I’m not going to lie, guys – I got the idea for this profile from listening to one of the newer episodes of Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard. They covered the 2004 Royal Rumble, and that led me to hunt it down on the WWE Network. From what I remembered, I thought the Rumble match itself was pretty boring. I can remember 17-year old me seeing Chris Benoit winning it coming from a mile away. I don’t even know who I wanted to win back then, but it wasn’t Benoit and I remember thinking, “lame,” when he eventually won it.
After re-watching it, I have to say that I was pretty dumb as a 17-year old. For the purposes of this conversation, I mean that specifically, but just to clarify, I think I was a pretty stupid kid at 17 all around.
That match was the epitome of story-telling in wrestling. You look at what that match did to set up WrestleMania XX, and it’s just mind-blowing. You had four of your biggest five matches develop out of this one match. Brock Lesnar interfered and delivered the F5 to Goldberg – those two would meet in a completely forgettable and disappointing match. The bell tolled for Kane, signifying the impending return of the dead man Undertaker…who would eventually make his return at WrestleMania XX to wrestle…you guessed it…Kane. Mick Foley was a surprise entrant and went right after Randy Orton. That led to a Rock n’ Sock Connection reunion and a match against Evolution. Then, of course, you had Benoit winning the match to set up the big title match at ‘Mania.
The final few competitors were a who’s who of wrestling at the time. Any one of the final six wrestlers would’ve been a bona fide contender. But, it was also just a fun match – as any match featuring Ernest “The Cat” Miller is.
Above all, it was a tremendous underdog story for Benoit. Here was a guy who had had the card stacked against him. Entering at number one and going for over an hour was brutal. If running through 30 other guys wasn’t enough, he had to eliminate the Big Show to win it. That’s taxing stuff – but he was the resilient hero back then. It was a changing of the guard.
Instead of us celebrating that match, the WWE won’t ever address it because of the heinous crimes committed by Benoit in 2007. People point to Rey Mysterio and the 2006 Royal Rumble as the greatest Rumble of all time, but I don’t know – looking back, this one was right there with it in my book. It was as complete a wrestling match as you could ever ask for.
That’s a shame, because it’s essentially become ‘the Rumble that never happened.’
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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