• On This Day In Pro Wrestling History (January 25, 2004) – WWE Royal Rumble 2004
On this day in Pro Wrestling history on January 25, 2004, World Wrestling Entertainment aired their annual ‘Royal Rumble’ event LIVE on PPV from the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
This dual-brand (RAW & SmackDown) pay-per-view was basically more or less erased from history because of Chris Benoit, who won the 30-man Rumble match by entering with from the #1 spot, thus being in the ring for the entire 1 hour, 1 minute & 35 seconds that the match lasted.
Though in 2014 the WWE launched their WWE Network and included the event again, which had previously been released on DVD in 2004.
The results:
– Tables match – World Tag Team Championship: Batista and Ric Flair (c) defeated The Dudley Boyz
– WWE Cruiserweight Championship: Rey Mysterio (c) defeated Jamie Noble
– Eddie Guerrero defeated Chavo Guerrero
– WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) defeated Hardcore Holly
– Last Man Standing – World Heavyweight Championship: Triple H (c) wrestled Shawn Michaels to a draw
– Chris Benoit won the 30-man Royal Rumble match
• Back Story On How Owen Hart’s Main Event Push Was Cancelled Because Of Shawn Michaels
In this flashback article, we take a look at an old shoot interview with Jim Cornette, where Cornette talked about how Owen Hart’s main event push in WWF was cancelled because of Shawn Michaels after the Montreal Screwjob.
Below is what Cornette said:
“Owen and Davey were immediately taken off the cards for obvious reasons (after the Montreal Screwjob). Davey wanted to go, he had the knee surgery so he had been working with a bad knee so he’s not gonna be working he might as well get it fixed because he wanted to go somewhere and he had a big offer and obviously you could tell because he paid WWE 150 grand to get out of his deal because they were paying him a lot of money.
Owen on the other hand, WWF saw as a future star and as a matter of fact, that was the pitch to get Owen to come back. ‘We wanna make you the Canadian star. We wanna make you the level of Bret we wanna have you come back and f*ckin’ avenge Bret’s name in the storyline.’
Of course, as soon as Owen agreed to do it and they brought him back in then Shawn put the kibosh on ever putting Owen over or ever doing that top program et cetera and that’s where Owen floated into the f*ckin’ thing with Jeff and Debra and it was mid-card and stuff and it was, what? 14 months later after he came back Kansas City happened. So of course, Shawn got the last laugh on another member of the Hart Family.”
WATCH: Former WWE Diva Summer Rae’s Super Hot Bum During Workout:
