Well the first of the popular five from the WWF has come and gone. Royal Rumble had some great wrestling, dramatic segments, comical moments, and even a horrifying few seconds of seeing Mae Young show her slinkies. Oh god, I do not know how long it will take for me to get that picture out of my head. I wouldn’t even wish that on my worst enemy. Here’s a review of the matches that went down during Royal Rumble 2000.

Kurt Angle Vs. Tazz - I was unimpressed at the way Tazz came in. I saw him on ECW maybe a dozen times and he looked superb, especially against Rob Van Dam at November 2 Remember ’99. However, this match with Angle wasn’t really memorable, and was a bad entrance. They played the titan tron clip for weeks and then just put him out there in New York at the Rumble. I would be surprised if half the people at the show knew who he was, and I’d be surprised if even just a quarter of the audience watching on pay-per-view knew he was. It seemed as though everyone popped for him when he first came out since he concluded the mysterious titan tron clips, but then began to ask themselves "Who the hell’s this guy"? For the WWF to put in Tazz against Angle first it seems they don’t think as much of Angle as the internet fans do. Now at No Way Out, the WWF is forced to either job Tazz, or end Angle’s streak which right now is the only thing he has. Once his streak ends will he still receive the same push, will he still have the same heat or get "Boring" chants? Time will tell.

 Hardy Boys Vs. The Dudleys Boyz - What an awesome match. It may not have been the best match since most of it was just walking around punching your opponent, but when they took to the sky with leaps, senton bombs or whatever else they used, it was certainly a memorable match. Both teams gave it everything they had especially the Hardy’s who are looking better in the ring day by day. 

Miss Royal Rumble Swimsuit Competition - The ladies looked great as usual except for Mae Young who looked like an 80 year old, OLD…OLD.. lady with slinky breasts. What will the WWF do next? The WWF, Vince McMahon specifically has said the WWF has a license to go anywhere business wise. They got merchandise. TV Shows, pay-per-views, and even now a restaurant. With a female stripping on two consecutive pay-per-views, you have to wonder what’s next. Why not just close off a section of WWF New York, and have a strip club. That’s seriously what it’s coming to. How long will it take before some group kicks up again about the WWF’s blatant nudity. I can just see it now, WWF Pornography. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Playboy-type magazine is in the works for the WWF.

Hardcore Holly vs. Chyna vs. Chris Jericho - This was an okay match. It seems the WWF is pushing their mid-carders up a step lately. I guess when most of your top talent are out, and your still slaughtering the competition in the ratings, why not build up some of that lower talent when the time’s right. The match was basically a conclusion to the double champion reign. 

The Acolytes vs. New Age Outlaws - Worst match of the night. They built this match up too much in late December, and then throughout January basically forgot about it and had the Outlaws inserted into the Triple H/Stephanie angle. The Acolytes have continued their feud with the Posse, so it seems we may see a Handicap match up at No Way Out between the Acolytes and the Mean Street Posse. For the Posse, I just hope they have life insurance. 

Cactus Jack vs. Triple H - Words cannot describe what these two men did in the ring at the Royal Rumble. Cactus Jack or as I prefer to call him by his real name Mick Foley, put on one of his best matches in a long time. The best thing about this match was Foley didn’t take the most punishment like he usually does in matches but rather Triple H did. Boy, did he pay for it. The gash on the back of his leg was very deep. Looked like you could see right into the leg and see the bone in one shot where the camera’s focused on his leg. Plus the cut on his forehead looked pretty bad as he was literally covered in blood. The only thing I didn’t like about this match was The Rock interfering. It just really didn’t make sense. Made Foley look as if he couldn’t beat Triple H on his own and it ended up letting Triple H get the clean pin without any help even after taking a chair shot from outside interference. 

The Royal Rumble - The Rumble was great except the Rock winning was sadly too obvious. Which added even more stupidity to the mix was what the Rock said on RAW the next night. It doesn’t matter if his feet touch the ground first? Uh, yes it does since that would cost you the Royal Rumble match. Maybe someone needs to go over the Rumble rules with the "Great One", one more time. 

Moving on to the subject that has been bothering me since I watched the Royal Rumble. Have you ever seen a guy that had some great wrestling ability but just couldn’t get a gimmick going, and for that he was mocked and didn’t last long or never was capable of rising higher in the roster? A guy like Steve Blackman. Decent worker, a lot better then some. But just could never get over because he didn’t have a gimmick that the fans could reenact. Last week on RAW we were introduced to the Head Cheese team of Blackman and Snow. Sure it’s hilarious but now Steve Blackman won’t be remembered for his wrestling ability but rather because he carried a piece of cheese to the ring. Another wrestler like that is Brian Christopher. Awesome wrestler came in to the WWF as Too Sexy Brian Christopher, and it transcended into the tag team of Too Much with Scott Taylor, who was Scott Too Hot Taylor. Which again transcended to Too Cool, where Brian Christopher is now referred to as Grandmaster Sex(a)y. The gimmick of Too Cool is excellent, and it got the two over and then the edition of Rikishi Phatu has just catapulted the trio’s stardom, but what will these guys be remembered by? We still hear the odd joke of "Make a Difference" Fatu. Even guys like 3 Count who in my mind resemble the Hardy’s in ring performance so badly but with their goofy singing gimmick I just don’t see them reaching the same stage as the Hardy’s have already. The Hardy’s even have a long way to go still not because they haven’t done much but rather they are just full of untapped talent. 

Nothing much can be said about the real WCW outsiders, Chris Benoit, Saturn, Dean Malenko and Eddy Guerrero. They have gotten their official releases and are free to go wherever. We’ve heard that they have signed but then today the WWF puts a statement out on WWF.com stating they have been in "negotiations" with them. The WWF has done this before, so if history proves it’s self right, the quartet has signed then.

It’s time for a few of your responses to my question last week. I asked any of you who would like to have participate, to send me in your top three male dream matches and one female match. Here are just a few of the overwhelming response. 

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   I have to agree with Shawn Michaels being there, and Chris Beniot is a great wrestler also. However, Chris Jericho is really young, and can only improve on his current wrestling skills. He also reminds me of a young HBK, and just maybe will be as good as him one day. So my dream match would be to see Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho wrestle each other in their prime. But I think Jericho would ultimately dance to the sounds of some Sweet Chin Music. Second, I would love to see The Hardy Boyz and The Heart Foundation when it was Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart. That could be the most entertaining tag team match of all time, especially like if it was in a Hell in a Cell or something like that. The two best tag team matches I've ever seen were Hardyz and Edge & Christian's ladder match, and H.F. vs. The Rockers. So I picked the two winners out of those matches. Heart Foundation would have probably won the match though. And last,  I want to see The Rock kick Juventud's a** for stealing every thing the great one does. I'll admit Rocky isn’t the best pure wrestler on earth, but just to hear him make fun on Juvi would be all the reason in the world for me to watch. The Rock would lay the smack down on his roody poo candy ass.
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Flair (in his prime) Vs. Chris Benoit
Cactus Jack Vs. Onita in an Exploding Cage No Rope Barbed Wire Bed of Nails Death Match
Rob Van Dam Vs. Blitzkrieg Vs. Sabu in a 3 Way Dance
Women's Match: Amy Dumas Vs. Mona
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Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko Vs.  Bret and Owen Hart, in a best of the technical tag team match.
Chris Jericho Vs. Lance Storm, for the pride of Canada.
Abdullah the Butcher Vs. Sandman, in a hardcore rules match.
Women's match: Medusa Vs. Fabulous Moolah, both in their good days.
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Those were just a few of some of the great dream matches you guys thought up. Quite a few of you, surprisingly chose Japan type matches. Now this week’s Failed Gimmick of the Week is….. the nWo. The nWo was reformed by Vince Russo in WCW, to be the top heel group of the company. Well hello there, but I have yet to hear the nWo to get booed. Let me rephrase that, the nWo hasn’t gotten booed as a group, but Jarrett has received heel heat. The only guy doing his job properly. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are out there to one up their opponents, and for that the fans cheer them for being sarcastic guys with attitudes. Step one to turn these guys heels is to drop the ladies. Sure we like the ladies but if your going to be a heel group coming out with hot females is not going to accomplish that feat. Step two, learn to take a shot or two on the mic you don’t ALWAYS have to one up your opponent. Your the heel learn to sell on in a confrontation. Step three, don’t play to the crowd it couldn’t get any more simpler.

I hope you enjoyed tonight’s column. It was a few days late, but I hope it certainly was worth reading. Thanks and have a good night.