This is the first Royal Rumble since the beginning of the brand split, and it's the perfect even to showcase the gap in quality between the Raw and SmackDown brands at this point. On one hand, you have a showdown between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit for the WWE title, two of the best in the world and two men who command respect from the fans and from the locker room, with quite a history of working together over the past few years that could lend plenty of intrigue towards a championship collision. On the other hand, Raw brings to you Triple H versus Scott Steiner, an infamous disaster of a match that completely ruined the career of one of wrestling's hottest free agents at the time and led to years of bad blood between both men, which is responsible for the omission of the Steiner Brothers from the WWE Hall of Fame. The two world title matches completely overshadow the titular Rumble itself, probably a good thing for the company as this year's edition was one of the most predictable in history, as there was no doubt that Brock Lesnar would emerge victorious in his first Rumble match, with the main event spot at WrestleMania practically guaranteed to include "The Next Big Thing", especially after his face turn. That being said, the previous year's Rumble also had an obvious winner, and still delivered a terrific showing, plus the roster is so stacked at this time, so you'd be a fool to bet against the 2003 Rumble being one of the best.
- Royal Rumble 2003 comes to you from the Fleet Center (now TD Garden) in Boston, Massachusetts, one of WWE's favorite host venues. The company was last here for King of the Ring 2000, and also hosted WrestleMania 14 here a few years prior, and would return annually from 2011-2017.
- Our opening contest is for a spot in the Royal Rumble match, as Big Show meets Brock Lesnar in a Survivor Series rematch. Having these two fight over a spot in the Rumble was a clever piece of booking, as it casts some doubt over Lesnar's triumph later in the night, plus having them open gives the show an immediate big fight feel. Brock is absolutely dominant here, tossing Show around with multiple suplexes to the delight of the crowd, and Show's only real chance to win comes with help from Paul Heyman. Brock's former manager runs in and almost takes an F-5, but Show intervenes to hit a chokeslam for a near fall. A second chokeslam is countered, and Lesnar hits the F-5 on Big Show for the third time in as many months, finally getting the three count to move on to the main event.
- Despite an emotional victory at Armageddon that seemed to position them as Raw's top tag team going forward, Booker T and Goldust have already dropped the gold, as Lance Storm and William Regal stole the tag belts away with help from Regal's trusty brass knuckles. They now defend the titles here against the Dudley Boyz, and immediately prove to be transitional champions. Following a completely forgettable seven minutes of wrestling, Bubba and D-Von take out Regal with a 3D, then grab the knucks to KO Storm for another title change.
- Oh boy, the Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie feud has completely gone off the rails since our last time checking in, with Dawn and Al Wilson getting hitched before she f***ed him to death, yes, I'm serious. Despite how trashy the storyline has gotten, both women play their grudge match completely straight, trying their best to play off of emotion that the crowd just doesn't buy into. Fair play to them for trying to take this seriously, and Dawn's veiled entrance was actually a cool look, but there's no saving this. Torrie wins with a swinging neckbreaker, which might've had more of an impact if she hadn't already beaten Dawn clean back at No Mercy.
- The flaming dumpster is where we're living folks, as it's time for Triple H versus Scott Steiner. There's nothing technically wrong with this match, no really egregious botches or anything genuinely dangerous to either man, just eighteen minutes of some of the slowest wrestling I've ever seen, in front of a crowd that simply doesn't care. Maybe this would've gotten more audience investment if both men hadn't spent weeks doing arm wrestling contests and posedowns, but that's just me. Steiner's strikes are just horrible, and even though he still has some impressive suplexes, they're being done better by other members of the roster, and that's all he's got, so the crowd tires of watching them quickly. The finish makes little sense, as despite Triple H having gone through some tenacious wars over the past few years, he and Ric Flair decide that he's in trouble, and find a cheap way out. Eventually, Triple H gets disqualified by hitting Steiner with the sledgehammer, which unfortunately means we're getting more of this.
- Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit have spent a lot of time over the last two years taking lumps out of each other, and their rivalry reaches it's apex on this night, as they fight over the WWE Championship. Their match at Unforgiven last year featured a first half built entirely on mat wrestling, which they skip straight past this time around. The opening eight to ten minutes of this one are still unremarkable, essentially just a normal TV match, before the drama crescendos down the back half, leading to some blisteringly great stretches. Both men trade their finishing holds, before Angle powers through the Crippler Crossface to hit an Angle Slam for a near fall. They each hit German suplexes, which ends with Benoit releasing Angle in mid-air, who takes an extra flip to bring the fans to their feet. Benoit launches himself across the ring for a diving headbutt, but Angle trades back by catapulting Benoit onto the top rope and hitting another Angle Slam. The finish is similar to what we saw at Armageddon with Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, where Chris refused to let go of the Crossface, avoiding a rope break and never releasing the hold. Here, Kurt gets the Ankle Lock applied, and is just relentless, never letting Benoit get a second to recover. Eventually, Angle manages to grapevine the leg, trapping Benoit in the center of the ring, and the challenger is forced to tap. This one took a while to get going, but those final few minutes are some of the best I've ever seen. For obvious reasons, this match will never be recognized as such, but it's easily one of the best non-Rumble matches to ever take place on a Rumble pay-per-view. Watch it.
- Main event time, as 15 men from Raw and 15 from SmackDown face off for a ticket to the main event of WrestleMania. As I mentioned at the top of this review, there's no doubt as to the winner, and unlike last year, there were no nostalgic comebacks or surprise returns to the WWE, so if that's what you prefer in your favorite Rumble, this one likely isn't for you. It's still an above average Rumble for my money though, with one of the best opening stretches. The match is supposed to start with Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho, as HBK has been pushed by Mr. McMahon to go the distance, but Y2J wants to prove he can do it instead, and he's determined to take the cheapest way possible. Christian enters in Jericho's place, which allows Chris to bust Shawn open with a chair and toss him out, a shocking way to open the match that really presents Jericho as the man to beat. We get some great wrestling from Rey Mysterio and Edge a little later on, before Christian makes his actual entrance into the match for some fun spots with Edge. Christian takes a Spear, which results in the two kayfabe brothers coming to blows, revisiting their feud from 2001, and that allows Jericho, sneaky little devil, to skin the cat and dump them both out. From here, though, the match begins to drag, with few booked spots and lots of guys entering, hitting a few moves, and occasionally getting dumped out, the worst part of every Rumble. Honestly, there are very few highlights for the next half hour or so, and the match finally begins to pick up some steam again when Shawn Michaels returns. He brawls with Jericho for a bit, allowing Test to get the elimination on Y2J, and then the war between Shawn and Chris continues on the outside. Brock Lesnar is the penultimate entry, and he quickly puts everyone on notice, taking out both Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin of the recently formed Team Angle, before lauching Matt Hardy onto both men with an F-5, an awesome spot that got a huge pop. That excitement was matched by entrant number thirty, The Undertaker, returning after a few months spent recuperating from the Hell in a Cell match with Brock, though he was written off in kayfabe after an attack by the Big Show. The Brothers of Destruction get a few moments at the close of this match, as Maven tries and fails to replicate his famous dropkick from the previous year, while Kane takes out tag partner Rob Van Dam with a Gorilla Press to the floor. It all comes down to hosses, as the two brothers are left with Lesnar and rising star Batista. Undertaker is distracted by Batista, who reacts to being eliminated by running in with a chair, allowing Brock to dump his nemesis to the outside for the win.
- Again, Brock's win was telegraphed, so did take some drama away from the final stretch, and I also thought his final elimination of Undertaker was surprisingly lame, Brock is supposed to destroy people, he's not an opportunist. Still, if you can stay invested through a lot of the downtime in the middle of this one, there's a lot of great action to be found, and I thought the booking at the start was brilliant, doing great work to set up the first Michaels/Jericho feud. One of the better Rumbles I've seen.
7/10
The final two matches weren't perfect, but both had plenty of high points, which sort of made for how bad this undercard truly was. Big Show was somehow in the best match of the four, though he was doing some really good work around this time despite not being in great shape. The less said about Triple H and Scott Steiner the better, and I can't bring myself to highly rate any show with a match that boring on it. Still, Royal Rumble 2003 continues the tradition set by the past three Rumble pay-per-views before it, getting the new year off to a strong start.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: No Way Out 2003, as WWE heads to Montreal for Hulk Hogan versus The Rock, part two. See you soon.
- Henry
Comments