7 Things You Should Know About WWE Royal Rumble 1997

1. Shawn Michaels Won Back The WWE Title In His Hometown

The original plan for this match, according to Jim Cornette and others, was for Michaels to challenge Vader for the WWE Title. He was going to beat Michaels for it at Survivor Series, then Shawn would get it back here and have a great accomplishment beating a monster heel. However, Michaels hated working with Vader because he was too stiff. WWE replaced him with Sid, so it was Sid that won at Survivor Series. Sid walked into the Rumble as the WWE Champ. It's pretty cool to hear the ovation for Michaels at this show. He was really loved in his hometown. It was smart of WWE to put this match on last. Most of the time the Rumble match should be last, but in this instance it's okay that this ended the show. They had a very basic match. It's not like Sid was known for great matches. Shawn was apparently sick for the match, but he was able to get through it. They did a cool spot towards the end after a ref bump where Shawn used the camera to hit Sid, which was payback from Survivor Series 1996 when Sid did that to Shawn. That set up the superkick by Shawn and he won the WWE Title for the second time. By the end of the show, we thought that the main event of WrestleMania 13 was going to be Shawn Michaels defending the WWE Title against Steve Austin just based on the results of the last two matches. As it turned out, that wasn't even close to happening although it did take place one year later.