10 Fascinating WWE Royal Rumble 2002 Facts
It truly was all about The Game.
It's been sixteen years since the 2002 Royal Rumble took place, and I can still hear Bono's high-register warble in the chorus of the hit song "Beautiful Day". In the month prior to Triple H's return to wrestling from a torn quadriceps, the TV audiences were inundated with inspirational training vignettes set to the popular U2 song. Helmsley would return in the new year, sights set on the 2002 Rumble match, where he'd be joined by a few other stars of renown.
By early-2002, the still-strong WWE was in a weird place. With Nitro and WCW no more, WWE no longer seemed compelled to hectically overload Raw with one must-see element after another. The chaos was slowly leaving the show, and the end of the wrestling fad was backed up with a noticeable decline in ratings. The Alliance misfire was fresh in everyone's mind, and Vince McMahon's negotiations with the fortysomething New World Order relics began to undermine WWE's "hip, cool, young" ethos.
Triple H's return, believe it not, represented a fresh tack in early-2002. After eight months away, the dramatic comeback of a still-young champion wrestler created excitement. This notion seemed hard to fathom even eight months after the fact, when Helmsley was doing the world's dullest Ric Flair impersonation on the Raw brand. How quickly things change.
Here are ten facts about the 2002 Royal Rumble you may not have known.
10. Those In The UK Were Forced To Purchase The Show, Instead Of Watching For Free
It was noted in the 2000 list of Rumble facts that that show, as well as subsequent WWE pay-per-views, aired for free on the UK's Channel 4, complete with arbitrary commercial breaks. Like all good things, the free broadcasts were not meant to last.
Two weeks before the 2002 Royal Rumble, Channel 4's WWE deal expired, and was not renewed. Days later, WWE came to an agreement with Sky Box Office, taking them on as their new carrier. However, the shows were now pay-per-views in the literal sense, costing 14 pounds apiece (about $20 American in 2002).
Considering that I had to scrounge up double that ($39.95) to buy WWE pay-per-views at that point, I'd say my friends across at the Atlantic got off light.