there is actually basically no difference which is the dark secret they don`t want you to know about Canadian universities but they are all basically the same Quite Good Places and there is none of the huge swing between the reputations of good v. bad schools that you have in your "America") but there was a faculty strike one year and she never went back and the rest as they say is *sexy times.* Wait Drew Carey is in the Royal Rumble now? idk about that. They're really waaaaaaay into backstage sketches where they pretend that there isn't a camera there *but there is* and here's another one and it has the increasingly unrecognizable Chyna telling Mr. Ass something about Ivory or something. Oh yeah she is part of a "heel stable" called "Right to Censor" who are "no fun." I guess the deal here is that Val Venis and Ivory hit Chyna with a *spike* piledriver and this is going to be HER REVENGE and lol it looks like there were some pretty good bits where Ivory impersonated Chyna in a neck brace in interview segments I guess. 


Ivory is accompanied to the ring by formerly "Dancin'" Stevie Richards but now it is probably like he is from the Footloose town and here comes Chyna with a pyrotechnic bazooka of some kind which I would like one of possibly. Ivory is a very short woman who doesn't look short until you see her with other people and that is not true of all short people and you know it so don't act like what I have just said is absurd. Jim Ross speculates that Ivory is sexually repressed and that "thirty days a month, she's pre-menstrual" and I am beginning to doubt whether or not JR's claim during the previous year's Royal Rumble that he tries not to be a chauvinist can be credited. Ivory takes a pretty good tumble from the top turnbuckle to the outside and much to my surprise a match featuring ladies is now being contested among the spectators which is a true rarity in my experience. Chyna we are told was recently on the cover of an issue of Playboy magazine that sold over one million copies and I would ask that anyone in my present readership who counts himself among that million please talk about what that was like for you. Chyna tosses Ivory around quite extensively but after landing her signature "handspring elbow" into the corner she falls seemingly paralyzed and this situation is treated so fakeseriously that Jerry Lawler immediately leaves his ringside position to see if she is OK as an eerie bored hush falls over the crowd. Jim Ross tells us that what we are seeing is certainly no longer about championships and wins and losses and so forth. Mr. Ass's face is disfigured by worry. Both Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson are among those attending to Chyna which is all you need to know re: the severity of this obviously life altering injury. Even "Faith No More Fan" looks not entirely himself. Also this is stupid. 


Stephanie McMahon threatens Trish Stratus should she involve herself in the affairs of her mainest dude Triple H and Stratus is like "I have my own *affairs* to be worried about" which is probably a reference to a story I don't know about oh wait the idea is that she is often *frisky* while in the company of Vincent Kennedy McMahon right? Next we are shown yet another LET'S PRETEND THERE IS NOT A CAMERA bits where Tiger Jeet Singh and D-Lo Brown and somebody else are all decked out in the garb of Singh's native land as McMahon informs him that he is going to be replaced by Drew Carey in the Royal Rumble and Singh is like "Drew CURRY who is Drew CURRY?" and this is kind of dumb too and then THE MAN ON THE STREET is asked who is going to win tonight's World Wrestling Federation Championship bout between Kurt Anglea and Triple H and then Triple H grunts while looking into a mirror. So far two of the three matches have been really quite good but all of the things that haven't been matches (and that last match also) have been very shitty indeed.    


At last Triple H as we have come to know him is fully formed: he wears trunks and his hair is really wet and he comes out to Motorhead instead of doing none of those things. Kurt Angle is your champion and Trish Stratus has accompanied him and I recall that my man Darryl who grew up outside Toronto told me one time that friends who had gone to high school with the future Trish Stratus described her as a "Polish Gina" and I had no frame of reference to even begin to understand what was meant by that. So yeah you've got Stratus in Kurt Angle's corner and Stephanie McMahon in Triple H's and Angle is wearing a red singlet however both shoulder straps are down and so it looks more like he is wearing trunks and I have never really understood why if you are a guy who wears a singlet that it is supposed to signify the extent to which it is *on* when you take down those straps like IT IS NOT A WRESTLING CONTEST AT THIS POINT BUT INSTEAD A FIGHT and I know how to read this but I do not understand why this signifier signifies what it does but Saussure said that the sign is arbitrary so I am not required to think about it any more yeah that's right I am hiding behind a linguist I don't know much about. This is an OK match so far in which Triple H is focusing on Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle's right knee. Kurt Angle has quite rightly become the object of scorn and ridicule over the years but it really was pretty amazing how quickly he became extremely good at pretending to fight and this is a point that I believe David Meltzer has made on at least a few occasions and I cannot but agree with it. Lawler talks about how president George W. Bush who we all recall fondly was "hanging all over Kurt Angle" at his recent inauguration. Is that accurate? I don't remember that at all and I am a fairly keen follower of the political scene except when I say that I don't mean the American one.


This match is really not that great so far but it's OK. I think Triple H is a really good wrestler so I have faith though and just as I say that he applies a variation of the Indian death lock thus proving my point beyond all reasonable objection and Jim Ross is like "or should I say 'Native American' death lock" and yes Jim Ross the strictures of what the right denounces as "political correctness" are indeed onerous and unjust in that one is asked to refer to groups by terms that are not objectionable to them and marked by histories of things being pretty fucked up for them and also WRONG INDIANS JR. Triple H has moved on to the figure four leglock which is a *great* leglock and while this is happening Stephanie and Trish *mix it up* on the outside which brings Vince McMahon to ringside where he intervenes in this physical confrontation between his irl daughter and his pretend mistress and I think that was probably about three minutes without a shot of the action in the ring and that is what I am here for the contest of skill and guile that unfolds between the ropes atop the squared circle and such *extracurricular activities* are but a mere distraction that only serves to diminish our cherished sport LOW BLOW AND A MODIFIED RAZOR'S EDGE OUT OF THE CORNER BUT IT IS ONLY FOR TWOOOOOOOOO my goodness this Kurt Angle is resilient. Angle lands a truly exemplary moonsault but again the count is a mere two. Moonsaults aren't hard if you are the least athletic as been shown on Tough Enough and also at every community swimming pool ever but they are terrific. Angle just ran up the turnbuckles and arm-dragged Triple H off the top which was even more awesome than it sounds but the contemptible Earl Hebner is down and not available to count and let me say that the reason I think Earl Hebner is actually *shoot* contemptible in addition to *fake* contemptible is not because *he screwed Bret* but that before all that happened he was like "I swear on my kid's lives I would never do anything like that" which is the dumbest shit ever in that he should have said was "well I mean if my boss tells me to do something weird I'm going to have to do it even if it is outside the accepted norms of what we do because I am a guy with a totally replaceable job in the fake fighting industry so I am not about to out of nowhere say things about the lives of my children that I couldn't possibly mean because that would make me a piece of shit by basically any standard" and I would remind you that this is all really important stuff also.     


This not quite awesome match has a pretty good finish: Triple H comes in with the belt and he is ready to strike HOWEVER he is met with a belly-to-belly suplex and then Kurt Angle has the belt and is ready to strike HOWEVER he is met with the pedigree and the referee is not around to see any of this and STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD is here now and he lays waste to Triple H on the outside and then literally *belts* him and I think Triple H blades just for fun sometimes man and then it is your basic KICKWHAMSTUNNER situation and an exhausted Angle crawls his way to a cover and Hebner counts a weary three as he is finally revived and that ladies and gentlemen was an excellent garbage finish. 


We get some brief clips of different wrestlers warming up for THE ROYAL RUMBLE and the best of these clips is definitely Rikishi aka Fatu doing some Hindu squats and Jim Ross is like "my apologies I mean NATIVE AMERICAN squats" j/k he doesn't say anything like that. The Rock is interviewed by Kevin Kelly but it's more like Kevin Kelly is just there with a microphone and then The Rock says all kinds of awesome things and by this point he has actually dialed back on the catchphrases by maybe thirty percent and it has made him an even more effective public speaker imo.


As a video package recapping some recent story lines plays I am feeling ready as hell for this Royal Rumble match even though I totally know who wins this one despite never having actually seen it. Apparently Rikishi aka Fatu has been revealed as the guy who drove the car that hit Stone Cold or whatever and I don't care about the stuff they are showing exactly but it is nevertheless getting me fuckin ready to go so mission accomplished I guess. At this point Stone Cold is wearing dumb camo ball caps and shirts that could not be further removed aesthetically from the basically perfect AUSTIN 3:16 tshirt and it is as though the people designing these shirts thought that it was the back of the AUSTIN 3:16 shirt that was really moving units rather than the front and maybe it was man what do I know about marketing.


I'm kind of surprised we still have Howard Finkel out there but I'm glad we do! The number one entrant is Jeff Hardy and a little while ago I asked you my dearest internet friends to please help me understand what subculture it is that Jeff Hardy is supposed to be representative of because I had no idea and that I think is a failure of gimmick however once again what do I know about marketing because the girlies love this dude. And I enjoy his daredevil ways! He is in against Bull Buchanan who is a sleeveless censorship enthusiast and this is looking like a two-minute Royal Rumble which is good but the countdown timer is needlessly gaudy which is bad. In at number three it is Matt Hardy and so a double clothesline sends Buchanan over the top in pretty much no time. The Hardyzzzzzzz do an "ok bro no hard feelingzzzzzz it iz every man for himzzzelf" knuckle bump and *get after it* however they are both still around as Farooq enters the match at number four and if you were to ask him how often he would :pound ass" in a perfect world he would answer ALWAYS. Farooq is tossed quickly after a "twist of fate" and a "swanton" and now the Hardyz are attacking each other with renewed vigor and to indicate this vigor they take their shirts off and the girlies go *EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* and I am reminded of that rap song from probably right around this time that is like I GOT MY SHUUUURT OFF AND I'M READY TO FIGHT and next out at number five we have Drew Carey which I am going to suggest to you is not a great idea although maybe they'll come up with something awesome here and prove my skepticism misplaced. lol so the Hardyz were all tangled up on the top turnbuckle and they both fell off meaning Drew Carey is alone in the ring and one begins to think "I bet they put Kane in here" and yep here he is. It is entirely possible that I have seen a clip of this or something sometime so I can't really chalk this one up to intuition in all honesty but I assure you that I have not actually seen this match before in its entirety. lol on the subject of Carey Lawler is like "what's his blood type, Ragu?"


With ten seconds to go before the next competitor enters the ring Drew Carey offers Kane money which is of course of no use to a *Brother of Destruction* and is therefore declined. Carey just climbs out of the ring and eliminates himself as aaaaaahahahaha wtf Raven you look TERRIBLE enters the ring. Is that story true where after more or less everybody ended up in the WWF as the rest of the business collapsed Vince McMahon was like "wait wait wait who the hell hired Raven?" He looks like fuckin dogshit here with not a good beard man not a good beard. I saw him at an indie show in Oshawa, Ontario in I guess 2005 and he was back to his usualish look and my bro Darryl tried to shake his hand as he entered but Raven just looked at him contemptuously while he continued to wheel his little luggage. Al Snow is next and he grabs a trash can out form under the ring and tosses it in and things are going to get hardcore I guess. Perry Saturn is in next and he is accompanied by Terri Runnels who stuck around longer than I remembered and Perry Saturn is another guy who just freaked out and really hurt a guy on purpose one time right? Also I think he went missing for a while and Dave Meltzer would be like "if anyone has seen or heard from Perry Saturn would they please contact his family they are worried" lol. Steve Blackman is in next and he has brought with him some *martial arts sticks* of some kind and this is not much of a Royal Rumble so far ladies and gentlemen. The incredibly flat crowd here is evidence I think that by 2001 the initial thrill of *hardcore* wrestling had worn off sufficiently that a couple of garbage cans and sticks in the ring were no longer enough to make people think things that weren't otherwise awesome all of a sudden were.     


Yeah Scotty 2 Hotty is in next and this is how shitty this is so far: it's Scotty, Kane, 2001 Raven, Perry Saturn, Steve Blackman, and Al Snow and lol actually I was totally wrong it isn't Scotty 2 Hotty at all it is Grand Master Sexay who has in fact just now been eliminated by Kane and hey now Kane clears the ring of everybody before THE HONKY TONK MAN enters and hey that's a really great idea to have had and I'm happy to see him here but the match has been so shitty thus far that I'm not as into this as I should be necessarily right now. Honky Tonk Wayne gets on the *house mic* and they cue up his song and he sings it! Then he takes a HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE GUITAR SHOT BAH GAWD from Kane and is summarily dismissed like a criminal charge that isn't a good one or something. 


OK here comes The Rock and maybe all the guys who suck are behind us and everything from here on out will suffer from an outstandular condition. The crowd is pretty into The Rock and his initial burst of energy here but he is soon *cut off* and who is next out it is another member of Right to Censor lol it is the "Goodfather" and that's stupid. The Rock punches him out and over only seconds and only seconds after that The Rock is back to getting wailed on by "The Big Red Machine" who Jim Ross describes as "a carnivore feeding on a . . . rock . . . burger" and Lawler is like lol wut? Tazz is in next and he is no longer wearing wrestling gear but instead track pants and OK there he goes immediately at the gloved and gauntleted hands of Kane. So it's like The Rock and Kane are having a pretty decent match that is occasionally interrupted by vastly lesser dudes who are done away with in short order. Bradshaw is in now and he is still in his ass-pounding enthusiast gimmick here but he clotheslines people very well regardless of the constraints of character however. In the Justin "HAWK" Bradshaw days I saw him at a house show at of course the historic Halifax Forum and he was impressive live even if he had seemed to me the merest of midcarders on television. 


Prince Albert is in and we are somehow up to number seventeen already to my very real surprise and these are some pretty big dudes in here now with Albert and Kane and Bradshaw and The Rock who is by far the smallest guy in there despite himself being a certifiable "hoss." Hardcore Holly is in now and man idk what to tell you other than that this is not a very good Royal Rumble match. Bob Holly and Bradshaw seem to have formed a temporary alliance the common cause of which is the elimination of the Rock but that seems destined to failure. HOLY SHIT IT IS R-TRUTH I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA they are calling him Kid Kwick and again seriously I had no knowledge of this guy at this time at all which shows you how little attention I was paying in 2001 and I guess that is my loss because as all of us here in 2012 know very well R-Truth is rad. Here's Val Venis and Lawler is like "there are way too many Right to Censor members" and JR is like "I'll agree to that" and if that is a *worked* comment in keeping with story lines then yes but if it is a *shoot* comment then it is no less accurate and perhaps in fact more so. "The only thing we know for sure is that Rikishi will be number thirty," Ross tells us, and I'm not sure why we are sure of that but I accept it. I just saw the USOs who are apparently Fatu/Rikihi's kids wrestle a Tornado Tag Match against Primo and Epico on Smackdown and it seemed to me that those kids are *really awesome* and *totally get it.* European Champion William Regal joins the match and I think I am finally at the point where I think of him as "William" and not "Steven" which is good because it has been more than a decade now. I recall that at the time they didn't want him to be Steven because they already had a Steven and that was "Stone Cold" Steven Austin lol.


This is still not a very good Royal Rumble match as Test enters and I think it is he who eliminates Regal thereby robbing us of the many "European" uppercuts that might well have occurred had Regal lasted even seconds longer. Test probably isn't a terrible "big man" but I don't like him. WEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLL IT'S THE BIG SHOOOOOOOOW and I guess this marks a return from injury for him? He eliminates Test and R-Truth right away and chokeslams Albert and Bradshaw and Val Venis and Holly and the crowd totally stopped cheering for these by the time he got to Bradshaw HOWEVER he chokeslams Kane to a considerable ovation and attempts to do likewise to the Rock who counters with a low blow and then a couple of shots that send the Big Show up and over the top rope and remember last year when the Big Show and the Rock were last and it was really cool? Crash Holly hits the ring as The Big Shooooooow clears the announce table and grabs the Rock out from under the bottom rope and chokeslams him THROUGH THE TABLE BAH GAWD THE BIG SHOW much to the delight of "Faith No More Fan." Back in the ring, Bradshaw and Val Venis are holding Kane while the remaining dudes, Albert and the Hollys, put *the boots* to him.


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN HE IS HERE IT IS THE UNDERTAKER ON A MOTORCYCLE AND ON THE INTERNET THEY CALL HIM BIKERTAKER AND IT DOESN'T MATTER IF ON THIS HOME VIDEO VERSION HIS ENTRANCE IS MARRED BY A GENERIC OVERDUBBED THEME I KNOW FULL WELL HE CAME OUT TO LIMP BIZKIT LEAVE THE MEMORIES ALONE and the Undertaker and Kane clear the ring. Jim Ross says Kane has been in for forty minutes and wow this one is really flying by which would make you think well that must be because it is a good one but really isn't and I'm kind of surprised about this situation tbh. Finally the one true Scotty 2 Hotty comes in and he is not thrilled to be there as not one but BOTH BROTHERS OF DESTRUCTION await him and a double chokeslam later he is out. The Rock is finally working his way back to his feet on the outside. 


*GLASSSSS* DUN DUN DA DUN STONE COLD STONE COLD and I am ready to see this shit aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwww fuck man come on Triple H has jumped him from behind and is preventing his safe passage to the ring just as the Rock gets in there to be beat up by Kane and the Undertaker and the motorcycle thing makes sense as a gimmick I guess because a lot of wealthy middle-aged white dudes who live in the suburbs get pretty into not-actually-very-cool motorcycles at his age and Mr. Ass is in next WOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAHHHH Austin has bladed like a fuckin champ out there as "Tirple" H as I have just mistakenly typed it is finally dragged to the back by World Wrestling Federation Officials. 


HAKUUUUUUUUUUUUUU WITH AN ABSOLUTE MOTHERFUCKER OF A SAMOAN AFRO YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH this is a HELL of a surprise dude in the Royal Rumble but the crowd is just like "I don't remember do we remember this guy?" which is BULLSHIT because HAKU IS AWESOME so with only Rikishi left to enter we've got Haku, the Undertaker, Kane, Monsieur Ass and The Rock in there with Austin bleeding spectacularly on the outside. Ah I see so as Rikishi enters the match Austin is enraged into coherence sort of and he hits the ring and the crowd is inexplicably like "whatever" and then he eliminates Haku and they continue to be that way and then even when the Undertaker choke slams Rikishi they remain that way and this might not be a popular view given later weather events and governmental neglect but fuck you New Orleans you are not being sufficiently appreciative of this flawed but nevertheless very real Royal Rumble that is being performed before you. As a guy who has only ever been to WWF wrestling shows in the cities of Toronto and Halifax I find anything less than complete crowd awesomeness to be entirely unacceptable regardless of what you are seeing at wrestling basically. YEAHHHHH FATU REVERSE THRUST KICK AND THE UNDERTAKER IS OUT SAMOA AND SAMOANS FOREVER IMO oh noes Rikishi has been knocked out over the corner just as he was about to sit on the Rock :(


The final four consists of Austin, the Rock, Kane, and lol fuckin Billy Gunn but Austin gets rid of Mr. Ass just as I say that and now he is crumpled bleeding in the corner and that really is quite a *crimson mask* at present and now the Rock and Austin have *locked eyes* and seriously fuck you New Orleans for not losing your fucking MINDS for this shit right now because what the fuck more do you want than the Rock and Steve Austin at or near their primes squaring off at pretty much the end of the Royal Rumble? STONE COLD STUNNER and The Rock is down in the corner as Kane surfaces and goes after Austin but is quickly subdued AND ROCK BOTTOM ROCK BOTTOM and once again fuck you New Orleans this is unforgivable as Kane goes out through the ropes but not over them.


Alright so it is Austin and the Rock one-on-one again and they are throwing exhausted punches that start from their knees basically and making desperate attempts to OH SHIT with Austin and the Rock up against the ropes Kane tips the Rock over and to the floor and it is just Kane and Austin now and like eight guys in the crowd go "austin austin austin" and then a low blow puts Kane *to the canvas* and FUCKING AGAIN this crowd is shit. Tombstone? NO SIR IT IS KICKWHAMSTUNNER AND ONE TWO THREE CHAIR SHOTS AND A CLOTHESLINE and fuckin finally the crowd is like "hey OK!" and Jerry Lawler is fed some awkward line about how "Stone Cold has just opened up the biggest can of whoop ass ever and it is taking him all the way to Wrestlemania" and come on that is HARDLY the biggest can of whoop ass ever do you seriously expect us to swallow that 


Well that was an uninspired Royal Rumble match especially the first half of it OK actually two-thirds or so but the last idk fifteen minutes or so had plenty of good stuff that the crowd kind of flattened and maybe you can't blame them for that of maybe *you totally can* which is the course I have chosen. On the whole this show was a huge step down from the 2000 Royal Rumble which might prove really tough to beat going forward. By the time we reconvene for the next one the entire landscape of pretending to fight in North America will have been forever changed and I for one am eager to see what that is like because it is another one I have never seen!