Message-ID: 

Here's my review of the latest outing from WWE (Royal Rumble), based
on "how much money was this match worth?"  At the end, I add it all
up and see if the PPV as a whole was worth the sum of its matches.

If Benoit/Angle hadn't been on the card I wouldn't have even
bothered with this PPV.  That's not a good sign for one if their
"Big Five" PPVs.  The Rumble itself really didn't have any
surprises, as everyone knew Taker would be there and everyone knew
Brock would win.  If anything was a surprise, it was that Jericho
didn't make it through to be with the final group.  They *did*
change it to "every two minutes", but then all 30 made it to the
ring in 45 minutes, so it must have averaged around 90 seconds
between participants.

1.  Brock Lesnar over Big Show in 6:15

I was guessing they might start with this match--just so Brock would
have the maximum time to rest before his second match.  Big Show was
sucking wind the entire match, but it came off better than I would
have expected.  I expected a dud, and it was slightly better than a
dud.  Show was not cooperating with any of the F-5s or suplexes.

MATCH RATING: $1.00


2.  The Dudleys over Lance Storm & William Regal to capture the WWE
Tag Team Titles in 7:26

I'll say it again: tag team matches (especially short ones)
shouldn't have rest holds.  And they didn't even use the rest holds
to set up a hot tag or anything.  Ugh.  It's a shame Lance & Regal
seem to have lost their ability to put on good matches.  Everyone
pretty much knew the Dudleys would get the titles.

MATCH RATING: $1.20


3.  Torrie Wilson over Dawn Marie in 3:35

This match was oodles better than it had any right to be.  It went
on a lot longer than I would have expected, and there were fewer
rest holds than the tag match.  There weren't really any blown spots
and it contained a higher "wrestling to cat-fight ratio" than I
thought possible out of these two gals.  Fit deserves a raise.

MATCH RATING: $1.75


4. Scott Steiner over Triple H via DQ in 17:00

>From the reports of how awful their house show battles had been, I
expected this (1) to be kept to about 6 minutes max, and (2) to be
about 95% rest holds.  That said, both men worked a nice stiff match
with a lot fewer rest holds than I would have guessed.  Steiner took
a nice bump into the ring steps.  HHH bladed.  The crowd booed
loudly because of the DQ finish.  By my count this match went closer
to 20 minutes, which was a huge surprise (not a surprise that HHH
would want to hog that much PPV time, but a surprise that these two
could do a match of that length without it being totally
unwatchable).

MATCH RATING: $1.60


5.  Kurt Angle over Chris Benoit via tapout clean in 17:18 to retain
the WWE World Title

I expected a MOTYC and that's pretty much what I got.  The match
started out slow, and the crowd was pretty much silent.  For the
last ten minutes, the crowd was popping big for all the near-falls.
I would have liked an extra ten minutes, but we can't have
everything.  Nice reaction (both the arena crowd and the bar crowd)
when the match ended.

MATCH RATING: $10.00


6.  Brock Lesnar won the Royal Rumble in 56:00

Jericho eliminated HBK.  Nowinski stayed on the outside for about
five minutes.  Jericho kept "almost" getting eliminated, but pulled
himself back inside (they had to start going to camera angles away
from him, since they messed up with Edge landing on the outside when
he wasn't supposed to).  Jericho took a wicked singapore cane shot
to the temple (from Dreamer) that opened him up nicely and left a
big welt.  It came down to the "hosses": Kane, UnderSeller, Batista,
and Brock.  There was some nice ring work by the Smackdown gods
(Eddie, Chavo, Rey) in the first half hour or so, but when 3 Minute
Warning, Rikishi, and Albert showed up it turned into "fast forward"
material.

MATCH RATING: $4.00 (all for the first half)

- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -

TOTAL MATCH RATINGS: $19.55

TOTAL SKIT RATING: $0.00

TOTAL PPV RATING: $19.55

WWE price of the PPV: $34.99.  By that measure, I didn't my money's
worth.

I spent about $3.00 in gas and $20 on beer & food, so by that token
I also didn't quite get my money's worth.

This was a lot better than Survivor Series, and about on par with
SummerSlam, Unforgiven, and No Mercy.

More than half of the "value" was from Benoit/Angle, which was all
that much better since Team Angle was escorted from ringside at the
beginning and didn't beat down Benoit until after the match.

Thanks to pwTorch for the match results, so I didn't have to
scribble down notes instead of enjoying the PPV.

- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -

For comparison, here's what I thought of the PPVs I saw in the last
couple of years:

WWF Wrestlemania 1998         1998/03/   unrated
WCW Spring Stampede 1998      1998/04/19 $24.10
WWF IYH: Unforgiven 1998      1998/04/26 $ 9.95
WCW Slamboree 1998            1998/05/17 $27.95
WCW Great American Bash 1998  1998/06/14 $28.05
WWF King of the Ring 1998     1998/06/28 $22.50
WCW Bash at the Beach 1998    1998/07/12 $17.35
ECW Heatwave 1998             1998/08/02 $24.90
WCW Road Wild 1998            1998/08/08 $29.80
WWF IYH: Fully Loaded 1998    1998/07/26 $ 6.95
WWF SummerSlam 1998           1998/08/30 $10.20
WCW Fall Brawl 1998           1998/09/13 $23.60
WWF Judgement Day 1998        1998/10/18 $25.10
WCW Halloween Havoc 1998      1998/10/25 $49.50
ECW November to Remember 1998 1998/11/01 $25.75
WWF Survivor Series 1998      1998/11/15 $21.40
WWF IYH: Rock Bottom 1999     1998/12/13 $ 8.40
ECW Guilty as Charged 1999    1999/01/10 $26.10
WCW Souled Out 1999           1999/01/17 $29.10
WWF Royal Rumble 1999         1999/01/24 $23.00
WWF St Val Day Massacre 1999  1999/02/14 $20.90
WCW SuperBrawl 1999           1999/02/21 $21.35
WCW Uncensored 1999           1999/03/14 $32.00
ECW Living Dangerously 1999   1999/03/21 $25.90
WCW Spring Stampede 1999      1999/04/11 $38.00
WCW Slamboree 1999            1999/05/09 $21.10
ECW Hardcore Heaven 1999      1999/05/09 $15.30
WWF King of the Ring 1999     1999/06/27 $13.40
WCW Bash at the Beach 1999    1999/07/11 $20.70
WWF Fully Loaded 1999         1999/07/25 $10.80
WCW Road Wild 1999            1999/08/14 $13.90
WWF SummerSlam 1999           1999/08/22 $19.05
WCW Fall Brawl 1999           1999/09/12 $12.85
ECW Ararchy Rulz 1999         1999/09/19 $32.25
WWF No Mercy 1999             1999/10/17 $13.00
WCW Halloween Havoc 1999      1999/10/24 $ 3.35
ECW November to Remember 1999 1999/11/07 $28.45
WWF Survivor Series 1999      1999/11/14 $10.95
WCW Meyhem 1999               1999/11/21 $17.75
WWF Armageddon 1999           1999/12/12 $22.05
WCW Starrcade 1999            1999/12/19 $23.65
ECW Guilty as Charged         2000/01/09 $25.70
WCW Souled Out                2000/01/16 $13.20
WWF Royal Rumble              2000/01/23 $20.00
WWF No Way Out                2000/02/27 $16.95
ECW Living Dangerously        2000/03/12 $21.80
WCW Uncensored                2000/03/19 $21.65
WWF WrestleMania              2000/04/02 $22.05
WCW Spring Stampede           2000/04/16 $23.70
WWF Backlash                  2000/04/30 $25.65
WCW Slamboree                 2000/05/07 $23.55
ECW Hardcore Heaven           2000/05/14 $23.05
WWF Judgment Day              2000/05/21 $11.25
WCW Great American Bash       2000/06/11 $16.55
WWF King of the Ring          2000/06/25 $ 1.40
WCW Bash at the Beach         2000/07/09 missed
ECW Heat Wave                 2000/07/16 $15.50
WWF Fully Loaded              2000/07/23 $24.40
WCW New Blood Rising          2000/08/13 $31.00
WWF SummerSlam                2000/08/27 $24.90
WCW                           2000/09/17 missed
WWF Unforgiven                2000/09/24 $16.65
ECW Anarchy Rulz              2000/10/01 $21.30
ECW                           2000/11/   missed
WWF Survivor Series           2000/11/   missed
ECW Massacre on 34th Street   2000/12/03 $ 9.65
WWF                           2000/12/   missed
ECW Guilty As Charged         2001/01/07 $15.70
WWF                           2001/01/   missed
WCW Superbrawl Revenge        2001/02/18 $37.60
WCW Greed                     2001/03/   missed
WWF WrestleMania              2001/04/01 $29.50
WWF                           2001/05/   missed
WWF King of the Ring          2001/06/24 $16.55
WWF Invasion                  2001/07/22 $15.25
WWF SummerSlam                2001/08/   missed
WWF                           2001/09/   missed
WWF                           2001/10/   missed
WWF Survivor Series           2001/11/18 $11.25
WWF Royal Rumble              2002/01/20 $14.15
WWF No Way Out                2002/02/17 $ 3.40
WWF WrestleMania              2002/03/17 $25.30/$36.40
WWF King of the Ring          2002/06/23 $ 6.55/$10.15
NWA TNA                       2002/08/14 $11.60/$12.20
WWF SummerSlam                2002/08/25 $21.10/$21.10
WWF Unforgiven                2002/09/22 $17.50/$21.15
WWF No Mercy                  2002/10/20 $16.85/$20.00
WWF Survivor Series           2002/11/17 $ 7.50/$9.20
WWF Royal Rumble              2003/01/19 $19.55/$19.55

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