Ranking All 30 WWE Royal Rumble Winners

18. The Rock – 2000

steve austin 2001 royal rumble
WWE.com

WrestleMania title shot: Lost to Triple H at WrestleMania 2000

Poor Rocky. The Great One couldn’t catch a break in early 2000. First he won the Rumble, then replays showed he actually was eliminated before Big Show. Then they tried unsuccessfully to name a top contender, so he got stuck in a triple threat for the WWF Championship.

Then the McMahons got involved, and each member of the family had a backed wrestler in the Mania main event, with Linda adding the recently retired Mick Foley for a four-way elimination match. It ultimately wound down to the two original combatants, but Rock would lose and Triple H would become the first heel to walk out of WrestleMania with the world title. That would change over time, especially with multiple world titles, but it was a pretty big deal in 2000.

But don’t feel too bad for Rock. Things turned out OK for him.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.