WWE Rewind: Royal Rumble 2002

WWF Royal Rumble 2002 Poster

We are just 11 days away from the 25th anniversary of the Royal Rumble, scheduled to be held on January 29th, 2012 at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. We have revisited fourteen Royal Rumble matches over the past few weeks. Now, let us take a look at the fifteenth Royal Rumble match that took place on January 20, 2002 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.

Here are some important facts about this match:

• The time interval between successive entrances was increased for 90 seconds to 120 seconds (2 minutes).
• This match featured in the Royal Rumble event which was the last one to be produced under the WWF initials. WWF changed to WWE later on in the year.
• This match lasted for about an hour and 14 minutes and hence earned the record for being the longest Royal Rumble match, featuring 30 participants.
• Triple H, who entered the match at #22, won the Royal Rumble match for the first time in his career, by eliminating Kurt Angle.
• The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin both made the highest number of eliminations in the match – seven.
• Stone Cold lasted for almost 27 minutes – the longest by a participant in this match.

You can watch this historic Royal Rumble match in this video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3zPoSbyaH_o

In case you haven’t watched them yet, relive the thrill of earlier Royal Rumble events at these links:

• Royal Rumble 2001
• Royal Rumble 2000
• Royal Rumble 1999
• Royal Rumble 1998
• Royal Rumble 1997