10 Wrestlers Who Hated WWE Royal Rumble Spots

7. Daniel Puder Didn't Know A Beating Was Coming - 2005

WWE Royal Rumble 2005 Vince McMahon
WWE Network

Yikes, the 2005 Rumble really was a mixed bag, wasn’t it? To be fair to Tough Enough winner Daniel Puder, he had every right to be mad about the situation he found himself in in the early going of the match. Puder entered at number three and lasted a whole four minutes before being chucked out by Hardcore Holly. All sounds fairly humdrum, right?

Not quite. Those four minutes (and nine seconds) were a lifetime for Puder, as veterans Holly, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit beat the ever-loving tar out of the rookie. It was and remains an uncomfortable watch. It served no purpose other than reinforcing the toxic primal atmosphere of the pro-wrestling locker room.

In an interview with Chris Van Vliet in 2020, Puder confirmed that he didn’t know the beating was coming.

“So, that was interesting. I didn’t know that was coming like that. Again, companies not taking care of people, it’s simple. What’s crazy is this? certain athletes will do whatever it takes to get on TV and do what their puppet master says. It doesn’t matter how harmful it is.”

Unsurprisingly, this was the last time we saw Daniel Puder on WWE TV.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.