Royal Rumble 2014 Dumbest Ass Award: Seth Rollins

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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2014

Believe in stupidity!

Dumbasses

Seth Rollins

1. Rusev gets in at number six and destroys everyone in the ring. He decides to focus on trying to eliminate Cody Rhodes when Rollins jumps on his back. At least let the big fella do some work for you before jumping him.
2. Not long after, Jack Swagger gets in and Rusev has him in the opposite corner trying to lift his legs up and over. Rollins sees this and dives at Rusev's leg. Come on, Seth, what are you doing?
3. What the hell? Cody Rhodes, Goldust, and Jimmy Uso are all teaming together to eliminate Jack Swagger when Rollins comes up, appears to be trying to choose who he wants to rip away from this, and goes with Rhodes.
4. This man is clueless. Jey Uso comes in fresh and goes after Cesaro. He's got him up in the corner and seems to be making some progress when Rollins kicks him in the back before immediately walking away to do something else.

Jimmy Uso

1. In his first ever Royal Rumble, it took him less than two minutes to be a dumbass. Kofi Kingston is working on getting Seth Rollins out when Uso clubs him in the back. He then immediately turned his attention to Rollins.

Dean Ambrose

1. Apparently forgetting the prinicples of THAT DAMN NUMBERS GAME, he rips Kofi Kingston away from a group of four all banding together to take out Jack Swagger. Shortly after this, Micheal Cole is heard saying "The Shield should be a dominant force in this Royal Rumble." Sure doesn't look that way so far, Mike!

Kofi Kingston

1. Well, this is baffling. Jack Swagger picks Goldust up and puts him over the top rope. Kingston initially comes over like he's going to help and then blasts Swagger.

CM Punk

1. It's down to the final four. Sheamus hits Batista with a Brogue Kick to lay him out. Punk then hits Sheamus with the GTS, then does the same to Roman Reigns. After this, he goes to the corner. He doesn't try to eliminate anyone, all of them laid out before him. He just went to the corner, where Kane showed up and eliminated him.

R-Truth

1. He gets thrown over the top rope by The Shield but manages to hang on landing on the apron. He punches Seth Rollins when he rushes in but waits patiently for Dean Ambrose to run all the way across the ring to dropkick him out. He watched it happen.

Jack Swagger

This is the dumbest spot I've ever seen in my entire life. Look at this idiot:

He literally stayed in that position, doing nothing to eliminate Kingston, and was there long enough, doing nothing, that Kofi took his shoe off. THAT is when he pulled away. When he rushed back over, Kofi hit him in the head with said shoe.

1. Very shortly after this, he's picking himself up using the ropes. When he gets to a standing position, he just leans over the top rope with his back turned to all the action. He can HEAR music playing for the next entrant, Kevin Nash. The first thing the big man does is go knock Swagger out of the ring.

Kevin Nash

1. Eliminated via that amazing spot in the Royal Rumble where he ran at a guy near the ropes with no plan and that guy just held the top rope down and watched Nash go over.

Goldust

1. He goes hauling ass across the ring to hit Dean Ambrose but Dean moves and Goldie hits Cody Rhodes, who was on the apron just behind him. Goldust then stands with his hand on his head near the ropes looking out at him in regret. Roman Reigns, of course, sent him out immediately. Gotta keep your head on a swivel in this match.

JBL

1. They did the really dumb "announcer enters the Royal Rumble in a shocker" spot that never works and is always dumb. It also always results in a really stupid elimination, and this was no exception. He gets in the ring wearing his suit and asks that Michael Cole come grab his jacket. He leans over the top rope and stretches to give it to Cole, and Roman Reigns rightfully walks over and dumps him out. For all his commentary calling people out, this was one of the dumbest eliminations in the history of the Royal Rumble.

The Miz

1. This is some impressive stupidity. Erick Rowan comes into the ring and grabs Miz up to toss him over the top rope. Miz lands on the apron and when Rowan rushes him, he slides under the rope and back into the ring. Sure, he's right back in Rowan's hands but this is good! Get back in the ring as quickly as possible after going over the top rope. That's day one stuff. Rowa again throws him over the top rope and again Miz lands on the apron. This time, though, he doesn't slide back in but fakes like he's going to throw a punch at Rowan, who just stares at him breathing heavy with a really dumb look on his face. Miz seems utterly dumbfounded, like he has no idea what to do, so he starts walking across the ring, still on the apron, and Luke Harper clotheslines him out.

Luke Harper

1. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins put him over the top rope but he fights them off from the apron. Then, because they timed this poorly, he looks like a dumbass for just standing there watching Roman Reigns come at him with a Superman punch that eliminates him.

The Dumbest Ass

Seth Rollins

An honorable mention goes to Jack Swagger for being so very stupid in this match but this award was created with guys like Rollins in mind. He stopped four different eliminations and he never had a good reason for doing so. In fact, there was never a point where it seemed like he knew what he was doing in this match. At one point, Dean Ambrose tried to sneak up on Roman Reigns and toss him out and Rollins got all pissed at him for it. Dean's response was, appropriately, that this is a Royal Rumble for god's sake. Immediately after this, Rollins teamed with Dean to send Cesaro out and Reigns eliminated all of them at the same time. Because this is a Royal Rumble and Rollins didn't seem to get that. I didn't even include that above either.

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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
2004: Big Show
2005: Rey Mysterio
2006: Big Show
2007: Shawn Michaels
2008: Undertaker
2009: Undertaker
2010: John Cena
2011: Rey Mysterio
2012: Chris Jericho
2013: Dolph Ziggler