7 Things You Should Know About WWE Royal Rumble 2001

1. The Second Best Royal Rumble PPV Ever

The 2000 Rumble was the best Rumble PPV ever. This one is second best. It was ranked as the 15th best PPV of all time when I ranked the top 20, but after watching it again for the sake of this article it's probably even better than that. There's so much to like about this show. It was an above average Rumble match that had a lot of star power with big names like Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker and Kane booked as some of the bigger stars. There were some performers that weren't quite as big, but in terms of top guys it was very strong. The Rumble match was one of the three best Rumble ever with 1992 still reigning as the best of the bunch and one of the Rumble matches that followed it was definitely at this same kind of level, which we'll get to in a future article. It was the right mix of comedy, violence, creative eliminations and Austin was the right guy to win the match too. Any great show needs a show stealing match and that's what Jericho did with Benoit in the IC Title Ladder Match. It really was one of the best ladder matches ever that is probably not given the respect it deserves just because of all the other amazing matches from 2001. Watching it again reminds me that it was fantastic. The tag title match was a lot of fun with a hot crowd. When a crowd reacts to things as positively as they did that match then you know what they did was working. The Dudleys win over Edge & Christian was a smart choice for the opening match. Angle's WWE Title win over Triple H was a bit of a tainted match because of the ref bumps and interference, but they did a good job of telling a story. Plus, the women fighting around ringside was very entertaining to watch too. Watching this show again was a lot of fun. There were so many things to like about it and watching it 14 years later provided another reminder as to why this really was the best time to be a WWE fan.