^^ I loved how in the split second after Booker T called Hogan, the N-word, Booker T immediately knew that he was not suppose to say that on TV and put his hands on his head and years later, when he talked about it, he thought he was going to be blackballed from WCW after he said it.
Anywho, I finished watching the Royal Rumble 2005 match. I always say that the 2004 version may by my 2nd favorite match ever, but the 2005 version is a pretty good follow-up. You see Guerrero and Benoit going head-to-head at #1 and #2 at the start. Then, they started chopping at a rookie and then Hardcore Holly was really chopping at the rookie as well. You see a less broken down Edge and Mysterio. Chris Jericho (in his grunge-style hairdo at the time) was at his last Royal Rumble PPV until 2008. You see 4 Raw and 4 Smackdown guys teaming up to eliminate Muhammad Hassan. HBK and Angle had a brief clash where they eliminated each other to set up their match at WM 21. Batista was hella over (and less injured-prone).
The final four line-up was pretty good as well with Cena, Edge, Mysterio, and Batista. Those guys were over, non-injured prone, and non-oversaturated compared to 2010 where three of those four guys was in the final four (subbing Mysterio for HBK) where at that point people were already sick of Cena, Batista was starting to move out of wrestling, and Edge was about a year away from retiring the first time. I wished the final two between Cena and Batista had a much longer finish ala Undertaker/HBK in 2007 and you say what you want about WWE, and their decision-making nowadays. In 2005, that was the right call for those two guys to be the final two and to build around the company moving forward. It sucks about the botched ending, but at least, we get Vince being pissed and then blowing his legs out when he entered the ring.
Good match.