Royal Rumble 2004 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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2004

The one they wish they could take back.

Dumbasses

Chris Benoit

1. Matt Hardy was trying to toss Randy Orton out when Benoit, who was across the ring with nothing to do, decided to go hauling ass over to break it up.
2. This time it was the other way around. Orton is trying to toss Hardy when Benoit peels away from Rhyno to drill Randy in the back.

Matt Morgan

1. Came in fresh, picked up Chris Benoit over his shoulders, and slammed him to the mat. Why so many guys do this baffles me. Big and dumb.
2. Not long after this, Rhyno and Matt Hardy are working together to get Scott Steiner out when Morgan decides the right play is to stop them. I'm convinced these guys forget what they're supposed to do in these matches and just hit people.
3. This guy, holy hell. He picks Matt Hardy up to throw him out, tosses him over the top rope, then takes a step back and literally watches Hardy save himself. He even opens his arms as though he's baffled and doesn't realize he could have done something about it instead of standing there staring like a big oaf.

Rene Dupree

1. He gets in hot and manages to eliminate Matt Hardy. After doing so, he celebrates like he won the damn match, bouncing around like an idiot while Rikishi sets up behind him and hits a superkick to send him out.

Ernest Miller

1. This idiot gets in while Randy Orton and Chris Benoit are both laid out from bonking heads and instead of taking advantage, he spent his entire time in the match dancing. Honky Tonk level bad.

Kurt Angle

1. Chris Benoit stupidly goes to the top rope and Angle, who had been down on the mat, springs up and runs over to knock him down in such a way that Benoit racks himself. Why on Earth wouldn't you just go over and push him out?!? Not an Olympic level move.
2. Christian is trying to toss Chris Benoit when Angle, from all the way across the ring, ran over to hit a German suplex on Christian. Then, because whatever and who cares, he did the same to Benoit.
3. Later, he did that same thing to Charlie Haas while Haas was trying to throw Chris Benoit out.

Randy Orton

1. After screwing up an elimination on Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle got back to working at it but was foiled almost immediately by Orton.

Mick Foley

1. In his zest to destroy Randy Orton, he eliminated himself at the same time he sent Orton out.

Chris Jericho

1. Rob Van Dam came in and started working on Big Show. He was making some headway too, starting to get him up on the top rope and, for some reason, Jericho came over and went after RVD. That's a really bad play.

John Cena

1. Committed the cardinal sin of putting someone up over his shoulders and failing to throw them out from there.

Goldberg

1. Brock Lesnar came into the ring and gave Goldberg an F-5. Goldberg got up and saw Brock still standing on the outside taunting him, so he started yelling at him right near the ropes, forgetting he was in a Royal Rumble and there were guys eager to get the drop on him. Sure enough, Kurt Angle ran over and eliminated Goldberg quick fast in a hurry.

Big Show

1. This is impressively dumb. He gets in at number 24 and there are only three people in the ring. Of those three, Chris Benoit is trying to toss Christian. So what does Show do? He kicks Benoit in the gut and then PULLS CHRISTIAN BACK IN THE RING. My god, the stupidity.
2. He stopped Chris Jericho from eliminating Kurt Angle. He did toss Jericho just after, but that's a strange decision. Wouldn't you rather go up against Jericho than Angle?
3. He was put in the Crippler Crossface multiple times and tapped every time. In a Royal Rumble match.
4. Choke slams are a slippery slope for me and this award. I don't typically include them because I can usually find a decent reason in favor of doing it, and it usually doesn't get eliminations anyway. But here, Big Show had JUST used it to eliminate Chris Jericho when he went and grabbed Chris Benoit and gave him a big choke slam to the mat instead of out of the ring. He established he could do it and then chose not to. Guess who eliminated him?
5. Later, he picked Benoit up over his head and just stood there with him playing to the crowd. He's done this so many times in past Royal Rumble matches and it's cost him EVERY time. When will you learn?!?

The Dumbest Ass

Big Show

There were stretches of time where he was dominant in this match but my god, it's incredible that he's never learned from any of his past mistakes. He gets in a great position, plays to the crowd, and loses because he's too stupid to win the match and THEN celebrate. He's in the 2016 Royal Rumble and I'm fully expecting him to pick Brock Lesnar up for a choke slam, walk around for 30 seconds nodding his head at the crowd, and immediately get dick kicked by Undertaker before being clotheslined over the top by Lesnar.

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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
2000: Big Show
2001: The Rock
2002: Undertaker
2003: Undertaker