#2: Royal Rumble 2004
Winner: Chris Benoit
Rumble ’04 has easily my favorite second half in the history of Royal Rumble matches. The first 20-30 minutes were a slow build, releasing stars like Matt Hardy, Tajiri, Rhyno, Scott Steiner and Mark Henry. All completely capable athletes, but their primary objective was to make Chris Benoit and Randy Orton – the first two entrants – look fantastic. It wasn’t until Mick Foley made his surprise return as #21 and made a bee-line straight for Orton that business finally picked up. From there the rest of the match was fantastic, furthering drama between Brock Lesnar and Goldberg, setting up for the Rock’s return at WrestleMania, and crowning a new record-holder in Chris Benoit, who lasted more than 61 minutes from the first position to win it all.
This really was a Rumble of new beginnings, as there were zero former winners participating in the match. The up-and-comers like Orton and John Cena looked incredible. Big Show never seemed as dominant as he had in this match, taking on half a dozen stars at once and shaking off as many finishing maneuvers to eliminate all of them. The final four between Show, Benoit, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle is one of the best in history, as the veterans actually wrestled a full-length match to send the “Rabid Wolverine” off to WrestleMania XX in a huge way.
