WWE Rewind: Royal Rumble 2005

Dave Batista won the 2005 Royal Rumble match.

We are just 8 days away from the 25th anniversary of the Royal Rumble match, which is to be held on January 29th, 2012 at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. We have revisited seventeen Royal Rumble matches over the past few weeks. Now, let us take a look at the eighteenth Royal Rumble match which took place on January 30, 2005 at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California.

You can watch this Royal Rumble match in this video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFsLDXrvQGw&feature=player_detailpage

Here are some important facts about this match:

• ‘The Animal’ Batista entered this match at #28 and won the match by eliminating John Cena.
• This was the only Royal Rumble match which was restarted to decide a clear-cut winner since there was chaos over the decision of the referees.
• Chris Benoit, winner of the preceding Rumble in 2004, almost repeated the feat by lasting 47 minutes and 30 seconds (the longest in the match) after entering the match as the second participant. He was the 25th participant to be eliminated.
• Jonathan Coachman, a non-wrestler, was a participant in this match.

In case you haven’t watched them yet, relive the thrill of earlier Royal Rumble events at these links:

• Royal Rumble 2004
• Royal Rumble 2003
• Royal Rumble 2002
• Royal Rumble 2001
• Royal Rumble 2000