No Way Out 2004
February 15, 2004
Daly City, CA
Reviewed April 17, 2014

Background: Eddie fuckin’ Guerrero.

I could end right there. This PPV is 90% about the rise of Eddie Guerrero. For the last year Eddie Guerrero was the most popular wrestler in WWE period. He’s a perfect example of a guy getting the World Title purely on how the crowd reacted to him. No one deserved it more at the time other than perhaps Benoit, who’d get it himself a month later.

WWE had been in their Brand Extension format for nearly two years now. It seemed that Smackdown was the “wrestling” show where RAW was WCW-lite (HHH wrestled Booker T, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Goldberg in PPV main events in 2003…nevermind that Evolution is a Four Horsemen ripoff anyway). And Eddie Guerrero was the perfect guy to represent the wrestling part of the company.

The other major thing to note is we do see a bit of the continued rise of John Cena here. Obviously, that would be important later.

The Card

Sable and Torrie kick off the PPV. They were not feuding here. They welcome us to the PPV. Nice waste of time.

WWE Tag Team Championship-Handicap Match
Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty© vs. The Bashams and Shaniqua

I usually hate this idea.

Rikishi gets a good reaction. To be honest…we are way past Rikishi being a guy that matters and in fact he’d be released a few months later.

I swear Scotty would have been way more successful is he didn’t have the WORM. He gets attacked during it or after it every time.

Nice slam from Shaniqua to Scotty.

Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty retain when Rikishi pinned Shaniqua in 8:16. Banzaii Drop for the win. This was the end of the Linda Miles era I believe. Match was pretty boring, and perhaps the most formulaic tag team match I’d ever seen on PPV. I mean whoever put it together didn’t even try.

Half Blindfold Match
Jamie Noble (Blindfolded) vs. Nidia

Ugh.

Story here: Noble and Nidia’s relationship went to hell. Tajiri blinded Nidia with the Mist and she was blinded for weeks. Noble treated her like crap. Nidia got revenge by putting a $5k mink coat in a woodchipper. And she got this match.

Noble takes off the hood early on and the ref says he would DQ him.

Match goes as you’d expect it. Nidia with a lot of funny hit and runs.

Nidia pants Noble.

Jamie Noble beats Nidia by submission in 4:23. Noble cheats and peaks under the hood and tosses Nidia off the top rope. Then he locks in a Dragon Sleeper which seems a bit excessive for the win. Obviously this was absolute crap. Tajiri, Sakota and Akio vs. Paul London, Billy Kidman and Ultimo Dragon was bumped to the pre-show for this crap.

Kurt Angle interview. John Cena interrupts. They had feuded and teamed in 2003. Cena slaps him and they go at it.

The World’s Greatest Tag Team vs. The APA

Someone want to explain why this isn’t for the Tag Team Titles but the earlier BS was? Even worse since these four teams would be against one another at Mania anyway.

Story: Bradshaw’s arm was injured on Smackdown. He comes out with a soft cast.

ONE OF THESE MEN WOULD BE WWE CHAMP IN FIVE MONTHS!

Benjamin works the arm. Go psychology!

Bradshaw basically ignores his injury after the hot tag.

The World’s Greatest Tag Team win when Benjamin pinned Bradshaw in 7:19. Clothesline from Hell…but he hurt his arm doing it and Benjamin got a superkick for the win. Not good. APA didn’t seem to really try. I guess it was matches like this that people pointed to when JBL won the title.

Goldberg is here. He has a front row ticket! Him and Lesnar had been feuding. Lesnar cost Goldberg the Royal Rumble match.

Paul Heyman is out here. He’s pissed about Goldberg.

Brock’s out here now too. Heyman wants to get Goldberg arrested.

Goldberg gets in there and gets a Jackhammer! Time for him to get arrested. I like how his theme plays when he gets arrested.

Hardcore Holly vs. Rhyno

Story: None, this match was made on Smackdown. Actually, half this card was.

Funny note about Hardcore Holly. Holly came back with that mini-feud with Lesnar. And once Lesnar beat him at the Rumble…that was it. Like they didn’t even think past that match for anything Hardcore could do. I don’t even think he’s on the Mania card.

Holly does come out when Lesnar is still in the ring, so there’s that I guess. Not that it went anywhere since Lesnar was leaving next month.

Cole tells us the match was made Sunday Night on Heat, so I gave WWE too much credit with the Smackdown origin then. (Cole says they wrestled on Smackdown though, so whatever).

I like Hardcore Holly and Rhyno…but no one cared about either of them at this point.

They are trying to do the whole smashmouth hard hitting match…but it just isn’t working here.

Rhyno with a great spinebuster there.

GORE…but Holly rolls out of the ring to avoid being pinned.

Hardcore Holly pins Rhyno in 9:54. Bad looking Alabama Slam for the win. Bad match. Very boring. No one cared. Bad first hour of wrestling here.

Rey-Chavo promo.

UNDERTAKER PROMO! Crowd popped huge for that. He’s coming in 28 days!

WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Rey Mysterio© vs. Chavo Guerrero

I feel like I just reviewed this match (I did, GAB 04).

Story focuses on Chavo’s heel turn and alliance with Chavo Classic.

Rey has famous boxer Jorge Paez with him. No idea why.

Chavo Classic breaks up a West Coast Pop, and gets knocked out by Paez. Paez gets thrown out. Big pop for the KO though.

Awesome Moonsault near the end from Rey.

Nice West Coast Pop reversal into the half crab.

Chavo Guerrero wins the title in 17:21 by pin. Chavo Classic comes back and knocks Rey off the top, and Chavo rolls Rey up and holds the tights for the win. I didn’t write a lot, but it was the standard Chavo’s mat game vs. Rey’s air game. A good match that this PPV dearly needed.

Not Chavo’s best post-match promo.

#1 Contender to the World Title
John Cena vs. Big Show vs. Kurt Angle

A lot of stories intertwined here to get to this point. Show and Angle had feuded in the past. Angle and Cena as well. They were all in the same match at Survivor Series where Cena pinned Show to win.

A lot of 1 on 1 stuff early on.

Angle actually tries to German Suplex Big Show off the apron. That would have been something.

Pretty sure Cena has FUed Big Show in every match he ever had with him.

Kurt Angle wins when he makes John Cena submit in 12:18. Angle dumps Show over the top rope…and he makes Cena submit to the Ankle Lock. Second half of the match was fun and the first half really wasn’t bad either. Surprised this wasn’t longer. Fans wanted Cena here to be honest. But, while Cena is hurt…Eddie chants start, so you know what the fans want.

WWE World Championship
Brock Lesnar© vs. Eddie Guerrero

Story: Eddie won a Smackdown Rumble to get a shot at the title. Then, the classic underdog story.

Lesnar owns early with power moves. Good start to this story.

Lesnar just drops Eddie on his head. Sure that might have been a botch…but it looked damn sick.

All Brock early.

Man Lesnar does the Shell Shock a lot better than Ryback.

Eddie gets some offense…but Brock takes him right back down. Love how this match is structured.

Eddie works on the knee…before he’s stun gunned into the top rope. Really making it look like Brock is far superior than Eddie…which works VERY well here.

STF from Eddie. Huge pop! People might have bought this as a finish as the STF wasn’t widely used yet.

Lasso From El Paso! Then back to the STF…which again gets a nice pop.

What a spinebuster! Ouch.

Great psychology with Lesnar selling the knee everywhere, even when he’s doing a vertical suplex.

Lesnar yells at Eddie to “JUST DIE”. Just a great match in every way here.

“GIVE UP LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO!” Lesnar is awesome.

Three Amigos to Lesnar!

Frog Splash…misses! I think everyone thought that was hitting.

F5…but Guerrero accidentally takes out the ref with his feet! Brock has Eddie beat, which was a great way to keep him strong (even though it wasn’t needed).

GOLDBERG. SPEAR TO LESNAR!

Amazing false finish as Lesnar kicks out!

Time for Eddie to cheat!

A great swerve as Lesnar actually ducks the belt shot and goes for a F5…the crowd loudly groans…but Eddie turns it into a Tornado DDT on the belt!

Eddie Guerrero wins the WWE Title by pin in 30:07. Guerrero hits the Frog Splash for the win and MONSTER pop. Great celebration follows. Incredible match, arguable Match of the Year for 2004. Great story, great psychology, great moments, great false finishes, just wow all around. And it furthered the Lesnar-Goldberg feud (also great idea that the Goldberg spear wasn’t what beat Lesnar, Eddie beat Lesnar). Shame that Lesnar left at Mania, as Eddie vs. Lesnar could have been awesome to go through the summer with.

I mean, this was basically advertised as a one match show, but wow did that match deliver. A lot can be forgiven when the main event is incredible.

The first hour and fifteen minutes of this PPV sucked. Four bad (or awful) matches. Rey vs. Chavo helped, and the three way was good. Main event was of course, awesome.

Something that hurts the PPV a little bit is that there’s no historical value here. Unfortunately, while it was great to see Eddie as champ, it didn’t last and it didn’t lead to an era of change for WWE. Cena and Batista were the champs 13 months later. Lesnar was gone. Cena had a role, but nothing big for him. Angle was a bit stale at this point. I mean the man who eventually beat Eddie for the title was pinned in a throw away tag match.

Due to the awesome main and awesome moment, I wanted to go B+, but the really crappy beginning and lack of historical influence knock it a little bit. Without the main though, this is a C at best.

Final Grade: B