Royal Rumble 2000: The Rumble Wasn't Even the Best Part

Three minutes and sixteen seconds should not be enough time to make a pay-per-view opener memorable, but Tazz arrives with an advantage most debuting wrestlers never get: Madison Square Garden already knows exactly who he is. The orange-and-black entrance graphic hits, the crowd erupts, and Kurt Angle suddenly has a real problem instead of another opponent for his undefeated streak.

The match is designed as impact rather than development. Angle gets just enough offense to remain credible, then Tazz strings together the suplexes that defined his ECW identity and traps Angle in the Tazzmission until the referee stops it.

The short length limits the ceiling as a wrestling match, and later Tazz booking makes the moment feel almost cruel in hindsight because the company never recaptured this level of aura for him. As a debut, though, it is close to ideal: immediate identity, immediate crowd connection and a decisive result over a wrestler who would soon become one of the promotion's most important stars. John Canton rated the match 2.25 stars while the reported Observer rating was 2 stars, which reflects the limited runtime more than a failed idea. WrestleFile gives extra credit for efficiency and presentation because every second is aimed at making Tazz matter.

Before TLC became a brand of its own, the Hardys and Dudleys were already figuring out the formula: introduce a dangerous object, establish rules the audience can understand, then keep raising the stakes until the final stunt feels impossible to top. This first WWF Tag Team Tables Match is only a little over ten minutes, yet it has more memorable geography than many matches twice as long.

The violence is relentless and some of it is uncomfortable now, especially the unprotected chair shots. What still works is the structure, from saving partners before they are put through tables to the fight leaving ringside and climbing into the seating area, where the match finally earns its giant visual.

Jeff Hardy's Swanton Bomb from the balcony onto D-Von through the table is not just a stunt inserted for a highlight reel. It completes the match's escalation, gives the Hardys a decisive win and provides the audience with the image they will remember after nearly everything else on the undercard fades. Canton rated it 3.75 stars and the reported Observer rating was 3.25, while later retrospectives regularly treat it as an important predecessor to the ladder and TLC classics that followed. The match is messy by design, but it is controlled mess with a beginning, middle and spectacular end.

The co-champion idea gives this triple threat more storyline weirdness than emotional heat. Chris Jericho and Chyna both arrive with a claim to the Intercontinental Championship, Hardcore Holly exists as the third body who can disrupt either champion, and the match's real job is to end the shared-title experiment without making the resolution complicated.

There are enough active three-person sequences to keep the seven-and-a-half minutes moving. Chyna gets credible offense on both men, Holly supplies the physical interruptions, and Jericho is already popular enough that the crowd reacts to him more like a rising star than the heel presentation suggests.

The Lionsault pin on Chyna is the right finish because Jericho beats the other co-champion directly and leaves with sole possession of the title. Nothing before that finish is especially memorable, and a few exchanges look loose, but the match achieves its main purpose cleanly. Canton landed at 2 stars while the reported Observer rating was 1.25, a gap that captures the match fairly well. It is functional and occasionally lively, but on this card it sits between two attractions people remember far more vividly.

The Acolytes earned a championship match, the New Age Outlaws were one of the company's most recognizable teams, and somehow the payoff receives barely two and a half minutes. That is not enough time to create a title match; it is enough time to perform a handful of power spots and find an excuse for the champions to escape.

Bradshaw and Faarooq control most of the action and appear to have the match won after a double-team powerbomb. Billy Gunn pulls the referee outside, X-Pac interferes, and the Outlaws steal the victory after the Fameasser.

The interference protects the challengers, but it also makes the title feel secondary at the exact moment the match should be giving it weight. The crowd has barely settled in before the segment is over, and the champions do not gain anything from surviving this way. Canton gave the match 1 star and the reported Observer rating was a DUD. That sounds severe until the replay reminds you that the match never receives enough time to become more than a sketch of a championship defense.

This is the match that makes Triple H. He had already held the WWF Championship and already occupied the top of the card, but Cactus Jack gives him something a storyline promotion cannot simply declare: credibility earned by surviving a match the audience believes might actually break him.

The weapons matter because the match remembers what each one did. Triple H's leg is torn open during the brawl, Cactus keeps dragging the champion into increasingly ugly environments, the handcuffs recall Foley's nightmare from the previous Royal Rumble, and the thumbtacks become a destination the crowd can see coming long before either wrestler finally lands in them.

The first Pedigree after Cactus is backdropped onto the tacks produces a superb near fall because the audience has been taught that surviving even that much punishment should be impossible. The second Pedigree drives Cactus face-first into the tacks and ends the match cleanly, which is the crucial booking choice: Triple H does not escape Cactus Jack's specialty, he beats him in it. Canton rates the match a full five stars, the reported Observer rating is 4.5, and decades of retrospectives still place it among the defining matches of the Attitude Era. The unprotected head shots are hard to defend now, but the psychology, escalation, crowd investment and career consequence remain elite.

Following the Street Fight with fifty-one minutes of battle royal wrestling is a difficult assignment, so the Rumble wisely changes the emotional temperature. Rikishi gets an early run of eliminations, Too Cool pauses the competition for one of the era's most charmingly ridiculous dance breaks, and repeated Kaientai invasions give the middle of the match a running gag without swallowing the actual contest.

The field is not loaded with believable winners, but the match keeps enough stories moving that the lack of depth rarely becomes fatal. The Rock is always the obvious favorite, Big Show is the physical obstacle, Kane gives the final four another credible threat, and X-Pac's missed elimination adds the kind of referee chaos the WWF could not resist at the time.

The final exchange with Big Show is strong television even before later replays reveal the accidental controversy of The Rock's feet touching first. Rock hangs onto the rope, uses Show's momentum to send him out and gets the enormous Madison Square Garden celebration the entire match has been building toward. Canton rated the Rumble 3.75 stars while the reported Observer rating was 2.75, one of the clearest disagreements on the card. WrestleFile lands between those views: the match is not an all-time technical Rumble, but its pacing, crowd, memorable side stories and satisfying winner make it an easy rewatch.