10 shocking moments from WWF (WWE) 2000

#2 The Rock wins the Royal Rumble

Rocky's time.

Unlike today, the Royal Rumble match used to be traditionally used as a way to tell the fans which Superstar would be having the most impactful year over the subsequent 12 months. In 1995 and 96, Shawn Michaels stepped into the spotlight. A year later in 97, and then again in 98, it would be Stone Cold's time to announce his arrival.

After a temporary blip in 1999, where Vince McMahon ended up defeating the 29 other Superstars, it was time for The Rock to cement his position as the top dog by winning the Rumble match in 2000.

This was the year the WWF finally gave up on their attempts to keep The Rock a heel. The crowd appreciated his fun, entertaining approach to the product so much that the writers had no choice but to change their plans. The Royal Rumble victory was a great place to start and kicked off a fairly decent feud between him and Big Show.

The two men were the final competitors in the match and despite Rock being announced as the winner, Big Show was convinced he had actually been eliminated before him. This led to a match at the next PPV in which Big Show won, only to see Rock inserted back into the Wrestlemania 2000 main event in a fatal four way.

Today's fans might also remember a promo the Rock put with the Big Show, in which he claimed that the Rumble was the moment his career turned around and that it could have been Big Show making the millions in Hollywood instead of the People's Champ.