Royal Rumble

1) Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar. Winner advances to the RR. It's all about power here, and these two have it. **1/2

2) Dudley Boyz vs. Lance Storm and William Regal (tag team titles). Not bad, but forgettable. **

3) Dawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson. A poor match, made even worse by the disgustingly tasteless storyline on which it is based. *1/2

4) HHH vs. Scott Steiner (WH title). Anyone who still doubts that wrestling is fake should just take a look at Steiner's punches. Draggy match, pathetic DQ finish that the crowd boos heavily. *1/2

5) Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit (WWE title). Awesome match, but what else do you expect from the two best (by far) in the business? Mat wrestling, high-flying, suplexes, submission holds, reversals, reversals-upon-reversals, this one has everything. ***1/2

6) Royal Rumble Match. A fair rumble, it has its moments. Good show by Rey Mysterio at the start (when it's easier to notice the individual performances), but in my opinion the MVP of the whole match, considering the time he lasted in the ring and the amount of moves he did, is RVD. ***

Overall, if you just watch matches 1, 5 and 6 you won't be missing much. But definitely watch #5.

The 2003 Royal Rumble will be remembered for two reasons.. Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit was a classic match and the Triple H Vs Scott Steiner was one of the worst matches ever witnessed at a p.p.v. The 'actual' Rumble was quite good but we have seen better in recent years.

This was not a very exciting PPV.

First match sees Big Show taking on Brock Lesnar. Everyone knew that Lesnar was going to win, so it was no surprise when he won.

Next up the WWE demonstrates it doesn't give two hoots about the World Tag straps as Lance Storm and William Regal defend their titles against The Dudley Boyz in a boring match.

Then Torrie Wilson takes on Dawn Marie in a stepmother vs stepdaughter farce! Please gimme a break!

Next up One of the best matches I have seen in my 13 years as a wrestling fan. Chris Benoit takes on Kurt Angle in a fantastic battle. Even though Angle won and kept his title, Benoit got a deafening ovation from the crowd afterwards!

Then Triple H defends his WWE heavyweight title against Scott Steiner, which just doesn't live up to the billing. This bore the arse off me and I think a Mae Young vs Heidenreich match would have been better.

Then the Royal Rumble takes place. I've seen better. Lesnar won but everyone knew that.

Overall, not good!

Lesnar vs Show - 6/10 Wilson vs Marie - 1/10 Tag Team titles match - 4.5/10 Angle vs Benoit - 10/10 Steiner vs HHH - 2/10 Rumble match - 6/10

2003 Royal Rumble

My first Royal Rumble, and first WWE PPV, actually. I've only become a WWE fan quite recently, since I've only started getting RAW and Velocity after No Way Out 04. Yet, while I was in NYC, I decided to pick this baby up. It looked like a good card

And quite frankly, it did not disappoint, as some other reviews might lead you to believe.

Opening match: Brock Lesnar vs. The Big Show

It's pretty funny to see the HUGE pop Lesnar gets during this match, and compare it to the GARGANTUAN heat he got at Wrestlemania XX. It's like he went from the most over superstar in the card, to the least over. I don't like him, myself. But the fact of the matter is, this is a pretty cool power match. It's funny to see Paul Heyman on the outside of the ring, going absolutely berserk sometimes. And, the two consecutive belly to belly overhead suplexes Brock Lesnar gave to Show were awesome to see. All the match needed to be perfect was Lesnar giving Show a superplex off the turnbuckle, breaking the ring in half. But, it remains a Smackdown! exclusive moment, I'm afraid. Lesnar wins it, of course, to a huge pop. An entertaining match-up, 7/10

World Tag Championship: Lance Storm & William Regal vs. Dudleyz

Meh. I don't really care about this match. I saw it was, nothing special. The post-match interview by the Dudley is more entertaining. 5/10

Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie

I didn't see this match. I don't care.

World's Heavyweight Championship match: Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner vs. Triple H in accompanied by Nature Boy Ric Flair

OK. This is a match that really gets on my nerves not because of the match itself, but because of the reaction and criticism a lot of fans give on it. It's a FINE match. It's a cool match, even. Granted, it has some ugly moments, but it has some very impressive bits as well. I loved seeing Steiner (One of my favourite superstars ever) manhandling Triple H. Just seeing Triple H getting manhandled overall was awesome, even though I knew he'd be walking out World's champion anyway all along. Bad moments: Triple H on the outside of the ring, selling Scott Steiner's blows to the head. It was a really crappy way of selling the punches. I can't remember many other bad moments overall, Steiner had a bit of ring rust, definitely, but I really don't think he is to blame for some of the matches' flaws. It just became quite popular to hate on Scott Steiner, and it became quite popular to hate on this match. It also bothered me that during the match, there was a group of people with loud voices chanting ''Triple H!'' and ''Steiner sucks!''. Putting Ric Flair on Hunter's corner didn't help Steiner getting fans, either. Flair needs to be face, period. The fans love him, they just can't hate him or anyone he's associated with.

Great moments: You know in all Triple H matches, when the opponent has the momentum, and Hunter stops the momentum with his facebuster? Steiner was crushing Triple H, and he pulled out the facebuster...but it does nothing to Steiner. In fact, it hurts Triple H. This was an awesome moment, and the crowd went ''Huh????''. I really didn't see this coming, I thought this would be the moment where HHH would stop Scott Steiner's momentum and eventually win with a pedigree. Whenever Scott Steiner did push ups in front of Triple H, especially when HHH is busted wide open, on the canvas, tired as hell, beat up, and Steiner's just relaxing and doing push ups. That was great to see. After Steiner delivers an awesome series of knife edge chops to the chest of the Game, you can see Hunter's whole chest is red as hell.

After the match, Steiner puts on the Steiner Recliner on a...pretty much dead Triple H. All the refs and staff are around him, trying to pull him away, but it takes Bischoff's words to break it up. Very cool. Another great moment is when Scott Steiner has Triple H in a powerslam/Tombstone Piledriver like position, HHH turns it around, Steiner turns it around again but receives a pretty cool looking Neck breaker. The crowd loved this. The finish was of course, very disappointing, especially to myself, since I'm a HUGE Scott Steiner freak. Hail Freakzilla.

Winner: Scott Steiner

Overall, 7/10

WWE Championship: Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit

This is one of the greatest matches I have ever seen in my life. Absolutely incredible, especially if you don't know the outcome. I won't spoil it to you if you don't know who wins, despite the age of the match.

9/10

Royal Rumble match:

A pretty entertaining match-up... Edge 'turning on' Christian after their temporary 'alliance' was VERY cool! The beginning was nice too, with Christian tricking Shawn Micheals into thinking he was Jericho. Who saw HBK's early elimination coming? That was really unexpected.

It was cool seeing Tommy Dreamer bringing in all the weapons, ECW style! And there was a VERY cool double team aerial move by Rey Mysterio and Edge on Chris Nowinski (who did his job as a comedic factor in the rumble). Jericho got tons of near eliminations, very cool. But the finish... honestly, what's so interesting about seeing Undertaker and Brock Lesnar the last two men in the royal rumble match... if they were the last to enter the match anyway? So what if they win? It's not like they actually had much of a challenge. HBK and Benoit, who were both the first men in on their respective royal rumble victories, now they made an impression. Those two athletes, those two superstars made a true blue impact! Lesnar wins the rumble... as the 29th entry. Great...

7/10

Get the DVD if you can. It has a lot of entertaining interviews, promos, and the royal rumble 03 commercial and respective Making Of. Very funny.

Overall event rating: 7.8/10 . Get it on DVD if you can!

I'll admit that this era of WWE is not my favorite. The Raw/Smackdown bifurcation never thrilled me and I felt like the business at the time was filled with rather generic "stars". Even so, I found this Royal Rumble 2003 PPV to be at least fairly entertaining (if not quite a bit higher for those who grew up in this era of WWE).

Some further thoughts...

-Lesnar/Big Show as a "play-in" match for Rumble participation is an entertaining concept, and both big men put on a great match.

-Dudleyz/Storm-Regal, Steiner/HHH, & Angle/Benoit are not necessarily my cup of tea, but they are decent enough matches and I can easily see where bigger fans of those individuals will find them more entertaining than I.

-The Rumble itself is the best in a few years. The bottom-roster talent might be a bit thin, but the entire narrative builds to a great conclusion that sets up well for the upcoming Wrestlemania.

Overall, I enjoyed this event much more than the previous 3-4 major PPVs. While not exactly "my era stuff", I can see a level of quality here that others may enjoy far more.