Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble PPV in history
By Luke Norris
17. WWE Royal Rumble 1997
Match card & results
- WWE Intercontinental Championship Match: Hunter Hearst Helmsley (c) def. Goldust
- Ahmed Johnson def. Faarooq
- Vader def. The Undertaker
- Canek, Hector Garza and Perro Aguayo def. Fuerza Guerrera, Heavy Metal and Jerry Estrada
- Stone Cold Steve Austin wins 30-Man Royal Rumble Match
- WWE Championship Match: Shawn Michaels def. Sycho Sid (c)
While I don’t think that the 1997 Royal Rumble match is quite as good as what we got a year later, I do think that it’s still at top-10 Rumble and the card is just a little bit better. The final two matches are again the highlight and the drama of Shawn Michaels’ title win in his hometown just edges it past the ’98 event.
The night started decently as Hunter Hearst Helmsley (he hadn’t quite adopted Triple H just yet) and Goldust battled for the Intercontinental Championship. For those who don’t remember, this actually was a very good feud. Ahmed Johnson and Faarooq engaged in a very uncomfortable program and then put on an average match here. Vader and The Undertaker should have been better but it was passable and the cruiserweight match still wasn’t as good as what WCW was doing.
The Rumble match was fun to watch and Stone Cold Steve Austin was the star. I said it in my Royal Rumble match rankings last year and I’ll say it again here. If the 1996 King of the Ring didn’t make him a star, this match did. He came in at number five and threw 10 people out in his 45 minutes in the ring and did it in entertaining fashion. What’s so great about this win is that he was actually thrown out of the match by Bret Hart but the referees were too busy tending to a brawl with Mick Foley and Terry Funk that they didn’t see it. He jumped back in to eliminate the last remaining competitors, including Bret, to win the first of his three Rumbles matches.
The WWE Championship bout featuring Shawn Michaels and Sycho Sid closed the night and while Sid did his best to slow things down and make it boring, HBK was able to carry the match and as I said, the drama of him winning the title in his hometown made for a good story. Unfortunately, he’d give the “I lost my smile” speech a few weeks later, which kind of ruins things, but that’s for another day.