Royal Rumble Rewind: 2005

Once again in 2005, the Rumble match marked the dawn of a new era. Two rising stars were beginning to emerge and it took a little longer than expected to determine which one of them would come out victorious in this match.

2005 Royal Rumble

Emanating from the Savemart Center in Fresno, CA

#1 is Eddie Guerrero and #2 is Chris Benoit. At that time it was a dream opening pair. Now, like so many other great moments from that time they are just a grim reminder of what has happened. The two go through some feeling-out moves to kick things off. Before they can truly get going, #3 is out and it’s the $1,000,000 Tough Enough winner, Daniel Puder. Puder opts to go for a mic and announces that he’ll make history by being the first Tough Enough winner to win the Rumble. Benoit and Guerrero don’t take too kindly to that and decide to take out their anger on him. It quickly becomes a game of who can chop him harder. Guerrero delivers the Three Amigos as Hardcore Holly comes out at #4. So things are getting worse for young Puder, since we know Holly hates rookies. Holly decides to get in on the chopfest as Puder is just getting brutalized in there. After an Alabama Slam, Holly does the honor of eliminating Puder. As The Hurricane comes out at #5, Benoit and Guerrero sneak up behind Holly and throw him out. Benoit and Guerrero team up against the Hurricane, but suddenly Guerrero turns on Benoit and tries to eliminate him. Benoit hangs on though and they go back to the Hurricane. Hurricane gets a brief moment of offense before Guerrero backdrops him out of the ring. #6 is Kenzo Suzuki and I look forward to more domination from Benoit and Guerrero. After briefly teaming up, Benoit decides to return the favor and try a sneak attack on Eddie, but he too manages to hang out. Appearing for the second time tonight, Edge is out at #7. He goes after Guerrero, while Benoit and Kenzo continue to go at it. Rey Mysterio enters at #8 and he goes after everyone. Kenzo tries to slam Rey, but Rey escapes and then delivers a hurricanrana to eliminate him. #9 is Shelton Benjamin and that is quite the atheletic fivesome in there right now. Shelton slugs away on Edge, while Benoit tries to get rid of Rey. Eddie comes over and tries to eliminate Benoit. Benoit almost suplexes Eddie out of the ring, but Rey stops them. Booker T is the #10 entrant and he goes after Edge. As Rey and Shelton teeter on the top rope, Eric Bischoff decides to walk down to the ring.

#11 is Chris Jericho and the ring continues to be filled with awesome talent. Jericho hits everyone in his path as Teddy Long now decides to make his way down to the ring. Hmm, something seems to be a-brewing. Making it eight men in the ring now, Luther Reigns enters at #12. Soon, the wrestlers realize that there are four RAW and four Smackdown guys in the ring. They take sides and suddenly go at it, West Side Story style to match the theme of this year’s show. Nicely done. The brand warfare suddenly comes to a halt as Muhammad Hassan comes out at #13. The entrants surround Hassan as he looks to the sky. Everyone quickly has enough of that and beat him up. After putting the boots to him, Rey hits him with a 619 and then as a group they collective throw him out. Politically incorrect? Probably. Crowd-pleasing? You better believe it. And then we come down from that high by seeing Orlando Jordan come out at #14. Why can’t he receive the same treatment as Hassan? Everyone pairs off and Shelton is the closest to eliminating someone, that being Chris Jericho. He manages to hang on though. As if Orlando Jordan wasn’t bad enough, now we get Scotty 2 Hotty out at #15. Thankfully, an upset Muhammad Hassan attacks him before he even gets in the ring and puts him in the camel clutch. It appears Scotty’s night is over before it even began. A lot of people are close to going out, but everyone is still hanging on. #16 is Charlie Haas and he goes after everyone. Suddenly Booker gets on a roll and eliminates Luther and Orlando Jordan. He celebrates that with a Spin-a-rooni, but that allows Rey to dropkick him and Guerrero to eliminate him. Rene Dupree is out at #17 and has brought FiFi with him. Haas quickly grabs Dupree and drops him across the top rope. Then it’s a brief World’s Greatest Tag Team reunion as Shelton and Hass double-team Dupree with the alley-oop splash. Shelton hops up onto the top rope, but Edge shoves him off and to the floor to eliminate him. #18 is Simon Dean, who apparently needs to do some more exercises before he gets into the ring. Back inside, Edge sneaks up behind Guerrero and tosses him out. He then dances like Eddie to draw more heel heat from the crowd. The crowd perks back up again as Shawn Michaels is out at #19. Simon Dean has made it into the ring, but is still exercising. Shawn spots him and immediately dumps him out. Haha, nice. Edge tries to corner Rey, but he’s too quick for him. Haas tries punch away on Shawn, but Shawn dumps him to floor. Whooo! It’s Kurt Angle out at #20. He comes in and gives suplexes and Angle Slams to everyone in sight. He tries for one on Shawn, but he escapes. Shawn goes for Sweet Chin Music, but Kurt puts him in the ankle lock. Shawn escapes and then hits the superkick to quickly eliminate Kurt. Wow!

Huge groans from the crowd as Jonathan Coachman comes out at #21. Coach tries a sneak attack on Benoit, but when that doesn’t work, he runs away and grabs a rope. Rey and Jericho come close to eliminating each other, but to no avail. Mark Jindrak is #22, but no one cares because we’re all focused on Kurt Angle who has come back into the ring and thrown out Shawn Michaels. Angle then grabs the steps and throws them at Shawn. With Shawn busted open, Kurt puts him in the ankle lock. The usual bunch of idiots come out to finally break it up. And that’s how you create a Wrestlemania feud! With order now restored, we get our #23 entrant in the form of Viscera. Everybody is sort of milling around as Paul London enters at #24. Dupree knocks him down and then does his French Tickler. Jericho comes up behind him and throws him out. He then does his own version of the dance, which is better received by the crowd. #25 is John Cena who has two tons of hardware to take off before he can get into the ring. He comes in and immediately runs into Viscera. Viscera charges and Cena is able to backdrop him out of the ring. Snitsky enters at #26 and hits everything in his sight. London hops on Snitsky’s back and tries to apply a sleeper. Snitsky pulls him off and onto the apron. Snitsky then clotheslines him off the apron in one of the sickest bumps ever. London’s 360 flip onto the floor is something to behold. With Snitsky looking strong, it seems appropriate that Kane now comes out at #27. Those two go at it as EMTs tend to London. Kane delivers chokeslams to everyone in sight, but doesn’t eliminate anyone. Finally he grabs Jindrak and throws him out. Coach tries attacking Kane from behind, but that doesn’t work. However, before Kane can attack him, Snitsky knocks him down. With everyone down, Batista enters at #28. He immediately makes an impact by clotheslining Snitsky out of the ring. Big ‘Batista’ chant from the crowd. Batista now goes after Kane and dominates him. Batista catches a charging Jericho and throws him to the mat. The Peeps can celebrate now because Christian, accompanied by Tomko is #29. He goes right after that punk Cena. Cena brushes him off and goes over to pick up Kane and dump him to the floor. Rey talks with Cena and tries to team up with him. We’re left with only one man yet to come out and it is The Man, Ric Flair at #30. Flair high fives Batista and then stomps away on Coach. Batista gives Coach a spinebuster and then Flair throws him out of the ring. Batista then gives Christian a spinebuster. He then press slams him out of the ring and onto Tomko. A disappointing night for Captain Charisma. Flair and Batista now team up on Benoit and eliminate him. Suddenly Flair tries to double-cross Batista and throw him out, but Batista doesn’t budge. Batista looks at him, but before he can do anything Edge and Rey attack him. Edge then goes after Flair and throws him out of the ring. More boos for Edge.

Just like that we’re down to the Final Four of Edge, Batista, Rey Mysterio and John Cena. A good crop of new talent there. Edge manages to get spears on Batista and Cena. He goes for one on Rey, but Rey avoids it. Rey then hits Edge with a 619. Edge recovers and throws Rey over the top rope. Rey hangs on, but then Edge spears him and eliminates him for good. Edge charges at Batista and Cena, but they backdrop him to the floor. We’re down to two! The two stare at each other before slugging it out. Cena gets Batista up for the FU, but Batista blocks it by grabbing the ropes. Batista escapes and then sets up Cena for the Batista Bomb. As Cena tries to escape that, both men end up falling over the top rope and hitting the floor. Different referees believe each man won. Both men go in the ring and both get their hand raised. Suddenly Vince McMahon struts out and tries running into the ring. As he gets in, Vince crumbles to the mat. While he sits there, both referees argue their case. We would learn after the fact that as Vince tried entering the ring, he blew out both of his quads (yeowch!), hence him sitting in the ring. Meanwhile, Batista throws Cena out of the ring. Cena comes back in and throws out Batista. Howard Finkel comes on the mic and announces that this match should restart. Cena attempts the FU, but Batista escapes. He hits Cena with a spinebuster and then throws him out to officially win the Royal Rumble.

Bottom Line: Man, if only that finish had gone off more smoothly. We still don’t know if they had planned the double elimination/restart finish or if it was an error on Cena and Batista’s part. On one hand, it provided a good gauge of how fans responded to both men. However, with both men ultimately getting title shots, they probably should have just made them co-winners right there. Aside from that finish, however, this was a tremendous Rumble. There were so many mini-stories and/or spots peppered throughout this thing that there was hardly a dull moment. This match was also successful in doing more than just establishing a #1 contender. It started up the Angle/HBK feud. It also really helped Edge as a heel as he was there until the end and had some good eliminations of crowd favorites. This would get the full monty with a smooth ending. Instead it’ll have to settle for **** ½