10 Best WWE Matches of The Year 2001

#6 Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit - Royal Rumble

Did they use just one ladder?

Chris Jericho and then WWE Intercontinental Champion Chris Benoit had been feuding on and off throughout 2000, delivering on some of the years best matches, and that really was saying something at the time. In all matches they had, not just in WWE but everywhere else they fought, this Ladder match at the Royal Rumble was easily their absolute best.

In fact, this is not just the best match they had together, but one of the best Ladder matches of all time. They started this one with a brawl and spent a few minutes treating it as if it were a standard match before a ladder was introduced and used by both men against each other, as well as some attempted climbs.

Benoit took a lot of rough headshots in this match, which is tough to watch knowing what we now do, but it still has an effect of what you were watching was really real. We got an incredibly memorable spot when Benoit went for a suicide dive but Jericho caught him with a chair shot to the head as he flew between the ropes. At one point, Jim Ross suggested that this ladder match was taking Ladder matches to another level, and I would have to agree.

The end to this incredible and brutal war came when Benoit climbed the ladder but Jericho caught him with a shot to the spine with a chair. Benoit then kicked Jericho off the ladder but he bounced off the side ropes and he knocked Benoit off the ladder to the outside of the ring, bouncing on the ring ropes as he went down, and Jericho grabbed the IC gold.