WWF Royal Rumble 1997 - January 1997

WWF Royal Rumble 1997 - January 19th 1997 - San Antonio, Texas

Matches

Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Goldust {WWF Intercontinental Title} (7/10)

Ahmed Johnson defeated Farroq (7/10)
Vader defeated The Undertaker (6/10)

Hector Garza, Perro Aguayo, El Canek defeated Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera, Heavy Metal (6/10)

Stone Cold Steve Austin won the Royal Rumble (9/10)

Shawn Michaels defeated Sycho Sid {WWF World Heavyweight Title} (8/10)

Moments - Positives

Some great matches and feuds at this show. The first two matches and feuds were terrific. The Nation of Domination were truly coming through as a powerful and excellent stable, not one to compete with nWo over in wCw but none the less a stable in its own right. HHH was also clearly showing signs of quality and his feud and match with Goldust was legendary. Stone Cold's cheating victory on the Royal Rumble showed a huge swing in the fans response as they began to prefer the rebellious red neck over the saint Bret Hart. The main event was also top notch, a rematch against Sid in HBK's home town was truly special and it felt like it too.

Moments - Negatives

WWF were trying to add some cruiserweight mayhem to their events as it was a division popular at WCW at the time. However, they did a very poor job building up the 6 man tag match. It featured a number of great Mexican wrestlers with some great spots but due to a poor build up no one knew who they were and the crowd response was very poor. The Vader/Undertaker match was also pretty poor.

Overall Summary

This was an excellent PPV event and had an excellent Rumble match to boot. The WWF were transforming at this time with Nation of Domination, rise of Stone Cold, Shawn Michaels and Sid feuding. There were so many elements of this event that I enjoyed. There was that "Attitude" feel to the event even though it wasnt quite in full force yet. One of the better Royal Rumbles.

SCORE = 9.0