10 Great Moments In Average WWE Careers
7. Maven Eliminates The Undertaker
The kid from Tough Enough dropkicking The Undertaker over the top rope in 2002 is the most shocking elimination in the history of the Royal Rumble. Take Heath Slater eliminating Sheamus from this year’s match and multiply it by 100, and you’re getting somewhere close.
Maven was a complete nobody, with only a handful of SmackDown appearances and a single win over Tazz to his name, and The Undertaker, albeit as his opinion-splitting Great American Badass persona, was still The Undertaker. Like an RKO, it came out of nowhere.
Surprise for the sake of surprise can be a bad thing, and that is what this moment felt like; it was not designed to make a star out of Maven. But considering that ‘The Deadman’ was a monster heel at the time, his humiliation garnered a massive pop from the live audience.
Unfortunately, Maven would never hear such a reaction from the fans again. He did win the Hardcore Championship from 'Taker a short time later and floated around the bottom of the card for a few years, but his WWE career will forever be defined by one dropkick.