10 Times WWE Royal Rumble Winners Risked It All Before WrestleMania

6. Triple H - 2002

WWE Fastlane 2015 Daniel Bryan Roman Reigns
WWE

The old bait and switch. Welcome to WWE in 2002.

A pay-per-view best remembered for the first appearance of the New World Order in WWE, No Way Out (the nWo at the NWO, you get it?) was another stop in the biggest feud leading into WrestleMania X8: Triple H Vs. Stephanie McMahon. Go back and read that again. Not the first ever WWE Undisputed Champion and the number one contender, but the Game against his storyline ex-wife.

Triple H's return at Madison Square Garden created one of the biggest crowd reactions in WWE history, so it only made sense to feed the rest of the roster to him at the Royal Rumble. He last eliminated Kurt Angle, who felt like he should have won and asked the King of Kings to face him a month later with the title match on the line. With Stephanie as special guest referee, the Olympic Hero won the match and would go on to face Chris Jericho at the Granddaddy... not.

Hunter won his title match back the next night on Raw. Why did we have to go through all this just to arrive at the same place we started? More McMahon mayhem ensued for the next month as Stephanie aligned herself with Chris Jericho, but Hunter still raised both belts at the Show of Shows. Stop the ride, we want to get off.

Contributor

When I'm not trying my hardest to visit all 50 U.S. states, I'm listening to music from the 80s, watching TV from the 90s, and reminiscing about growing up in the 00s. I'm currently living in Melbourne, Australia so WWE premium live events are on Sunday afternoons for me; the absolute dream.