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#1 Chris Benoit - 2004
It really is such a shame, in my opinion, the best Royal Rumble performance in history will be forever ignored by WWE due to the events that took place during one horrible weekend in July 2007.
Chris Benoit had been the most underrated, card placement wise, superstar in all of WWE at this time. After an intense and blinding battle with Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship on Smackdown in 2003, Chris Benoit began a feud with Smackdown General Manager Paul Heyman over Benoit not being good enough too ever be a Heavyweight Champion in WWE. At the time, the plan was seemingly for RAW star Goldberg to win the Royal Rumble and make the jump to Smackdown to face Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 20. These weren't Goldberg's plans however as he heavily implied to WWE management in early 2004 that he likely wouldn't be re-signing with WWE in March 2004. This changed everything.
Suddenly the Royal Rumble winner could be anyone and then Paul Heyman told Chris Benoit he was making him the number #1 entrant in the Royal Rumble match. Could he do it? He was never tall and had a WWE career of being in and out of the main event scene but could he really do it?
Chris Benoit entered the 2004 Royal Rumble match at number #1 and went just over 1 hour to become the second man ever to win the Rumble as the first entry. Benoit eliminated 6 men, with last eliminating the Big Show to come out on top. What separates Benoit's performance over Rey Mysterio's record-breaking one, and especially Shawn Michaels in 1995, was that Benoit barely took a moment to breathe. He took everything for everyone and gave the performance of his life to earn is a well deserved main event and World Championship match at WrestleMania 20.
