Royal Rumble (2001)

The 2001 Royal Rumble was the 14th annual

As has been customary since 1993, the

The event comprised five matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWF's writers, while storylines were produced on WWF's weekly television shows, Raw and SmackDown!.^[6][7]

At the Royal Rumble was WWF Champion Kurt Angle defending his title against Triple H in a standard match. The build-up to the match began on the January 8 episode of Raw Is War, when Angle defended the championship against Stone Cold Steve Austin, which ended in a no contest when Triple H interfered and ambushed Austin with a steel pipe. On the January 11 episode of SmackDown!, Vince McMahon scheduled Angle to defend his title at the Royal Rumble against Triple H. Leading up to the event, both men spoke about the match, with Triple H claiming that Angle only held the championship because he allowed him to, and Angle denying this.^[8]

Also taking place at the event was a ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, in which the champion, Chris Benoit, defended his title against Chris Jericho. In the match, the title belt was suspended above the ring from the ceiling, and the only method to win was to climb a ladder to retrieve the belt. Their feud started at WrestleMania 2000, when Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho challenged Kurt Angle with both his Intercontinental title and WWF European Championship on the line in a Two-fall triple threat match. During that match, both men pinned each other in one fall each to win the respective championship from Angle. Since that event, Benoit would hold three pay per view victories over Jericho culminating at SummerSlam in a two out of three falls match. On the January 4 episode of SmackDown!, Benoit defended his title against Jericho in a standard match. During the match, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko, Benoit's partners in the group The Radicalz, interfered by attacking Jericho, causing him to win the match by disqualification but not the championship.^[9] On the January 8 episode of Raw Is War, Jericho teamed with The Hardy Boyz (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) against The Radicalz (Saturn, Malenko, and Benoit) in a six man tag team match, which Jericho won by pinning Benoit.^[10] On the January 11 episode of SmackDown!, Jericho demanded a title match at the Royal Rumble. Benoit offered to give Jericho any type of match he wanted and Jericho chose a ladder match.^[8]

Event

Before the pay-per-view event began, an episode of Sunday Night Heat, one of the secondary television programs for WWF, was shown. Lo Down (D'Lo Brown and Chaz) defeated Kaientai (Taka Michinoku and Shoichi Funaki) in a tag team match, when Chaz pinned Funaki. Originally, the winning team was to send one of their members into the Royal Rumble match, but Drew Carey wound up being entered instead.^[11]

Preliminary matches

The pay-per-view event began with Edge & Christian defending their WWF World Tag Team Championship against The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley). Throughout the match, both teams performed many offensive maneuvers, though The Dudley Boyz were able to gain the upper hand. D-Von pinned Edge after a 3D, resulting in The Dudley Boyz winning the WWF World Tag Team Championship.^[11][12]

Next, Chris Benoit defended his Intercontinental Championship against Chris Jericho in a ladder match, which was to serve as the blowoff to their longstanding on-and-off rivalry. Both men performed a number of attacks and maneuvers on one another in an attempt to disable their opponent long enough to climb the ladder and retrieve the title belt suspended above the ring. At one point in the match, Benoit dove through the ropes headfirst at Jericho, but Jericho struck him in the face with a steel chair. Jericho also applied the Walls of Jericho at the top of the ladder onto Benoit. The end of the match came when Jericho pushed over the ladder while Benoit was ascending it, causing Benoit to fall out to the outside of the ring. Jericho then climbed the ladder and retrieved the Intercontinental Championship belt.^[12][13][14]

In the third contest,

Closing the show was the traditional 30-man Royal Rumble match for a WWF Championship match at WrestleMania X-Seven. The first two entrants were Jeff Hardy and Bull Buchanan, a member of Right To Censor at the time. They were joined by Matt Hardy who entered at No. 3, both Hardys worked together in eliminating Buchanan as well as Faarooq who entered at No. 4. Jeff and Matt then battled each other, and it was during this time that Drew Carey arrived at No. 5, being the first celebrity entrant in Rumble history.

Earlier in the night, Carey was backstage looking to speak with Vince McMahon about how to put together a successful pay-per-view. After thinking Carey was trying to hit on his (storyline) mistress

No. 8,

The final four consisted of Kane, The Rock, Austin and Gunn. Gunn executed the Fame Asser on Austin, but Austin recovered quickly and eliminated Gunn. The Rock and Austin then battled each other after tossing Kane through (but not over) the ropes. Kane came back in moments later and tried to eliminate both Rock and Austin, who were fighting near the ropes. The Rock was eliminated, while Austin held on to the ropes. After a minute or so of fighting Austin, Kane went outside the ring, grabbed a steel chair and tried to use it to hit Austin. Austin avoided the chair shot and executed a Stunner on Kane. As Kane got up, Austin hit him in the head three times with the chair and then clotheslined him over the top rope to win the Rumble for a record third time.[17]

Reception

In 2017, Kevin Pantoja of

  – Winner [20]

Kane eliminated 11 men, breaking the record for the most wrestlers eliminated in a single Royal Rumble. This record was previously held by Hulk Hogan (1989) and Stone Cold Steve Austin (1997), who both scored 10 eliminations respectively.

References