Whilst the WWE would have you believe that there was no winner of the 2004 Royal Rumble match, let me tell you a little story about a man called Chris Benoit. Benoit, a tough-as-nails Canadian known affectionately as The Crippler, was a grappler who had always come up short when it came to winning the big one in the WWE. After falling out of favour with Smackdowns Paul Heyman, Benoit was forced to enter the Royal Rumble at #1. Hed go on to win the match and then take Triple Hs World Championship at WrestleMania XX before floating around the midcard for the next few years and quietly retiring to a life of golf and long summer walks. Wait a minute, something doesnt sound quite right there Regardless of the horrors that were his last few days and his final acts, Chris Benoit was a hell of a worker, one of the very best in-ring talents the wrestling business has ever seen, and his 2004 Royal Rumble performance was a fine example of this. As the underdog that you finally wanted to see given a shot at being a true main event player, Benoit and his 2004 Rumble antics were brilliantly effective. With his hour-long Rumble win, Chris Benoit was hugely elevated to another level, as highlighted by his eventual World Title win later that year.