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Name of the event:
WWF Royal Rumble 1997
Arena:
Attendance:
60.525
Broadcast type:
Live
Broadcast date:
19.01.1997
TV station/network:
PPV Sender
Buyrate (relative):
0.72

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5.87
Current Total Rating (?)
Valid votes: 141
Number of comments: 59
10.0 4x
9.0 1x
8.0 11x
7.0 16x
6.0 57x
5.0 34x
4.0 14x
3.0 3x
2.0 0x
1.0 1x
0.0 0x
Average rating: 5.87  [141]
Average rating in 2025: 5.29  [17]
Average rating in 2024: 5.60  [25]
Average rating in 2023: 6.00  [14]
Average rating in 2022: 5.33  [6]
Average rating in 2021: 5.92  [12]
Average rating in 2020: 6.33  [3]
Average rating in 2019: 5.29  [7]
Average rating in 2018: 6.80  [5]
Average rating in 2017: 5.33  [6]
Average rating in 2016: 4.80  [5]
Average rating in 2015: 5.75  [4]
Average rating in 2014: 5.00  [7]
Average rating in 2013: 5.33  [3]
Average rating in 2012: 5.50  [2]
Average rating in 2011: 5.67  [3]
Average rating in 2009: 7.00  [3]
Average rating in 2008: 6.88  [8]
Average rating in 2007: 7.82  [11]
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Live Show Charisma wrote on 23.09.2025:
[1.0] "Tbh, outside of 92, WWE didnt really get the Rumble PPVs to be good until the 00s cause this again is a horrible ppv. Really boring matches throughout, a much worse version of Sid and Michaels compared to their Survivor Series match. The Rumble match itself was I guess the best thing on the show but even still, the lack of star power is so evident. You had Austin and Bret surrounded by jobbers or horrible gimmicks. The clock at the start was fucked up and the booking of the Rumble got fucked up towards the end so yeah I would recommend you dont watch this show at all."
Garmonbozia wrote on 08.09.2025:
[4.0] "The first four matches were pretty bad and the last two matches were average. The rumble was the MOTN."
lklax33 wrote on 27.04.2025:
[6.0] "6/10 - OKAY - I actually really enjoyed the way that the Rumble went, as it set up a big hoo-hah about the real 'victor' of the match down the road. Michaels gets his hometown moment, but for some reason I couldn't help but watch his family in the front row, more than the actual match itself. Pretty standard match, but Sid gives the title back to Shawn."
CMFunk007 wrote on 20.03.2025:
[7.0] "I think the dome setting added to this overall. Most memorable moment for me was Mil Mascaras eliminating himself and looking like a dumbass. But the controversial ending set up the Final Four PPV a month later and I can't argue with that."
Pineapple wrote on 18.03.2025:
[5.0] "Match 1: 5/10 Match 2: 4/10 Match 3: 5/10 Match 4: 4/10 Match 5: 7/10 Match 6: 6/10 Overall Total: 5.16/10"
Mizzle Assault Ant wrote on 08.12.2024:
[7.0] "Pretty fine event overall. Goldust/HHH is a real bore, my least favorite match on the show. Ahmed/Farooq was chaotic but in my opinion enjoyable. Vader/Taker my 2nd favorite match on the show, below potential because of how WWF treated Vader through this time but still an underrated match. Lucha trios match was fine in ring but had zero crowd heat, WWF didn't promote it literally at all and was just flapping around trying to figure out how to counter WCW kicking their ass. Rumble match was the clear highlight of the show, one of my very favorite Rumbles overall. Austin's performance is amazing but the whole back half of the match is insanely loaded, the final batch is Bret Hart, Undertaker, Vader, Kane-nee-Diesel, The Rock, Terry Funk, Mankind, 2 Cold Scorpio... not all were used to full potential but the raw talent is staggering. Main event was meh, at least the crowd liked Shawn this time instead of despising him like they did at Survivor Series, and at least Sid isn't champion anymore (for a bit at least)."
Ruthless Attitude wrote on 11.03.2024:
[6.0] "The Sid vs HBK main event match steals the show here because of the atmosphere in the crowd in Shawn's home town when he regained the title. The Royal Rumble match is decent mainly because of the performance from Austin, but I didn't think it's a top tier one because of the questionable talent and booking with the rest of the roster. You know the undercard sucks when Faarooq vs Ahmed Johnson was the most enjoyable one for me because of the stiff shots and chaotic booking. The matches before the two mains are filler."
lukerocker9 wrote on 18.02.2024:
[5.0] "A very underwhelming show slightly boosted by the two main events. Triple H vs Goldust was a fine brawl that just went for a bit too long and got duller than it should've (5/10) Johnson vs. Faarooq had a nonsense finish considering it basically felt like a no DQ match for most of it. Some solid power moves but nothing too interesting (4/10) Vader vs. Taker is much of the same some good moments here and there but its plodding for the most part (4/10) The AAA six man tag had some impressive athletic moves but it never really got going, it didn't flow properly between sections. Crowd didn't care and the finish was botched which also didn't help (4/10) The Rumble is mostly just there with nothing great happening but its made enjoyable by Stone Cold's reactions and antics to fill up time, there's a reason his reaction to Bret coming out and the looking at the clock taunt were used in every video package afterwards (6/10) The Main event is also a solid encounter with Shawn and SId working nicely together but it never reached the heights of their survivor Series match so it just ends up being a fine closer (6/10)"
machazinfa wrote on 09.01.2024:
[8.0] "Great RR. Especially when this came out. 97 was my favorite year as it was the beginning of the Attitude era imo. Great venue and the crowd was on fire in San Antonio. Its one of those ppvs Ive seen at least 30 times. I personally give this an 8 based off rewatchability"
JacquesRougeauCanHaveMyWife wrote on 16.12.2023:
[5.0] "This one has a great Royal Rumble Match and a very good main event, but everything from the first half of the show is so dull. The opener goes on and on and is burying the referee at the same time by making him not disqualify Goldust and then Johnson and Faarooq do the same thing! The referee is put in an awkward position once again and the match isn't that good to begin with to make you forget about it. Then Vader and Taker have a slow contest and it couldn't be any different, as both of these guys flourish when they dominate and they couldn't do that at the same time, obviously. The luchadors then enter the ring and have an abomination of a match with the coldest tags in the world, sloppy work and none of the competitors caring about the rules (the guy tagged himself out while being outside of the ring). But then thankfully the Royal Rumble Match happens and that is all about Stone Cold who's phenomenal in this. The moments when he's alone in the ring are magnificent and when Bret enters the ring the atmosphere gets even more intense. Nicely executed finish with Bret coming closer and closer to his eventual heel turn and then we're on to the main event that was also great. It was much better than Shawn vs Sid from Survivor Series, as Sid was allowed to dominate here and he didn't try to do any technical wrestling. Michaels was a great hometown babyface and the big fight feeling was through the roof with the crowd getting louder and louder every minute. Shawn gets his title back, which was the only right call in this environment. All in all it was basically a PPV of two halves."
JakeR wrote on 25.11.2023:
[4.0] "Just really not a good show. Boring and sloppy matches. Not a match on the card that I would call better than average. The rumble itself sucked and was full of botches and miscommunications. Crowd was also dead silent for half of the show. The AAA guys were terrible in the rumble and their match you could hear a pin drop."
Dune wrote on 22.07.2023:
[5.0] "[5] This is an entertaining show, but it's largely carried by the two main attractions here. It's worth a watch just to see all of the pieces that would become the Attitude Era slowly click into place. The players are here, the elements that would become familiar are starting to occur repeatedly, and the overton window of what a wrestler can do and still be cheered by the audience is shifting drastically (Both Austin and Shawn cheat to win major matches). But for all of the developing character work and wealth of talent on display here, the in-ring product still leaves something to be desired, and there just isn't enough fluff yet to make mediocre wrestling more palettable."
MavenDeltz000 wrote on 18.07.2023:
[8.0] "Gets an 8 for a really good rumble but the rest of the show was pretty average. However, the rumble is the main attraction to the show and it was great, and the rest of the show wasn't bad enough to drag it down."
benny5bellys wrote on 30.03.2023:
[5.0] "The Rumble match is an example of one done well but outside of that it is a pretty rough watch in front a large but very quiet crowd because they had to give away so many tickets."
Giantfan1980 wrote on 13.06.2022:
[4.0] "The show where they got 60, 000 people in the house but only 48, 000 actually paid and they comped the rest because business was so shitty at this time. Watched this one live on PPV years ago and it's still not a good show. It's very middle of the road and the Rumble itself wasn't very good unless you are an Austin fan."
Derek Joists wrote on 25.01.2022:
[6.0] "An event that is in some ways better than the sum of its parts, as despite most of the matches being fairly weak they remained decently entertaining, and the storyline stuff all worked. It didn't help that none of the matches that mattered had clean finishes, nor that several of the wrestlers here had rarely wrestled outside Mexico, nor would going forward. It was however an easy watch, which can't be said for all of the stuff from the previous couple of years, but also something of a missed opportunity."
Mahrsbars wrote on 12.11.2021:
[7.0] "Firstly, I hate 1997 Triple H. Everytime I see him, the match is usually very boring and he always elicits a groan from me. This match wasn't as boring as the Mania 13 match but still crap. The Ahmed vs Nation business was kinda whatever, not great but didn't go long enough to bother me. There were two matches which were extremely okay, those being Vader vs Taker and HBK vs Sid. The real attraction here though is the Rumble Match itself. The pre Austin Stages of the Rumble aren't much to write home about, but it really picks up once he gets there. The final few is once of the best in Rumble history, and the match is a definite recommend. As for the show as a whole... eh. Maybe give it a watch if you're bored or if you're super interested in 1997 WWF like I was when I threw this on."
DanTalksRasslin wrote on 21.06.2019:
[6.0] "Taken on its own merits, a bit of a middling event, though it is a rather significant one in historical context. None of the undercard matches stand out as essential viewing (except perhaps HHH vs. Goldust, which is quite good), but none stand out in a negative way either so it goes down easy. HBK vs. Sid in the main event was OK action but told a good story. The Rumble itself was a bit odd in its lineup and a bit overloaded with AAA guys at the expense of the WWF roster (with the six-man tag on the undercard, maybe at most two AAA guys in the Rumble itself would be more than sufficient), and dragged in places, but overall was good at telling the story of Austin overcoming the odds from his early entry to winning, albeit in disputed circumstances after his blind elimination by Bret, which would help set up Austin's career-defining moment in his match with Bret at WM13. Overall, a good show for storytelling even if the actual action was a bit average."
Makai Club wrote on 06.01.2019:
[3.0] "Honestly, this was not a good show. The last three matches were solid but that? s it and the other three SUCKED. Bad-solid wrestling w/ a bad crowd. BEST TO WORST: Rumble match [***], Sid vs HBK [***], Trios match [**3/4], HHH vs Goldust [**1/4], Johnson vs Faarooq [*1/2], Vader vs Taker [1/2*]"
The Old School wrote on 14.02.2018:
[8.0] "Good Royal Rumble PPV. I really liked the opener. Nice and very brutal fight. Ahmed vs Faarooq is okay for what it was. Undertaker vs Vader is good match for big guys. Six men tag team match is okay but fans didn't care about it. Royal Rumble match is very good and ending is great. Main event is okay but match at SS was much better."
tylerismisfit wrote on 01.10.2017:
[4.0] "The Royal Rumble match was okay, pretty sloppy in the beginning, a bit hectic but entertaining towards the middle and end, main event was an okay match with a good ending. Nothing too special to see here."
InactiveGuru wrote on 14.06.2016:
[4.0] "This was not a good Royal Rumble. I don't remember a lot about it which is sad as I only watched it a few days ago. All my ratings was removed due to me using my spreadsheet to save ratings when I had dodgy internet and using the ratings at once upset the cage match team so they delete over 2, 000 ratings of mine happy days."
Zach wrote on 29.03.2016:
[3.0] "Meh. Sure, the Stone Cold character was interesting, and the feud with Bret Hart was about to kick into high gear... but it was still a Rumble, and aside from Austin it wasn't great. Also, there were exactly zero highlights outside of the Rumble match, and that's a shame. Watch the Rumble itself if you want to see the evolution of Stone Cold; otherwise, skip this show."
jackleone wrote on 31.01.2016:
[5.0] "The collaboration with AAA did not work at all. All lucha stars were just fillers and not good ones, the 3 vs 3 lucha match was the worst match on the card. The Royal Rumble match of 1997 was one of the less interesting, too much focus on Stone Cold and Bret Hart, really a few superstars had time to shine. HHH vs Goldust was not a bad match. Taker vs Vader wasn't good as I expected. Just a really standard event, not at the level of others Royal Rumble."
elwanning wrote on 16.02.2014:
[5.0] "This was not that great of a showing of one of WWF's best ideas. The opening match between Hunter Hearst Hemsley and Goldust went on too long. The ref was very relaxed with the rules as he let them brawl. It would have been better if was a lot shorter. Ahmed Johnson/Faarooq was a lackluster match made worse by the finish. Vader/Undertaker was ok. The six-man tag match was decent enough, nice to see a change of pace in WWF's style. The Rumble itself was pretty bad. A bunch of lower talent mixed with some Mexican talent that didn't fit in. The only thing that makes it worth watching is Steve Austin's performance. The main event was entertaining enough. 5 of 10."
koeddylaemmle wrote on 08.01.2014:
[4.0] "Really not that memorable of an event except for the fact of Austin cheating to win the Rumble match. Stone Cold hadn't appeared on either Raw's to kick the year off so I'm guessing it was a pretty big surprise when he won. Also, in the first three weeks of 1997 Vader has beat Bret Hart and The Undertaker, seems like they really wanted to push him but weren't sure what direction they wanted to take him so they had him join up with Paul Bearer and Mankind."