Forever tainted by the actions of winner Chris Benoit three years later, the 2004 Royal Rumble still stands up as a top quality Rumble. The story throughout focused on Benoit, who was aiming to become the first man to win the match after entering at number one (there had been winners from two, which is pretty much the same thing). The field was also stacked, with 17 past/present/future World Champions involved. Just look at the picture accompanying this entry and the men within; Benoit, Big Show, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam and John Cena. Six legitimate main event names from a great era for wrestling. Despite the many big names in the match however, it really was all about Benoit. It was completely unbelievable at the time that WWE was seemingly going to go ahead and give the man a proper push, a most-deserved run to the main event that the audience were well and truly behind. The match also contained a great stride in the excellent Randy Orton/Mick Foley rivalry that was so instrumental in giving us the Viper that we know and... love today.
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.
