Royal Rumble 2015 Dumbest Ass Award: Kane

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.

_______________________________________

2015

The one everyone hated with a dumbass we REALLY hated.

Dumbasses

Bubba Ray Dudley

1. He gets in at number three, his big return to WWE, and comes in doing damage to The Miz. R-Truth is sitting up on the turnbuckle the ENTIRE time. Never at any point does he go over to him to attempt an elimination. Instead, he beats on Miz for a while, then looks up to see Truth and they do the diving headbutt to the dick spot. This was unbelievably dumb. Bubba did toss The Miz out and Truth turned on him immediately. Then again, he threw Truth out right after so it all worked out for him. Still.

Fandango

1. His finish was the top rope leg drop, so you would think he would understand it wouldn't be in his pocket for this one. Instead he attempted it and was only saved by the fact that the guy he was attempting it on was also a dumbass.

DDP

1. Fandango's dumbass. As noted, Fandango went for his leg drop from the top rope finish and DDP bumped the ropes to rack him. Instead of finishing the job and pushing him off for the elimination, Page hit a Diamond Cutter BACK INTO THE RING. Amazing. He hurt his back in the process. Because when you're a dumbass, you get hurt.

Daniel Bryan

1. Look, we've gone over this exact thing too many times to count and Bryan is not exempt just because he's Bryan. Rusev throws him over the top but he saves himself by using the rope to pull himself back to land on the apron. Then he STAYS THERE. You HAVE to get yourself back into the ring. Rusev rushes him and he lands a forearm to fight him off but Bray Wyatt comes running right behind it and bumps Bryan off. That's on D-Bry.

Rusev

1. After the Bryan situation, he went to a corner and recovered from the forearm. Wyatt, meanwhile, climbed up on the second rope and played to the crowd, taunting Bryan. Rusev watched. He did nothing. That's an easy elimination of a guy who had been tossing everyone. Inexcusable.
2. Goldust and Kofi Kingston were trying to get Bray Wyatt out when Rusev pulled Kofi off. Jerry Lawler commented that the two had created an alliance for the purposes of this match. Tenuous.

Kofi Kingston

1. For some reason he stopped Rusev from throwing out Goldust.

Damien Mizdow

1. Executes a basic pro wrestling move on Big E and celebrates like he won the match. Rusev immediately throws him out. What an idiot.

Roman Reigns

1. Rusev is trying to pick Ryback's big ass up to get him over the top rope when Reigns does a drive by elimination stop. He just pops Rusev in the arm and walks off to find something else to do. What a guy.

Big E

1. Rusev has Jack Swagger up over his head near the turnbuckle and he's trying to get him out when it looks like Big E will give him a hand but instead punches him in the ribs.

Cesaro

1. He got put out on the apron by Dolph Ziggler and fought with him there instead of getting back into the ring. He was, of course, eliminated quite easily because of this.

Bray Wyatt

1. Kind of incredible that he was in so long without doing anything stupid but he picked the worst possible time for it. While Kane and Big Show were very clearly working as a team, he attacked Kane and went for ... Sister Abigail. That move is takes some time to pull off on a big guy under the best of circumstances. Here, he went for it and got hit with the KO punch immediately. Then he was unceremoniously dumped out.

Kane

1. He watched Dean Ambrose go up to the top rope and come off to drop him with an elbow. He was literally looking right at him the whole way. Come on. There was nowhere near enough damage done to act like the dude was stuck in place, unable to perform basic functions.
2. He and Show are working together to get everybody out late in the match and it's going swimmingly until Show decides to try to throw Kane out as the two are tossing Roman Reigns. Kane stops this and they start fighting over it, which is all fine. That's just natural Royal Rumble progression. But it's how they went about it that kills me: they did that idiotic double throat grab nonsense and managed to get all the way over the ropes while doing so. Naturally, Reigns came over and threw them both out.

Big Show

1. See above.

The Dumbest Ass

Kane

He gets the win here because Show only had the one dumb moment so he gets honorable mention but my god, these two are really something. Here's what makes it worse: This isn't the first time they've done this EXACT thing. Back in 2006 they got into this same dumb standoff and were eliminated because they went over to the ropes during it, forgetting they were in a match where literally anyone in the ring at the time could take advantage. In 2006 it was Triple H, in 2015 it was Roman Reigns. You dipshits.

_________________________________________

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
2014: Seth Rollins