Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble match in history

9. Royal Rumble 2002 – Triple H

The 2002 Royal Rumble: the story of Maven. Oh wait, that wasn’t what we were supposed to remember? My bad. But still, Maven eliminated The Undertaker that year. No, seriously. I mean, the rookie took a beating for doing so but it was certainly an interesting story nonetheless.

In all seriousness, the 2002 Royal Rumble was always going to be about the return of Triple H, who had missed eight months following that gruesome quad injury. Following his epic return on RAW a few weeks earlier, I don’t think there was ever a question that he would win the Rumble but getting to that point was a lot of fun. While it was hard to live up to the match that took place a year earlier, the ’02 edition certainly did its best, and while not everything was great, the ending was perfect … in more ways than one.

Yes, that was a joke to the amazing return of Mr. Perfect, who entered the match at number 25, had a great showing and found himself in the final four with Triple H, Kurt Angle and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was a bit of a surprise that Austin went out first but Angle took care of the three-time winner and Triple H took care of Hennig, paving the way for an epic finish between two of the best of their generation. I don’t care what the situation was but I always loved whenever Triple H and Kurt Angle were in the ring together and this was no exception. The two went back and forth and Angle thought he had eliminated his rival and began to celebrate. But Triple H had hung on to the ropes and hit the Olympic gold medalist with a knee smash and then executed one of the most perfect clotheslines I’ve ever seen to pick up the win.