SmackDown

January 29, 2004

Washington, D.C.

MCI Center

With SmackDown recently celebrating its 25th birthday, I thought it would be cool to go back and watch various notable episodes of SmackDown. This one includes SmackDown’s only Royal Rumble match.

Chris Benoit won the 2004 Royal Rumble, giving him the choice to face a world champion at WrestleMania XX. As the rule did not specify which champion, he used a loophole to defect to Raw and challenge Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship. To compensate, SmackDown General Manager Paul Heyman announced a 15-man Royal Rumble match, with the winner challenging WWE Champion Brock Lesnar at No Way Out.

All the SmackDown wrestlers that participated in the original Rumble match would get a second shot, with two exceptions. Hardcore Holly, a recent Brock Lesnar challenger himself, would replace the injured Matt Morgan. Eddie Guerrero would replace Chris Benoit, who was now an official member of the Raw roster. Mysteriously, Guerrero was assaulted backstage, leaving his participation in the match in doubt. All suspicions immediately turned to Chavo Guerrero, who recently betrayed Eddie and was coming off a vicious beating from his uncle following their one-on-one match at the Royal Rumble.

The Rumble opens with Kurt Angle and Rhyno. Eddie Guerrero returns for the match at 13, while Hardcore Holly is the final entrant. The final four ended up being Eddie, Angle, Rikishi, and Billy Gunn. Goes to show Holly’s staying power in SmackDown’s main event as he didn’t even get a featured spot in this Rumble match (and he would also be left off Mania). Angle and Eddie teamed up to eliminate Rikishi and faced off as the final two, a preview of what would ultimately be WrestleMania’s WWE Championship match. In an awesome 10-minute segment, Eddie countered a suplex attempt by Angle into one of his own, sending Angle to the outside and winning Eddie the title shot. Weeks later, after Eddie won the WWE Championship, Angle was revealed as his mystery attacker.

I enjoyed the Rumble match. It was lower stakes and a different environment, but it was a fresh approach at the time.

Other matches on this show:

• WWE Champion Brock Lesnar vs. Orlando Jordan

• WWE Tag Team Champions The Basham Brothers (Doug & Danny) vs. Billy Kidman & Paul London

• WWE Cruiserweight Champion Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble

You can find the B-Show Stories archive here.