Countdown is back on, number eleven is...MAVEN. Poor Maven! ;-) Lita is up on the apron, so Undertaker knocks her off. And here come the Hardy Boyz again, which is getting lame since they already got their asses kicked. Whoa, Undertaker flings Jeff under the bottom rope. Maven with a DROPKICK! OH MY GOD! MY GOD! MAVEN JUST ELIMINATED THE UNDERTAKER! He celebrates! Now he's not so sure. The Undertaker gets in and attacks Maven, then tosses him through the middle rope and kills him outside. GODAMIGHTY what a chair shot. Undertaker blades Maven and stuffs it back in his pants, which I'd care about if, like, it wasn't Maven and those things didn't need to happen. Hey, here's number twelve, and it's SCOTTY II HOTTY. Undertaker goes and punches him, then goes after Maven again. JR thinks enough is enough. Undertaker beats him up all through the crowd, passing by a big fatty with a hilarious football jersey that has the number 69 on it. They go into the lobby area or whatever, and by the way, number thirteen is CHRISTIAAAAAAN. Then Undertaker throws him head-first through a popcorn machine, and then Undertaker eats some popcorn, but Undertaker doesn't really like the popcorn, so Undertaker spits the popcorn out. Scotty has apparently not yet recovered from that vicious punch, so Christian hangs out and relaxes on the turnbuckles. Scotty gets in, goes for the bulldog, duck, reverse DDT. Number fourteen is DDP! He's no stranger to the Atlanta area, oh no he's not! Hahaha, the crowd doesn't care about him. Christian with a reverse DDT on Page. Diamond Cutter on Christian! Scotty gets into the mix and goes after Page -- superkick! Page falls through the ropes, so he's still in. OMG. BULLDOG. W. O. R. M. HOO, HOO, HOO. WOOF WOOF WOOF, BANG. DDP sneaks in and eliminates Scotty right after the worm, and number fifteen is CHUCK(Y). Chucky stomps away on DDP, but Page fights back. Then the heels team up on Page because he sucks. That's my theory, anyhow. Here's number sixteen and it's...THE GODFATHER! He's gone legit! New and improved, he's back! The entrance takes forever. Like, he goes to the ring, then he comes back to dance again. While we watch this thrilling dance party, JR lets us know that DDP was eliminated. And by the time Godfather gets in, it's time for number seventeen, which is PHAT ALBERT THE HIP HOP HIPPO. Then he gets eliminated. Boy that was useless. CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA, WOO WOOOOO, but the Ho Train is unsuccessful. Christian and Chucky eliminate him, too. What a team they make. But this isn't a time to make new friends. Number eighteen is FAIRY SATURN. Nice cow underwear, dude. He's goofy, that Saturn. Goofy as a pet coon. The crowd goes nuts because something in the crowd is interesting, because God knows it's not Saturn that anyone is cheering for. Man, is Saturn useless and crappy or what? What happened to him, he used to be pretty good. OH MY GOD NUMBER NINETEEN IS STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD! Can of whoopass! He's here to fight and raise hell! WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT. There goes Christian! Stunner on Saturn! (Saturn couldn't even do *that* right.) Goodbye, Chucky! Adios, Saturn! OH HELL YEAH. OH HELL YEAH. Checkin' the watch! Austin gets Christian and throws him back in -- Stunner! Out goes Christian (again)! How about more for Chucky? STUNNER! What time is it? Out goes Chucky (again)! Austin checks his watch again and sits up top. WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?

Number twenty is...VAL VENIS. Hello, ladies. Val Venis is a former European and Intercontinental champion, I'm reminded, so he won't be afraid of Austin. Austin jumps on him, stomp, stomp, stomp, what, what, what. Stomps and whats. Stomp. What? Venis with a few right hands, and he floors him with a back elbow. Elbowdrop and a kneedrop. Right hands, and Val is happy with his performance. Here goes the clock again, Thesz press, piston-like right hands. Number twenty-one is I HATE TEST. He has immunity. Did anyone care about that past the night after Survivor Series? I mean, like, really? Test and Venis (CANADIAN MAFIA!!!!!!!!) double-team Austin with some stomps and boot chokes, then a double back-elbow. These two are just letting it all out. Right hands and whats, and Test's big boot misses Austin and hits Val. Val's gone, stunner on Test! Test is gone! Yeehaw! Countdown and number twenty-two is...TRIPLE H. JR's reaction to the music is classic. "Oh my." Oh man this is awesome. "Oh my" is right. They start with some jawin'. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, Austin with the rights, Triple H fires back, and now someone else has to come in and ruin the fun. Oh boy number twenty-three is THE HURRICANE. Austin and HHH are both down due to a collision as Hurricane gets in, and he does some HILARIOUS poses. He sets up for a double chokeslam. Hahaha, for once I find him funny. Austin and HHH exchange a perplexed look, then toss Hurricane out. Austin wastes no time going back to the attack, and it's all back-and-forth. Number twenty-four is FAAROOQ. See, this is what I totally love about Rumbles, getting these guys like Faarooq that are average names but bad dudes in with the real hosses. Faarooq gets a stunner, and HHH clotheslines him out. Back to the fighting, and number twenty-five is MR. PERFECT! And like, he's been a totally useless flop past this one night and when he said something funny to Debra the next night, but this is cool. Perfect takes his time getting in because he's a savvy veteran. Perfect in, and he goes to work on both dudes. Perfect's the only guy thus far to last with Austin and HHH until the next man enters, and number twenty-six is...KURT ANGLE! Angle pairs off with HHH and takes it to him, while Austin chops at Perfect. Perfect chops back, though! What a sound strategy. Angle almost eliminates HHH, but Austin curiously stops that from happening. Number twenty-seven is...WEEEEELL IT'S THE BIG SHOW. YEAH. IT'S THE BIG SHOW. Too bad he can't punch a chair. Chokeslam on Mr. Perfect! Austin and HHH avoid a double chokeslam for the second time, but Show runs them both over with clotheslines. Angle runs over and tries to get a German suplex on Big Show, but it ain't happenin'. Big Show lifts Angle high above his head, but HHH clips him down. Big Show is still killing everyone, though. HEADBUTT. HEADBUTT. HHH goes low on Big Show, which is smart. Chokeslam on HHH! "OH GOD!" Number twenty-eight is KANE. Everyone's down except Big Show, setting up an epic encounter between these two huge giants. Remember when they had that awful match at King of the Ring in '99? Man, that was so long ago. AHHHHH KANE PICKS UP BIG SHOW AND DUMPS HIM OUT. That gets a big pop. STUNNER ON KANE! Angle gets Kane in the Olympic Slam position, and tosses him out! Well...at least he got rid of Big Show, right? Number twenty-nine is ROB VAN DAM. Up top right away, FIVE STAR FROG SPLASH ON ANGLE! Superkick for HHH! He avoids a stunner! He kicks everyone with his educated feet! Rolling thunder on Austin! Pedigree on RVD! Austin goes back to HHH, and Angle works on Perfect. RVD has apparently DIED. Number thirty is...BOOKER T, SUCKA!

Booker T comes in, picks up the late Rob Van Dam, and tosses him over. Spineroonie! Austin is annoyed -- STUNNER! Goodbye, Booker T. The Final Four: Stone Cold, Kurt Angle, HHH, Mr. Perfect. Austin counters out of the Pedigree and hits a slingshot, then HHH bounces back into an Olympic Slam. Not one, not two, but THREE German suplexes by Angle on Austin. Austin is nearly eliminated by Angle and Perfect, but no go there. Some punching that gets a little confusing. HHH is dead! Austin tries to get Perfect out, but Angle sneaks up and dumps Austin! Mr. Perfect goes after Angle now, but Austin drags Perfect out so he can take his frustrations out on him, I guess. But here comes Angle, and he sends Austin into the ringsteps. Angle and Perfect fight some more, but here comes Stone Cold with a chair -- down goes Angle! Down goes Perfect! Up gets HHH! Down goes HHH! Perfect's hair is a hoot, all poofy and sticking out. Perfect holds HHH, Angle charges, and (duh), the clothesline misses and hits Perfect. Mr. Perfect comes back in, though -- Perfectplex on Angle! Neck snap! Gosh that was nice of Angle. HHH eliminates Perfect on a blindside, though, and it's down to Triple H and Kurt Angle for the hand of the fair Stephanie McMahon. No. But it *should* have been. Belly-to-belly from Angle! Choke takedown by HHH and out of that he creatively chokes Kurt Angle. Angle dumps HHH -- no, his feet don't touch! Angle celebrates, HHH charges, Angle ducks, facebuster! Angle's in trouble, clothesline, Angle's gone! Triple H wins the Royal Rumble! (69'23") Triple H is going to Wrestlemania (he already went, and he won!) It wasn't like, the greatest Rumble or anything. But it was totally awesome. I don't know how to rate Rumbles, really, they always rule. I mean, I can tell the difference between really, really great ones like '92 and '01, which this one was not as good as, but most of them are a lot alike.

Oh, whenever I watch Rumbles I use RUMBLE RATE which is like, how I rate the top ten performances. You know who always ruled in Rumbles until this one is Bossman.

Rumble Rate

1. Stone Cold Steve Austin

2. Kurt Angle

3. Triple H

4. The Undertaker

5. The Big Show

6. Mr. Perfect

7. (tie) Christian and Chucky

9. Kane (he did one thing, but it ruled)

10. Rob Van Dam (ditto)

THINGS I THOUGHT ABOUT WWF ROYAL RUMBLE 2002: Well, I thought it was good! It's actually better now than I thought it was when I first saw it. It's like, not great, but pretty darn good. Rock-Jericho was awesome and the Rumble was the Rumble, and Flair-Vince was pretty cool if not great, and Edge-Regal is so completely underrated and I'm so tired of hearing about style clashes and blah blah blah. The opener was lame and so was the broads match, but that's to be expected.

One thing that's really weird about this show that I thought about after the Rumble was that by the time the Rumble started, it's like I forgot that anything before the title match even happened. It was like the whole thing was saying to me, "Dude, I know this isn't so great, really, but like, hold on, we'll get to the stuff that matters in a while." But I guess that's how it really is anyway. At least my theory is being honest.