Royal Rumble 2000 Dumbest Ass Award: Big Show

The Royal Rumble match is a 30 man over the top rope battle royal, and it's every man for himself. That invites strategy. It's a tactical war as much as a test of physical strength and endurance. Too often, wrestlers either forget this fact or ignore it completely. They do so by engaging in such ridiculously dumb behavior like outright stopping eliminations from occurring. There are exceptions, of course, like tag teams or factions attempting to work together to give themselves the best chance to win but generally, it's a really stupid idea to stop an elimination.

In each Royal Rumble, there are always wrestlers who stop multiple eliminations. In some cases, a wrestler will stop an elimination that has a monumental effect on the match and is detrimental to his chances of winning in a way he ultimately cannot overcome. I like to refer to such a wrestler as the "Dumbest Ass." Special considerations made for other stupidity.

Here, we'll hand out the award for "Dumbest Ass" in each of the Royal Rumble matches that have taken place so far.

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2000

There's very little to say about this match. It wasn't very good. They botched the finish. Whatever.

Dumbasses

Headbanger Mosh

Just for his attire. Look at this idiot:

Shout out to my man Henn Griffey Junior on Twitter.

Gangrel

1. Never known for his smarts, Gangrel had Test helping him attempt to eliminate Edge when he stopped, punched Test, and went back to trying to toss Edge by himself. Edge was not eliminated.

Crash Holly

1. Edge is trying to get Chris Jericho gone when Holly, coming in fresh, decides his first act in the match should be to stop an elimination.

Hardcore Holly

1. Val Venis and Test were working on The Rock when he managed to battle them both off. So Holly didn't stop an elimination here, necessarily, but he was rushing over to do so and hit Venis in the back just after Rock raked his eyes. Then he started working on Rock all alone.

Big Show

1. Had Hardcore Holly up over his head and easily could have thrown him out. He chose to just slam him to the mat. On commentary, Jerry Lawler asked by he didn't just throw him over the top rope. Because he's a dumbass, Jerry.
2. A while later, he did the exact same thing to Bad Ass Billy Gunn. Come on, Big.
3. His final crime was the worst. It came down to just Show and The Rock and he scored a big choke slam that set him up for the victory. But when he picked Rock up, he threw him over his shoulder and then just walked around the ring asking the crowd where to throw him out. He finally decided on hauling ass across the ring, creating some momentum for Rock to grab the top rope and send Show over instead. Why wouldn't he just lift Rock up over his head and throw him out like he had so many chances to do with others before?

Kane

1. He body slammed Big Show, taking a lot out of himself and stumbled near the ropes leaving himself wide open to be eliminated by X-Pac, of all people.

Dumbass Special

The referees

1. Both of The Rock's feet hit at the finish. Big Show was the rightful winner of this match. Stupid refs, man. Can never trust 'em to do their job in pro wrestling.

The Dumbest Ass

Big Show

In a match without all that much dumbassery, the big man wins if only for making the same stupid mistake twice. Well, that and his impressively dumb tactical approach once it got down to the final two. We've seen a lot of arrogance getting in the way of victory in this match lately but, as usual, it's not an excuse for stupidity.

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Previous "Dumbest Ass" award winners:

1989: Bad News Brown
1990: Ultimate Warrior
1991: British Bulldog
1992: Hulk Hogan
1993: Randy Savage
1994: Lex Luger
1995: Lex Luger
1996: Diesel
1997: Mil Mascaras
1998: Disciples of Apocalypse
1999: Stone Cold Steve Austin