Former RAW General Manager recalls Chris Jericho and Edge shredding his chest during his Royal Rumble appearance because they thought it’d be funny.
Most people like to compare wrestling to performance arts but if you ask the wrestlers themselves they will tell you it is nothing like ballet and Jonathan Coachman found this out the hard way during Royal Rumble 2005 both before and after appearing in the titular match.
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The former RAW General manager answered questions during a Q&A session on the AdFreeShows Patreon page. He revealed backstage details and how he almost missed the Royal Rumble match due to an enraged Hardcore Holly attacking him over a joke and the aftermath of Chris Jericho and Edge chopping his chest 34 times!
Former RAW General Manager recalls Chris Jericho and Edge shredding his chest
“So we’re sitting there, and so they go through like the first eight or ten guys, right. So they said, ‘If you’ve been eliminated, you can leave the room.’
Well at that point, Hardcore Holly in the Royal Rumble had been eliminated. I hadn’t even come in yet. So I turned to Hardcore and I said, ‘Yeah, Hardcore. Step.’
He gets up and he dropkicks me with his toe into the side of my thigh at full speed. I almost couldn’t go into the Royal Rumble that night. I could barely walk. It hurt that bad, I swear to God. I was able to get through it.”
He entered the match at #21 and lasted for almost 14 minutes before being dumped off the rope by Ric Flair. In between Edge and Jericho had a field day with his chest, chopping him into oblivion.
“That same night was when Jericho and Edge — Because when you’re in the Royal Rumble, you just got to kill time in between the other big spots that are going on. So they thought it’d be funny if they would just shred my chest with chop after chop, chop, chop.
So I took, we counted on video that I took 34 chops in the Royal Rumble because I was in for about 13 minutes. When I got back to the shower, I was thinking, ‘Man, I made it through. I’m still walking. I feel good.’ Then the water hit my chest, and I’m telling you, I screamed as loud as you could possibly scream. It was literally like shreds of cheese on my chest. It hurts so, so badly.”
Dave Batista won the 2005 Royal Rumble after a mix up with John Cena that led to the infamous moment of Vince McMahon tearing both his quads. Batista went on to challenge Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania where he won his first world title in the company.
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