10 Biggest WWE Royal Rumble Falls From Grace

7. WWE Title Match Against Brock Lesnar, To Eliminated In Two Minutes - Hardcore Holly

Taz Royal Rumble
WWE.com

Did anybody really expect Hardcore Holly to topple Brock Lesnar, become WWE Champion and embark on a lengthy run as SmackDown's top star at the 2004 Royal Rumble PPV? Likely not. But that doesn't stop the 2004 and 2005 editions of the Rumble event being a significant 'drop' for Holly.

Playing off the very real breaking off Hardcore's neck in a match with Brock Lesnar over a year prior, the 2004 Royal Rumble event had the former Sparky Plugg in a role that he'd never before been featured in - that of a World Championship challenger on one of WWE's biggest PPVs of the year.

WWE has so often used the Royal Rumble PPV to experiment with more left-field choices competing for some of the company's biggest prizes, yet the example of Hardcore Holly is likely the most random example of this in the PPV's history.

By the time of the following year's Royal Rumble, it was very much back to normal for Hardcore - with him the second person eliminated from the 2005 Rumble match, lasting just short of two minutes in that bout.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.