WWE Royal Rumble (January 2004)

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Your Hosts are Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, and Tazz

Opening World Tag Team Title Tables Match: Ric Flair and Batista v The Dudley Boyz: Brawl in the aisle to start. It's weird to see Flair interacting with the Dudley Boyz. And in Philly, no less. It's like some weird 90s mashup nobody asked for. The Boyz take Batista out on the floor, and double up on Flair in the ring, but Batista manages to move a table out of the way to save his partner from being suplexed through it. Batista helps take both challengers down, but misses a charge in the corner, and takes a side suplex/neckbreaker combo. Ric gets slammed off the top, and the Boyz go for the kill on him, but Jonathan Coachman runs in, and distracts them. The Dudley's destroy him, but the distraction is enough to allow Batista to recover, and he puts D-Von through a table to win it at 4:21. Really short for pay per view, but I'm not complaining, because this was aimless, and had zero flow. DUD

WWE Cruiserweight Title Match: Rey Mysterio v Jamie Noble: Criss cross ends with Rey setting up the 619, but Jamie counters with a flapjack, then forward suplexes him across the top rope for two. Snapmare gets two, but Rey counters a kneelift into a schoolboy for two. Noble levels him with a lariat for two to cutoff the comeback, and he grounds the champion with a chinlock. Another flapjack, but Rey counters with a dropkick, and adds a rana. Wheelbarrow bulldog gets two, but Noble blocks a springboard bodypress with a knee. Jamie goes for the kill, but Nidia accidentally trips him as he runs the ropes, and Rey hits the 619 to setup the Droppin' the Dime (easily the stupidest finisher name of all time) for the pin at 3:13. Were they handing out speed at the door, or something? We're less than twenty minutes into the show, and already two title matches are history. *

Eddie Guerrero v Chavo Guerrero: Lockup battle goes to a stalemate to start, but Eddie manages to take him down into a chinlock on the second go around. Chavo responds with chops, so Eddie rakes the eyes, and sweeps him. He goes after the arm on the mat, but Chavo powers up, and uses a rana to escape. He unloads some mounted punches, but gets overzealous, and caught in a cross-armbreaker. Chavo makes the ropes to escape, and side suplexes Eddie for two. Rolling vertical suplexes, but Eddie escapes the third alarm, so Chavo tries a tornado DDT instead, but Eddie counters with his own rolling verticals - hitting all three alarms. Nice sequence. Unfortunately, that's it, as Eddie hits the Frogsplash immediately after, and we're done at 8:04. Extremely disappointing, as it didn't really go anywhere, and was mostly feeling out process stuff before picking up in the last two minutes. ¾*

WWE Title Match: Brock Lesnar v Hardcore Holly: Holly jumps him on the floor during the entrances, and rams Brock into the post a few times. Hardcore rolls him in, but misses a flying elbow as he follows, and Brock destroys him with a snap suplex for two. He grounds his challenger with a waistlock on the mat, but Holly won't submit, so Brock punishes him with a hanging fisherman buster suplex for two. It's Suplex City, bitch! Back to the waistlock, but Holly fights up to his feet, so Brock shifts into a bearhug instead. Bob tries escaping, so Lesnar punishes him with a beautiful release overhead suplex, then grounds him with a chinlock. Holly escapes, and dodges a charging Brock in the corner, then takes him down with a jumping clothesline. Holly adds a dropkick, and hits the Alabama Slam, then slaps on s full-nelson. Lesnar rolls out of the ring in it, but Hardcore keeps it on, and they both fall to the floor in the hold. Neat. Back in, Holly tries it again, but Brock stuns him to escape, and the F5 retains at 6:30. I'm assuming the Rumble match is going to run really fucking long, because we're just flying through this show. ½*

World Heavyweight Title Last Man Standing Match: Triple H v Shawn Michaels: This is, of course, Tim Allen's wrestling debut. Long slugfest to start, segueing into a reversal sequence on the mat that Shawn wins with a chop. HHH fires back with a kneeling facebuster, and he beats Michaels into the corner for a big cross corner whip. Another sets up a backbreaker, but Michaels manages to block a kick with a corkscrew legwhip into a figure four. HHH escapes, so Shawn dropkicks the knee, but a charge misses, and HBK goes flying out of the ring. HHH follows and tries a suplex through the announce table, but Shawn blocks, and hits an axehandle off of it instead, as we get a look at one of the laziest crowd signs I've ever seen: 'HBK = HHH Butt Kicker!' Way to be, Philly. Shawn with another flying ax on the way back in, but HHH blocks, and goes for the Pedigree, but Michaels backdrops him over the top to escape. Shawn follows with a springboard bodypress, but he overshoots it, and takes an absolutely gorgeous bump through the table. That looked awesome. Shawn blades off of it, but manages to get up ahead of the count, so HHH takes him in for some mounted punches. Shawn beats the count again, as we get some close-ups of clean shaven HHH, and if you've never seen it, it's super disturbing. It's weird, because if you look back at mid-90s Hunter Hearst Helmsley, he looks fine clean shaven, but once he bulked up and added the facial hair, there was no going back, and it looks really jarring. Even today, I've gotten used to his buzz cut just fine, but if he ever shaved again, the stock price would likely drop twenty percent overnight. Hunter grabs a chair and smacks Shawn with it, but Michaels still beats the count. I get what they're going for here, and it's fine booking, but this match is starting to drag with all the 'stop and count' spots. Pedigree onto the chair, but Shawn counters with a slingshot, and HHH adds his own bladejob. Both guys beat the count up for a slugfest, and Shawn pops off the diving double-ax. Inverted atomic drop and a well executed flying elbowdrop (even by Shawn's usual standards) setup the Superkick, but Hunter blows him low to block. Well, we knew that was coming eventually. Triple H and Shawn Michaels can't go twenty minutes together without some blowing. Both guys beat the count for another slow slugfest, and Shawn tries a sleeper. Great, that'll get things going. HHH beats the count for another slugfest, and he manages to win this one with a DDT. Shawn beats the count, so HHH whips him into the corner for a side superplex, but Shawn counters into a bodyblock on the way down. Both guys beat the count, and HHH goes for the kill with the Pedigree, but Shawn makes it up. Superkick, but that required all the energy Shawn had left, and both guys are out for a draw at 22:45. Crowd shits all over that, and rightly so. This was really long, which would be fine if it were exciting (or even had an ending), but this was basically a fifteen minute match stretched to twenty three, and came off as really dull because of it. *

Main Event: #1 Contenders Royal Rumble Match: 90 second intervals this year, though they play fast and loose with the timing again. Chris Benoit and Randy Orton start, and Chris stomps a mudhole in the corner. Mark Henry draws #3, and goes for Benoit, but ends up trading off with Orton instead. Tajiri draws #4, and looks like he's stoned. He goes after Orton with kicks, and plants the handspring elbow on him, but gets caught with a two-alarm no-release German suplex from Chris. I like how Benoit modified it to only two alarms there, so as to avoid leaving himself exposed to attack from the other two. Bradshaw gets #5, and takes Orton, Henry, and Tajiri out with the Clothesline from Hell, but Benoit knows a thing or two about hell, and manages to counter into the Crossface, and he tosses Bradshaw after less than a minute in. Good sequence though, he made his time count. #6 is Rhyno, and he spears Tajiri out, as Henry is eliminated via Benoit. #7 is Matt Hardy, but the crowd isn't buying. Scott Steiner draws #8, and if you've seen last years Royal Rumble, you know he's got no chance of making it to the final four without oxygen support and a siesta. Side suplex for Orton, belly-to-belly for Benoit, and a head-and-arm for Rhyno. Chris responds with a two-alarm German on him, which looked really fucking cool, with the size difference and all. #9 is Matt Morgan, and he destroys Benoit with a sitout powerbomb, then goes after Orton in the corner. The Hurricane draws #10, but gets tossed by Morgan about that many seconds later. Booker T draws #11, and helps Scott Steiner shuffle off back to the indies. It's kinda sad that Steiner made that big, long anticipated return, and didn't even get a WrestleMania payday in the two years he was there. #12 is Kane, and he chokeslams everyone, but Booker eliminates him in short order after Kane gets distracted by Undertaker's gong sound. #13 is Spike Dudley, but Kane takes out his frustrations on him, and poor little Spike never even makes it into the match. Rikishi draws #14, as they start another of his endless stop/start pushes from this period, before ultimately releasing him over the summer. #15 is Rene Dupree, and he tosses Matt Hardy, but showboats, and gets kicked out by Rikishi. Meanwhile, Benoit and Orton continue to have at it in the corner, as Booker survives an elimination attempt. A-Train gets #16, and goes after Rikishi, as Benoit dumps Morgan. Everyone gangs up on A-Train, but Orton sneaks up and dumps Rikishi in the shuffle. Shelton Benjamin draws #17, but gets tossed by Orton right away, as Benoit eliminates A-Train. That puts us back to Benoit and Orton alone in the ring at the halfway point, and Chris goes after him with suplexes, but both guys are down as Ernest Miller enters at #18. Even with Orton and Benoit down, Miller wants to dance instead of get the job done, and gets tossed for his efforts. #19 is Kurt Angle, however, and he certainly is not here to dance! He goes after both guys, and delivers a snap suplex for Benoit, but can't toss him. #20 is Rico, but Orton dumps him to give the three contenders the stage. Unfortunately for Randy, #21 is Mick Foley (replacing a mysteriously injured Test), and Randy's done for the night. Foley eliminates himself in the process to keep going after Orton on the floor, as Benoit and Angle continue to have their usual awesome match. #22 is Christian, and he goes after the battered Benoit, as Foley and Orton continue to brawl on the floor. #23 is Nunzio, but he runs into Foley and Orton, and ends up taking a breather on  out on the floor for the time being, as Benoit, Angle, and Christian suplex each other all over the ring. #24 is Big Show, and he unloads on everyone. #25 is Chris Jericho, and everyone decides to gang up on Show, but can't get him out. Come on guys, you've seen him in person! You should know better! Charlie Haas draws #26, and gets tandem suplexed by Christian and Jericho, as Nunzio continues to hang out on the floor. Christian and Jericho unsuccessfully try to toss Benoit, then turn on each other, and Jericho backdrops him out. Billy Gunn draws #27, as Angle German suplexes Haas. Gunn slides in the ring (nearly overshooting it and sliding right out the other end in the process), and hits Show with the Fameasser. #28 is John Cena, but unlike nowadays, Cena drawing a late number didn't mean as much. He was on track to becoming a huge star, but he wasn't quite there yet. He spots Nunzio still hanging out on the floor, and decides to force him in, but Nunzio is fresh, and fights him off with Big Show's help. Rob Van Dam draws #29, and gets into it with Jericho, as Cena hits the FU on Angle. Goldberg rounds out the field with the #30 draw, and immediately spears Show and Gunn. He casually tosses Haas, then spears the shit out of Nunzio on the way to dumping Gunn. He press-slams Nunzio out next, and goes for the Jackhammer on Show, but Brock shows up, and delivers am F5 - allowing Angle to toss Goldberg. Too bad circumstances got in the way, because that should have been a fucking HUGE WrestleMania match. Everyone gangs up on Show again, but they still can't toss him, so they settle for taking turns hitting signature moves on him in succession, like a video game. An awesome, awesome video game. So, now Show's dead, but he's dead flat on his back, and an unconscious giant is not exactly optimal in a battle royal. They try to pick him up, but he's dead weight, and by the time they get him up, he comes back to life, and tosses Cena like garbage. Same for RVD - leaving us Show, Benoit, Angle, and Jericho. Awesome final four! He tries tossing Jericho, but Chris skins the cat, and starts peppering Show with shots. 2^nd rope bulldog puts him down for the Walls, but again, it's a battle royal! Show reminds him of that while Chokeslamming his ass out of the ring. Kurt gives it a go, but walks into a sidewalk slam, and Show stops to Chokeslam Benoit. Kurt sneaks up with a German suplex, but Show uses his gigantic ass to block, so Kurt hits an Olympic Slam instead. One for a recovering Benoit as well, and he slaps the Anklelock on Show. At least Ross and Tazz are getting the psychology of it over, noting that Kurt is trying to leave him hobbled to make him easier prey to toss. Unfortunately for him, Show escapes the hold with such force that Kurt flies out over the top in the process. Oh well. Down to two, and Chris hits a standing Show with a flying headbutt, but walks into another Chokeslam - countered into the Crossface! Show sidewalk slams him to escape, and goes to press-slam him out, but Benoit grabs a front-facelock on the way down. He manages to land on the apron while still applying the hold, and anchors himself - managing to basically suplex Show out, while still keeping himself on the apron for the win at 61:34! Awesome finish! Very entertaining Rumble, with a great storyline throughout, drama, and lots of well booked interactions – especially for Benoit. Sure, history has swept this Rumble under the carpet, but it’s a shame, because strictly judging it as a match, it was not only the best Rumble in years, but one of the best Rumble’s ever, frankly. *** ¾

BUExperience: Chris Benoit’s future actions have since cast a dark cloud over this entire show, but if you’re a Rumble match fan, this is the best one since 1992, and one of the best ever. The rest of the show is junk, but the main event is over an hour long, extremely good, and historically significant – even if WWE history chooses not to acknowledge it.

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