WWE Royal Rumble 2003
Royal Rumble (2003) was the sixteenth annual Royal Rumble PPV. It was presented by PlayStation and took place on January 19, 2003 at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a match at that year's WrestleMania, for his choice at either the WWE Championship or the World Heavyweight Championship. Six professional wrestling matches were featured at the event. The main event was the annual 30-man Royal Rumble match, which featured wrestlers from both brands. The primary match on the Raw brand was Triple H versus Scott Steiner for the World Heavyweight Championship. The predominant match on the SmackDown! brand was between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit for the WWE Championship. The featured match on the undercard was a Royal Rumble qualification match between Brock Lesnar and The Big Show.
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- Cast:
- Kurt Angle , Chris Benoit , Paul Michael Lévesque , Scott Rechsteiner , Mark Calaway , Brock Lesnar , Torrie Wilson
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Reviews
Very Cool!!!
A lot of fun.
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
This wasn't really a bad Royal Rumble PPV. The Rumble itself was alright as it could have been better.FIRST MATCH- BROCK LESNAR VS. BIG SHOW W/ PAUL HEYMAN WINNER ADVANCES IN THE ROYAL RUMBLE just a big man vs. big man match. Most are pretty boring & this one is a bit. It's good to see Lesnar get the win by carrying the big man, Big Show up for an F-5 to get the win & will advance in the Royal Rumble. 3/10 SECOND MATCH- DUDLEY BOYS VS. LANCE STORM & WILLIAM REGAL FOR THE WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP Pretty bad tag team match. But the only great thing is to see the Dudley Boys win to become the new World Tag Team Champions. 3/10 THIRD MATCH- TORRIE Wilson VS. DAWN MARIE Boring Diva match. Torrie Wilson gets the win over Dawn Marie as I hope this ridiculous feud between them has stopped. 2/10 FOURTH MATCH- TRIPLE H W/ RIC FLAIR VS. SCOTT STEINER FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP This match was a bit draggy, slow & sloppy at some times. But it picked on okay a little bit near the end. With Steiner almost dominating the whole match, HHH gets himself DQ'd on purpose after Ric Flair interfered. Steiner won by DQ but HHH is still the World Champ. Steiner goes mad on both men & beats HHH on after the match. 4/10 FIFTH MATCH- KURT ANGLE VS. CHRIS BENOIT FOR THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP Wow, these two men blew the roof off the arena when they stepped toe to toe in the ring together. Both Benoit & Angle seriously know their own techniques & moves in the ring. A lot of reverse by both men but in the end after both men try to make each other tap out, Angle locks in the Angle Lock & after long minutes, Benoit finally taps out giving Angle the win to retain his WWE Championship. What a match. 6/10 SIXTH MATCH- ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH Good Royal Rumble match, not the best of course but it was still alright. The final 4 are Kane, Undertaker, Batista & Brock Lesnar. Undertaker eliminates Batista, then turns his back on Kane & eliminates him as well. Suddenly Brock Lesnar comes behind & eliminates him from the Rumble as Brock Lesnar has won the Royal Rumble & will be going to Wrestlemania XIX to verse the WWE Champion in the mainevent. 7/10 Wasn't really a bad Royal Rumble, but it could have seriously been better if the matches just took a bit longer. The match between Angle & Benoit was just the best as it was plain perfect.Overall: I'll give it 6/10 & a D+
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
This is an interesting PPV as it contains what I consider to be both the best and worst of the year. In one corner we have the Angle/Benoit match that was so good the entire arena gave it a standing ovation. This is my personal MOTY for 2003, a technical classic up there with all the other greats. We also have the Jericho/HBK feud start to build with Jericho eliminating HBK from the Rumble via cheating, this would climax with a 5-star match at WrestleMania two months later after it simmered a bit. Finally we also have the Rumble match, the first one after the brand extension, which actually made it more interesting as we saw RAW talent "compete" against SmackDown talent in a quasi-brand war.On the bad side of things, we got a Steiner/HHH match which is great for getting yourself to sleep just by counting the botched moves instead of sheep. Then we have the Torrie Wilson/Dawn Marie match which, thankfully, ended their feud over Torrie's "dead" father Al Wilson but we had to go through this dud of a match.Then we have the one curtain-jerker match with Big Show/Brock Lesnar and a midcard match with Dudley Boyz/Lance Storm & William Regal to round everything out, resulting in a PPV that is stangely balanced between good and bad.
*** SPOILERS***The 2003 Royal Rumble was an average PPV event; it wasn't thrilling but it had a few moments.The opening match pitted Brock Lesnar VS The Big Show (or rather, The Big Slow) in a match where the winner would advance to the Royal Rumble. It was a short and decent match.Next up was William Regal and Lance Storm VS The Dudley Boyz. Nothing memorable about this match and the same can be said for the next match between Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie. Two beautiful ladies but a rubbish match!Then we came to the World Title match between overrated champion Triple H and psycho Big Poppa Pump. I had high hopes for this match and it had been hyped for weeks. Big Poppa Pump had been quite entertaining in the now defunct WCW and I was expecting a good match. Now, it wasn't an excellent match but it wasn't a bad match either. Big Poppa Pump didn't really live up to my expectations and he was full of ring rust. In fact, Triple H was the man who saved this match and made it into a presentable match. The finish was rather insulting though.Next up, the Smackdown Title match between Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle. These two men are wrestling machines. Their match was the match of the night and we simply couldn't have asked either men for anything more. Great great match which was won by Angle.Then, we came to the 30 Man Rumble (for so long, one of my favourites). Again, this wasn't anything special but wasn't too bad. My favourite guy Hulk Hogan didn't appear which was quite disappointing and my other favourite Shawn Michaels was eliminated within minutes. One other complaint was that some of the wrestlers who wrestled were of no interest to me (such as John Cena). But the Rumble had it's moments. Wrestlers such as Edge, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Kane and Rob Van Dam put on some good performances.The Rumble match was eventually won by Brock Lesnar who entered late and the finish of the match was anti-climatic. Also, the match got me thinking. The Rumble has been so predictable for years because of the winner gets a title shot stipulation. Everyone knew that Brock would win because WWE were building up a match between Brock and Kurt Angle. This made the Rumble very predictable. You just knew that guys like Edge or Shawn Michaels were not gonna win. So, the old Rumble theory that 'Anyone can win' went out of the window.If you're going to watch this, make sure you rent it. Don't buy it.