WWE Royal Rumble Rewind: 2005 Royal Rumble Match

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The 2005 Royal Rumble match determined who would enter the WrestleMania 21 main event and receive a WWE Championship or World Heavyweight Championship opportunity. Since the brand split was still in effect, it could make the Superstar have to change shows.

The match began with Eddie Guerrero entering #1 and Chris Benoit entering #2. The latter won the Rumble in 2004 as the #1 entry.

If you’re just starting to watch wrestling, Guerrero passed away later in the year due to acute heart failure and Benoit did this.

Anyway, the next entrant would be Daniel Puder, the most recent Tough Enough winner. He would come out and say that he’ll be the first tough enough winner to win the Royal Rumble. However, Guerrero, Benoit and Hardcore Holly would team up on Puder and eliminate him. He never appeared on WWE television after this match.

After this, Benoit and Guerrero teamed up to eliminate Holly and Hurricane Helms.

Edge would be the next big name star to come out and would unleash his fury on other wrestlers. Rey Mysterio would then follow (coming out to an older but much better theme song) and eliminate an opponent.

Later on, we’d see Raw GM Eric Bischoff run down from the back to stand at ringside for his representatives in the Rumble. SmackDown GM Teddy Long would come out to support his stars, too.

Hearing the announce team praise Luther Reigns is pretty comical. He had potential because of his size and look, but would never end up going anywhere in WWE.

At one point, four Raw Superstars and four SmackDown Superstars were in the ring at the same time, leading to all of them realizing this and having a trash talking face-off. A brawl would breakout between the two sides. They would come together when Muhammad Hassan entered the match. To put it nicely, Hassan’s character was “anti-American,” so everyone teamed up and eliminated him. He would end up attacking Scotty 2 Hotty, who was on his way to the ring, after being eliminated. Scotty wouldn’t end up competing.

The action started picking up soon after. Booker T would eliminate two opponents and then get eliminated by Guerrero. A little while later, Edge would eliminate both Shelton Benjamin and Viva La Raza.

By the way, who the heck was Simon Dean? I really do not remember watching him way back in 2005. That’s probably a good thing.

At #20, Kurt Angle would be the next big star to come out. He got a loud ovation and went on a suplexing spree. Mysterio, Benoit, Edge, Renée Dupree, and Chris Jericho before putting Shawn Michaels in an Angle Lock. HBK would counter and hit Sweet Chin Music on Angle to knock him out of the match. The former Olympic gold medalist ended up running back into the ring and eliminated Michaels. This would lead to a match between the two at WrestleMania 21.

Jonathon Coachman, who is now with ESPN, would enter next at 21 and get mauled by Benoit immediately. However, he stayed in for awhile.

Viscera and Mark Jindrak as the next entrants? We’re really breaking into the archives now. An interesting “what-if” is where Jindrak would be today if he ended up in the Evolution stable instead of Batista.

Then, at #25, Mr. Thuganomics and United States Champion John Cena, would come out to a huge pop. That’s something you don’t hear every day anymore. He eliminated Viscera right off the bat.

One of the highlights of the match would come shortly after. Paul London and Snitsky were battling by the ropes. London would end up on the other side of them, but still on the ring apron. He would end up taking a vicious Clothesline that flipped him over, eliminated him, and gave the crowd something to wake them up.

Kane would come in next and take down Snitsky, Benoit, Cena, Mysterio and eliminate Jindrak. Then, Coachman, who for some reason was still in the match, tried attacking the Big Red Machine. Snitsky would make the save by attacking Kane. Coach would run away.

Batista would come out next to a big pop at 28 and immediately eliminate Snitsky. He then stood face-to-face with Kane and power-bombed him. He’d eliminate Jericho soon after.

At 29, Christian would come out to one of his many theme songs with his bodyguard, who I can’t say I remember either.

After this, Cena then hit a big AA on Kane to knock him out.

Ric Flair would come out at 30 to be the last entrant of the Rumble. It would be down to him, Cena, Mysterio, Christian, Batista, Edge, Coachman (who, once again, shouldn’t have hung around this long) and Benoit.

The Nature Boy would eliminate Coach and Batista would eliminate Christian. The Evolution stablemates were teaming up. They then eliminated Benoit, only for Flair to try knocking out The Animal when he was vulnerable. He turned around to Batista and tried pleading his case, only to end up getting eliminated by Flair. This left a final four of Batista, Cena, Edge and Mysterio.

Edge would begin by going on a Spear spree. First Batista, then Cena, and nearly Mysterio, who would jump out of the way. Eventually, the Rated R Superstar got the longtime WWE star with a Spear through the ropes. Then, as Edge was attacking both Batista and Cena, he got them on the ropes. He looked to clothesline both of them over the ropes, but the two teamed up to throw the WWE Hall of Famer out of the ring. This left Batista vs. Cena.

Cena went for the AA on Batista, but The Animal got out of it. He then looked to hit a Batista-Bomb on Cena, but the latter’s momentum carried both backwards and over the ropes, landing on the ground at the same time. A Raw referee said Batista won, but a SmackDown referee said Cena won. The referees kept arguing back and forth, until an unintentionally bizarre moment happened.

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Vince McMahon would furiously start heading down the entrance ramp to the ring. He threw down his jacket, ran to the ring and tried sliding through the bottom rope. It didn’t go so cleanly. He ended up legitimately tearing both of his quad as he tried to stand up. It was really embarrassing for the Chairman and the look on his face as he sat down in the ring said it all.

After this happened, Batista threw Cena over the ropes and was declared the winner by the Raw refs. Cena did the same to the Hollywood star and was declared the winner by the SmackDown refs. The crowd was annoyed by the long confusion and started booing. Eventually, McMahon made the announcement to Howard Finkel that the match would be restarted.

Both men immediately countered each other’s finishers, followed by a Spinebuster from Batista. He tossed Cena out of the ring and won his chance to go to the WrestleMania 21 main event.

This Royal Rumble certainly wasn’t the best and the strange finish hurt it somewhat, but it was still very entertaining. What did you think of the 2005 version of this match?

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