Backstage Reaction To The Big John Cena/Batista Botch At The 2005 Royal Rumble

The Royal Rumble is one of the most anticipated WWE pay-per-views of the year, and soon fans will be able to watch their favorite WWE Superstars throw each other over the top rope.

Over the years there have been many memorable moments when it comes to the Royal Rumble, but no one can forget the epic botch that was the ending to the 2005 Rumble match.

The plan was for Batista to win the match fair and square, and then go on to WrestleMania, but something went wrong and both Cena and Batista fell out of the ring at the same time.

Bruce Prichard recently joined the Wrestling Inc podcast, and he talked a little bit about what was going on backstage while everyone tried to process the botch.

“The initial reaction was, ‘F**k!’ The second reaction was, ‘Let’s take a look at it and see if, hopefully, Cena hit first,'” Prichard explained. “We looked at it and every angle, there was no angle that you can even argue that Cena hit first, they hit precisely at the same time… You couldn’t have planned this better, they landed at the same time so Vince just went out and decided, ‘Start it over, g*damnit, just get them out of there!'”

In the end the match was restarted by Vince McMahon and Batista ended up winning, but Vince created another memorable Rumble moment in the process when he made his way to the ring and tore both his quads.

Vince then had to bark orders at the referees while sitting on the mat.

But all’s well that ends well, because Batista got his big win and went on to defeat Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 21.