Royal Rumble (2002)

The 2002 Royal Rumble was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the 15th annual Royal Rumble event and took place on January 20, 2002, at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The event was based around the men's Royal Rumble match, a modified 30-man battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time and the winner received an Undisputed WWF Championship match at WrestleMania X8. Six matches were contested at the event. The main event was the 2002 Royal Rumble match, which was won by Triple H, who last eliminated Kurt Angle. In other prominent matches, Chris Jericho defeated The Rock to retain the Undisputed WWF Championship, Ric Flair wrestled his first WWF match in nine years by defeating Vince McMahon in a Street Fight, and William Regal defeated Edge to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. This was the final Royal Rumble held before the introduction of the first brand extension in March. It was also the final Royal Rumble produced under the WWF name, as in May, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). This would also be the last Royal Rumble to feature one world championship until 2014.