WWE: 7 Greatest Royal Rumble Matches of All-Time

5. 2002 - The Return of The Game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aRp36VWpd4 2002 was a critical year for the WWE. With the Attitude Era coming to a close, the lack of a competing brand, and a preponderance of stars in the back, 2002 would become the year the brand split its roster in two, resulting in the "Versus Era" of sports entertainment. At the start of the year, the WWE found itself in a sort of limbo, without a real direction fueled by its storylines, and a percievable vacuum at the top, with a relative newcomer to being "the guy", Chris Jericho, at the helm leading into Wrestlemania. With the Invasion finished and the WCW roster assimilated into the WWE, there was no true bad guy on the brand. The absence of a top heel had been noticeable ever since Triple H had torn his Quadricep in a routine tag match, an injury that sidelined him for close to eight months, meaning he had not factored at all into the Invasion or the direction of the WWE in the post-McMahon-Helmsley Era. The moment The Game returned on January 7th, 2002, he put his sights on the Royal Rumble match, quickly pitting him in a fierce rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker, who were, at the time, hard-nosed main event heels who could similarly see the void at the top. The three danced around each other for a number of weeks before descending upon Atlanta for the pay-per-view. While the match started off slow (with Rikishi and Goldust handling the in-ring responsibilities early), it picked up immeasurably when The Undertaker hit the ring at #8, at which point he unceremoniously tossed out Rikishi, Goldust, All Snow, and Billy Gunn to empty his "yard". He suffered a minor setback when he was attacked by the freshly reunited Team Extreme, but threw Matt and Jeff Hardy out to empty the ring once more. He seemed unstoppable... right up to the moment when Lita and the Hardyz began to distract the Deadman. With his back turned to the ring, Maven, the first Tough Enough winner, took a bold chance and hit Undertaker with a dropkick, sending him careening out of the ring. Not to be denied retribution for what he saw as an injustice, the Undertaker spent the next ten minutes physically and literally eliminating Maven, cutting him open away from the view of the cameras and dragging him up into the area, where he eventually deposited him through the glass of a popcorn machine. While this was still going on, the ring began to fill up once again with guys from the middle of the card, DDP, Scotty 2 Hotty, Chuck Palumbo, Christian, and The Godfather (escorted to the ring by his very own escorts no less). In particular, Christian and Chuck Palumbo were gaining some momentum, but this only lasted them up to number 19, when the glass shattered and Stone Cold hit the ring, quickly dispatching all of his opposition, eliminating both Christian and Palumbo twice while he waited for new entrants to brutalize. He would finally get his wish for a good fight when, at number 22, Triple H finally returned to in-ring action. The two would brawl for the remainder of the match as they were joined by the likes of Kurt Angle, Mr. Perfect, Kane, Big Show, Rob Van Dam, and Booker T. Eventually, Stone Cold would be eliminated by Kurt Angle, who seized on a moment of distraction to toss out the Rattlesnake. The match would come down to Angle and The Game, and while Angle thought he had beaten Triple H with an Angle Slam to the outside, Triple H would use the apron to his advantage, re-entering the ring, smashing his knee into Kurt's face, and clotheslining his way to victory in Atlanta.