World Wrestling Entertainment – No Way Out 2004 – 15th February 2004
Despite owning this event on DVD, I’ve never actually seen it in it in full. I’ve watched the main event a number of times of course, but I’ve never felt the desire or need to check out anything on what looks like a seriously patchy Smackdown undercard. By February of 2004 we were a long way removed from the ‘Smackdown Six’ glory days, and some of the matches on this show really do prove it. The WWE Tag Titles, once one of the jewels in Smackdown’s crown, are contested in an Intergender Handicap Match as the Bashams and Linda ‘Generic African Sounding Name’ Miles challenge the remnants of Too Cool (Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty). Strong talents like Jamie Noble and WGTT are given lousy assignments – with Jamie facing his girlfriend in a ‘Blindfold Match’ and Haas & Benjamin stuck with the APA. So as not to make last month’s WWE Title Match on ppv seem like a total waste, Hardcore Bob has another booking too. Thankfully the top of the card does show some promise, with Chavo Guerrero challenging Rey Mysterio in a Cruiserweight Title Match with some actual heat and build for once. Kurt Angle, John Cena and Big Show collide in a triple threat to crown a #1 contender at WrestleMania…and we all know that the main event sees Eddie Guerrero step up to WWE Champion Brock Lesnar in one of the most famous, feel-good rises to the top in the history of pro-wrestling. Michael Cole and Tazz are in position in San Francisco, CA.
Sable still has a job, and is still getting her tits out in Playboy. She comes out with Torrie Wilson, basically entirely to promote their joint shoot. There is genuinely nothing of any relevance to the actual pay-per-view at all here
Rikishi/Scotty 2 Hotty vs Basham Brothers/Shaniqua – WWE Tag Title Match
The days when Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Rey Mysterio and Los Guerreros would fight over these straps is long gone. Having use the tedious Basham Brothers as uninspired foils in the Eddie/Chavo split angle, apparently the only thing creative could muster up by way of challengers for their belts was to reform two thirds of Too Cool. And, having spent months putting Doug and Danny over, even more bizarrely they decided to put the belts on Rikishi and Scotty – working a gimmick which went stale more than three years ago. The presence of Shaniqua does at least add an extra dimension to this. She has enough size to look semi-credible in the ring with guys.
Scotty has a surgically repaired neck which Shaniqua injured on Smackdown…so he does his best to break Danny’s neck in return as Basham takes it right on the top of his head. Rikishi hauls Shaniqua in but is unable to Stinkface her before Doug comes to her rescue. Worm ducked, but Doug is so painfully average all he can think to use as a counter is a headlock. Lariat by Shaniqua levels S2H as he prepares for The Worm again moments later. Shaniqua is the only person on the heel team getting any heat whatsoever, meaning the awkward silence is replaced with genuine boos as she tags in to put the boots to Scotty. Danny then proves himself incapable of even holding Scotty’s leg properly as he CLEARLY tags Rikishi right in front of the ref…but since that wasn’t supposed to happen they all ignore it. Hot tag comes in the fashion it was booked to moments later, and Danny continues to look completely lousy as he ducks his head and essentially stands there waiting for Rikishi to hit him. The Bashams save Shaniqua from the Banzai Drop by powerbombing the Samoan off the ropes, before Scotty dives from the apron to the floor at them! Samoan Drop/Banzai Drop on Shaniqua! It’s over at 08:16
Rating - * - She has plenty of heat with the WWE, but to defend Shaniqua this match was only ever interesting when she was involved. Be it through manhandling Scotty or taking punishment from Rikishi - at least SHE was over, interesting and not obviously terrible. Danny Basham ensured that, as usual, the Basham Brothers looked completely inept. His performance was miserably bad.
Jamie Noble vs Nidia
You could argue that this is a colossal waste of a worker of James Gibson’s ability. But then again, at least he’s on the show at all. The likes of Tajiri, Jimmy Yang, Paul London and Ultimo Dragon couldn’t even make it to the pay-per-view and were stuck on Heat. Noble’s girlfriend Nidia was blinded by the feared Black Mist of Tajiri, and spent months blinded. Jamie used it to his advantage and was a general dick to her…meaning that by the time she regained her sight she wanted out. So he can experience how she felt in the months leading up to this, Jamie has to wrestle this one blindfolded.
Nidia hides from her visually-impaired opponent as he gropes around the ring, periodically creeping up on him to slap him or trip him over. Tazz damn near brings some psychology to this by talking about amateur wrestlers training blind…but his efforts are wasted as Nidia opts to use her sight advantage to pull Jamie’s shorts down. Nidia gets over-confident and too close, allowing Noble to grab her so hard he rips hair out of her head. He cheats by pulling the blindfold up to see where Nidia is, then polishes her off with the Guillotine Choke at 04:25
Rating - * - Whether this should have been booked in the first place is up for debate, but I think it’s to the credit of both Noble and Nidia that this wasn’t a complete waste of time. It probably went longer than it needed to but I did find myself somewhat amused on a couple of occasions. You can’t escape that this was an incredible waste of pay-per-view time, and as a fan of in-ring competition of course I’d rather see Noble given twenty minutes to work with someone like Paul London – but WWE isn’t the promotion for that. For fans who wanted to see Noble put on clinics with other competent wrestlers, he'd be released by 2005 and we'd get to spend a glorious summer watching him do just that on the indies.
Who keeps letting Josh Matthews go on television dressed like an lost extra from the set of Zoolander? He is with Kurt Angle, who repeats his belief that either John Cena or Big Show attacked him from behind on Smackdown. Cena interrupts and says if he wanted to attack Kurt he’d do it to his face…and duly does so by slapping him.
World’s Greatest Tag Team vs Acolytes
That’s right, whilst the Tag Titles are being contested over by two thirds of Too Cool and the Bashams, an actual good tag team (Haas and Benjamin) are forced to work with the freaking APA. Faarooq was really starting to show his age, and after years of going nowhere Bradshaw looked totally dead in the water too. The only real storyline we have here is that Benjamin used the evil heel tactic of GOOD WRESTLING to injure JBL’s shoulder on the lead-in Smackdown, so he’s carrying an injury.
With heavy bandaging on his arm, Bradshaw wisely starts on the apron and has to watch as Shelton takes old man Faarooq down with complete ease and rides him. Amusingly, Ron acts like he’s going to wrestle Benjamin some more…before sarcastically punting him in the ribs. Bradshaw takes and immediately has to deal with both opponents targeting his arm. This would be a lot more interesting if Bradshaw wasn’t using his ‘bad arm’ to do basically his entire normal routine without selling. Eventually WGTT get so fed up with him not selling for him that they start attacking Faarooq’s arm instead. Simmons is up for selling at least and collapses holding his arm as he hits a spinebuster following minutes of punishment on the limb. Bradshaw tags in and nearly grabs the win with a massive, no arm-selling-in-sight powerbomb on Benjamin. Avalanche fallaway slam gets 2 as well. Clothesline From Hell on Haas…who isn’t the legal man. Hey, finally Bradshaw acknowledges his arm is supposed to hurt, and Shelton steals the win at 07:20
Rating - ** - Slightly weird conceptually (why have Bradshaw carry the arm injury if he wasn’t going to bother selling it all match?), but actually this was one of the better APA ppv matches in the 21st century. WGTT Faarooq over with slick precision, and he actually did do them a favour by putting their work over. Putting Haas and Benjamin over clean was the right decision. Unfortunately it didn’t really go anywhere since WWE decided to split the team within a couple of months…so they could half-ass a Shelton Benjamin singles push instead of a WGTT tag push.
Bill Goldberg, suspended from Raw but given a front row ticket for the show by Steve Austin, enters the arena surrounded by security. He takes his seat (next to a little girl who looks scared sh*tless of him) and waits for the right time to raise some hell. Paul Heyman immediately makes his way out still selling a rib injury inflicted by Goldberg on Raw. Just as the General Manager gets done instructing Bill to stay behind the guardrail, Brock Lesnar struts down the aisle too. The champ complains that Goldberg is going to jump him during the main event and instead dares the Raw star to jump the rails and fight him right away. After a few verbal potshots at Goldberg, and some kayfabe-threatening cracks at Stone Cold’s expense too, the inevitable happens and Bill enters the ring. JACKHAMMER ON LESNAR! A bunch of the most inept-looking security guards handcuff Goldberg and eject him from the building…which would be a lot more believable if Bill’s music wasn’t being piped into over the PA. Hardcore Holly sprints down as well looking to take some Hardcore revenge on the wounded champion…but has to settle for his scheduled match with Rhyno instead. LONG segment, although the Goldberg/Lesnar exchanges were fun.
Hardcore Holly vs Rhyno
Sparky Plugg is still getting far more exposure than his limited ability and advancing years really justified. After failing in his ludicrous WWE Championship opportunity against Brock at the Royal Rumble, he is at least back in the midcard though. Rhyno, a fellow broken neck survivor, is probably up his street as an opponent since neither of them move around too much but enjoy an old fashioned, straightforward fight.
As if to make my point, they start their match lugging each other in the face on the entrance ramp. And as if to back up why I dislike Holly so much, he kills any early momentum they might have had by going to repeated HARDCORE HEADLOCKS! As usual Tazz does a decent job frantically apply logic to some really dismal, limited in-ring action. Watching these two big, tough dudes battle over hiptosses and bang average mat wrestling is just sad. The Man Beast rams Bob’s back into the side of the ring, working the midsection to set up the Gore. He spends several minutes working the back and ribs, which I find quietly interesting but loses large portions of an arena crowd who have lapsed into subdued silence. Apparently even Michael Cole and the guys in Gorilla are bored, since they decided to have a random chat with the Spanish Announcers. Hardcore Bob is so Hardcore he doesn’t need to sell his ribs and effortlessly nails an inverted DDT for 2. Rhyno doesn’t look impressed and puts some stink on a spinebuster. GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! Luckily for Holly he gets hit with so much impact he is rocketed under the bottom rope. He comes back in, hits the Alabamaslam, and wins from nowhere in a rather tedious 09:54.
Rating - * - Had this been on an episode of Smackdown I’d have gone to 2*, because there were a couple of fundamentally sound ideas (Holly going after Rhyno’s neck, Rhyno attacking the core to set up the Gore)…but this is a pay-per-view. Even back in 2004 it felt like WWE were charging astronomical prices for these single-brand ppvs, and asking a fan to pay for something like this is something I find rather unacceptable. Rhyno worked hard to make the best of things, but Holly was such a Hardcore asshole that he couldn’t even be bothered to sell the injury the entire match was based around. I found this entire Holly mini-push utterly loathsome and nothing about his matches in relatively high profile spots on the last two pay-per-views has convinced me otherwise.
The lights go out, a gong chimes, and another sinister video package plays promising that the ‘dead will rise again’ at WrestleMania. Subtle…
Rey Mysterio vs Chavo Guerrero – WWE Cruiserweight Title Match
Look, Cruiserweights! In an actual feud! Given an actual chance to deliver on pay-per-view! At the Royal Rumble we saw Eddie Guerrero emphatically beat some respect into his callous nephew and estranged brother. Still smarting from that beating, the Chavos (Jr. and Classic) swore that one day they would take some revenge on ‘Uncle Eddie’…so when Latino Heat fell victim to a mysterious assault backstage all fingers pointed to them. Rey Mysterio took it upon himself to defend the honour of his friend, and wound up in a bitter feud with Chavo himself. The Guerreros have accused Rey of being a coward who hides behind a mask and had caused him so many problems that he’s even recruited former WBO and IBF World Featherweight Champion Jorge Paez to work his corner this evening. This is the first time since Matt Hardy almost a year ago that the Cruiserweight Title has been given any kind of significance. Can these two experienced juniors produce a performance befitting the occasion?
Rey, accused of not being proud of his Mexican heritage despite wrestling in a lucha mask, makes a point by busting out an early lucha armdrag. Ironically it’s Chavo who disrespects Mexican heritage by trying to rip the mask off his face. Mysterio is the quicker of the two but gets caught trying to flip, dive and take flight once too often, allowing Guerrero to pancake him into the mat. Sensibly the challenger looks to ground Rey…and even then can’t find a way to escape the 619! Chavo Classic prevents Rey from hitting the West Coast Pop…so Paez sparks him out! The camera angle they cut to on that made an obviously pulled punch look seriously awesome. SPRINGBOARD PLANCHA TO THE FLOOR by Mysterio! He Drops Da Dime for 2 as Guerrero continues to look wholly unable to cope with him. They battle on the top rope…and as the champ goes for another aerial move he finds it countered into an AVALANCHE GUTBUSTER by Chavo! Realising he’s inflicted a potentially serious injury Chavito is on the ribs in a flash. Even wearing a mask, and even being a cruiserweight so therefore more likely to take heat off the main events with silly flips and no psychology, Mysterio’s selling should make Hardcore Holly feel embarrassed. Guerrero has repeatedly gone back to a seated abdominal stretch – realising it’s value both as a vehicle to attack the injury, but also to keep Rey on the ground and out of the air. As if to prove that point, right on cue Mysterio pops up and to wheelbarrow into a bulldog from an impossible angle. Another gutbuster attempted by Chavo but this time it’s countered into a heel kick before Rey flips him into the ringpost with a satellite headscissors. Breakdown by Mysterio gets 2! JUMPING DDT ON THE APRON! SPRINGBOARD SPLASH MISSES! SEATED GOURDBUSTER BY CHAVO…gets 2! Guerrero is so gutted that didn’t finish things he tries to claw at the mask again, allowing Rey to knock him away and hit a SPRINGBOARD MOONSAULT PRESS! Body shots by Chavo into a GORY SPECIAL! FOR 2! RIB-SELLING 619 NAILED! SPRINGBOARD SENTON! CHAVO ROLLS THROUGH INTO A HALF CRAB! REY MAKES THE ROPES! Chavo Sr. pounces to throttle Rey, allowing Chavo Jr. to pin him using the tights. We have a new Cruiserweight Champion at 17:21
Rating - **** - For a purist like myself I’d rather have seen that awesome, Lance Storm-esque half crab counter to the Springboard Senton finish the match, but try not to let a rather clichéd and crappy conclusion spoil what was an awesome junior heavyweight encounter before that. The Cruiserweights have been the exclusive property of Smackdown since the brand extension, and there really isn’t an excuse for setting this explosive bunch of athletes free to produce stuff like this on every Smackdown ppv. The opening portion was hot, with Rey making a point to bust out countless lucha moves against an opponent who couldn’t cope with his speed and had insulted him by declaring he didn’t respect his Mexican heritage. They got the inevitable 'Paez punches Chavo Classic' spot done early, and used that as a wonderful transition to the second half of the match – which saw a clinical assault on the ribs by Guerrero, and a compelling sell-job on that injury by the champion. If Rhyno and Hardcore Bob showed you how not to do a basic ‘work a body part’ routine in the last match, these guys absolutely nailed it. They may be cruiserweights, and the company perception may be that they don’t do psychology, but the crowd were eating up the basics here just as much as the high spots. I’ve never seen this match before, and I absolutely loved it even with the cheap finish.
In the back Chavo conducts a triumphant interview in front of Eddie Guerrero’s locker room. He calls ‘Uncle Eddie’ a loser and an ‘addict’. Eddie’s nephew proclaims that he has no chance of winning the WWE Championship tonight.
Kurt Angle vs Big Show vs John Cena
Since the winner of the 2004 Royal Rumble is opting to cash in his title shot at WrestleMania to face Raw’s World Champion, it means Smackdown still need a #1 contender for their WWE Title. These three vastly different competitors, all with past gripes and issues against each other, do battle to determine who gets that prestigious championship opportunity in Madison Square Garden. As recently as Armageddon 2002 Kurt Angle was beating Big Show to become WWE Champion, and as recently as No Mercy 2003 he was involved in a hell of a contest with the rising superstar John Cena. Cena, who’s only ‘career success’ on Tazz’s Tale Of The Tape graphic is a ‘Ph.D in Thuganomics’ knows he doesn’t necessarily have the pedigree of his adversaries here. He’s not seven feet tall, he’s not a multi-time former champion and he’s not an Olympian. But he has beaten Big Show before, and even hit his F-U finisher on him (Survivor Series 2003) so he knows he can compete with his opponents. Who goes to WrestleMania – is it the master grappler, the seven foot monster or the wildcard rookie brawler?
Big pop for Cena, who was clearly destined for greatness by this point. He has a great time watching Show swat Angle away like a wasp at a picnic…so the Olympian drops him with a belly to belly suplex. Cena is competing with a knee injury suffered at the Royal Rumble and exacerbates it further during an unfortunate spill from the apron to the floor. Big Show dominates, albeit with some unfortunate commentary as Michael Cole describes a leg drop on Cena as a ‘500lbs log dropped on Cena’s neck’. Eventually Kurt rescues Cena with a low blow on Big Show, but only because he wants to work on him instead. Show barges back in after Cena has taken a flurry of German suplexes and starts standing on his injured knee. John retaliates by going after Show’s knee in return, then landing a flying bionic elbow. F-U ON BIG SHOW! Angle tries to capitalise only to get planted with a DDT! ANGLE SLAM ON SHOW! F-U COUNTERED TO THE ANKLELOCK! Broken with a Big Show chokeslam! Chokeslam on Cena as well…only for Kurt to break the fall by putting the Anklelock on Show. In a nice callback to the Rumble, Show escapes it by kicking his way free – catapulting Angle into the path of the Five Knuckle Shuffle. He clips Cena’s knee as he preps another F-U then slams him KNEE-FIRST INTO THE TURNBUCKLES! ANGLE SLAM OVER THE TOP F*CKING ROPE FROM KURT TO BIG SHOW! LEG GRAPEVINE ANKLELOCK ON CENA’S BAD KNEE! He taps, and Kurt gets the WrestleMania title shot after 12:17
Rating - *** - The Kurt Angle finisher/counter-finisher formula always translated well to the triple threat environment. Considering his neck was nowhere near 100% at this point, toss in Cena competing with a knee injury and Big Show not being in great shape either it’s actually a miracle this was as good as it was. The usual guy standing around whilst the other two fight was in effect, but most of the time they found pretty fluent ways to incorporate that formula. The work on Cena’s knee by both Show and Angle was pretty sweet, and had a great pay-off as it played into the finish. Plus that Angle Slam over the top rope on Big Show was jaw-dropping. How Show didn’t break his neck is beyond me, and it’s bumping like that which has always kept him employed and always kept him respected in the locker room. Good, harmless, throwaway fun to break up Rey/Chavo and Eddie/Brock.
The crowd start chanting Eddie almost as soon as Kurt’s music dies down. They are absolutely pumped for the main event.
Brock Lesnar vs Eddie Guerrero – WWE Title Match
It sounds strange saying it, but the best thing the WWE did for Eddie in this storyline was acknowledge his past addiction problems and incorporate them into the story. Guerrero was already insanely popular, and had been one of the top babyfaces in the company for a long time already. His antics made him easy to hate during the Radicalz era with Chyna, yet by 2003 his tongue-in-cheek lying, cheating and stealing made him a cult hero. However, he needed to be taken seriously, and bringing a feel good, underdog redemption, defying the odds aspect to this storyline did exactly that. We knew we were getting Lesnar/Goldberg at WrestleMania…and WWE knew that we probably wouldn’t see either of those guys after that. However, after having Lesnar steamroll everyone for so long, without him they needed something fresh at the top of the Smackdown roster. Guerrero’s rise is now so meteoric he has the entire Cow Palace chanting his name in anticipation for this match. It wasn’t known as the ‘WWE Universe’ then, but never has a babyface been more universally popular than this one. Can Eddie defy the odds? Can he defeat a man who is bigger, stronger, faster and more technically sound than he is? Can he use his brain, his heart and his courage to complete the most unlikely championship rise in WWE history? And can Brock stay focused on this match with the spectre of Goldberg still looming?
The atmosphere is incredible – the most intense crowd at a February pay-per-view since HHH vs Austin at No Way Out ’01. It starts as you might expect with Guerrero gamely trying to take the fight to the intimidating champion but finding himself totally overwhelmed and overpowered. He tries a satellite headscissors out of the corner and gets POWERBOMBED ON HIS NECK! Years before the catchphrase was coined, we go to Suplex City next as Lesnar flings his challenger all over the ring with belly to belly suplexes. Eventually he stops letting Eddie in the ring altogether and clatters into his ribs any time the challenger tries to climb back onto the apron. Guerrero drives Brock’s knees into the ringpost a couple of times…and even then the damage done is so minimal Lesnar is up soon afterwards and drilling his face into the same post. Shades of the Hardcore Holly defence as Brock grinds his opponent into the mat with a chinlock/body scissors combo…but unlike Bob, Guerrero isn’t willing to lie down and take it. Sadly he’s clubbed back to the ground with a lariat before he can create much distance. It is probably over-confidence that actually costs Lesnar in the end, as he takes way too long setting up a running knee strike and gets a nasty spill over the ropes to the floor when Eddie ducks it. Once again Guerrero targets the leg, this time wise enough to duck the same fierce lariat Brock used to shut him down moments earlier. STF APPLIED! Guerrero’s offence has been so infrequent thus far that the crowd absolutely explodes when he has Brock in trouble for the first time. He is relentless in his pursuit of the knee and we soon see the extent of the damage as Lesnar nails another suplex and this time goes down clutching the injury. Figure 4 Leglock by Guerrero! There isn’t a submission to be had here but of course, it’s still more damage to the injured knee. Brock seems to big for the Lasso From El Paso so Eddie floats into another STF…and this time it’s only Lesnar’s massive upper body strength that saves him. GERMAN SUPLEX NAILED! The champ is seriously slow to capitalise now, and goes down selling the leg again after he drills Eddie with a spinebuster. Crossface Chickenwing applied by Brock (who sells the leg even in the hold), quietening the crowd who seemed to be rallying behind his opponent. Guerrero climbs to MISS a missile dropkick and crashes to the ground onto his battered torso once again. ONE-LEGGED SUPLEX by Brock! Grounded bearhug locked in from a gutwrench position as blood pours from Brock’s nose. Eddie throws headbutts perhaps aimed at the bloody nose then finally frees himself with more dropkicks to the bad leg. THREE AMIGOS! FROG SPLASH MISSES! The crowd totally DIES! F-5 BY LESNAR! But the ref gets wiped out in the crossfire! Everyone knows what is going to happen next. Brock grabs his title belt to use as a weapon…but can’t use it because Goldberg runs in. SPEAR ON BROCK! Ever the cheat, Eddie kicks the belt out of the ring just in case…and crawls into the cover. ONLY 2! Now Guerrero has a big smile on his face as he scoops up the belt again. TITLE BELT…DUCKED! LIMPING F-5 COUNTERED TO A TORNADO DDT ON THE BELT! COME ON EDDIE! FROG SPLASH! EDDIE WINS! EDDIE WINS! EDDIE WINS! A new WWE Champion is crowned at 30:06!
Rating - ****1/2 - They probably could have shaved five minutes off the runtime without losing any of the quality, and of course it was perhaps a little too overbooked at the end to protect Brock, but this is an amazing match that remains every bit as enthralling and emotionally draining as it was more than a decade ago. This is as close to the 2014/2015 Lesnar as we saw during his initial WWE run, as he completely dominated the smaller man – suplexing him around the ring with complete ease and looking entirely untouchable. What Brock doesn’t get credit for is how hard he worked to put Guerrero over here. Of course he was protected at the end, but the guy was busting his ASS to make Eddie look good. His selling was perhaps as good as it was at anytime during this run and in many ways that was the key to the drama here. We needed to believe that Eddie was a massive underdog, but we still needed to believe he had a remote chance of winning. After taking a wicked beating in the first ten minutes he gradually grew into the match, weakening the monolithic champion at every turn. The success or failure of their match can be judged through the crowd reaction to Guerrero’s missed Frog Splash before the overbooking kicked in; the live audience thought Eddie’s chance had gone, visibly sinking back into their seats and loudly groaning in despair. That kind of clear emotional response is what good professional wrestling should be all about. Of course, Eddie’s tragic death and the affection with which he is held in by wrestling fans mean that some of the eulogies to this match tend to be a little over-the-top. However, before the ref bump, before Goldberg, and years before Eddie would sadly leave us, he still had a capacity crowd (and a larger viewing audience of wrestling fans) on the edges of their seats and in the palms of his hands. Removing the obvious emotional connection to a beloved performer who is no longer with us, this is still a stunning match.
Tape Rating - N/A - I think this is the first time I’ve given an ‘N/A’ rating to a DVD/tape in nearly fifteen years of doing this. I simply don’t feel comfortable downgrading or negating a show which features one of the biggest feelgood moments one could wish for as a wrestling fan. Being a cold, clinical critic, I’d probably balance this show somewhere between 2* and 3*. The undercard is all kinds of mundane, but the last hour – with Eddie/Brock, Angle/Cena/Show and Rey/Chavo – is superb. However, as a wrestling fan, the drama and raw emotion of the main event is something you simply can’t put a price (or rating) on. What with the (relative) success of the WWE Network there can’t be many people who haven’t seen this show now, so I’m not sure people really need me to pass a disconnected and hollow Tape Rating to it. No Way Out 2004 is and was Eddie’s night, and is therefore extremely special to a great many of us…and there’s no tangible rating schematic that can do that justice.
Top 3 Matches
3) Kurt Angle vs Big Show vs John Cena (***)
2) Rey Mysterio vs Chavo Guerrero (****)
1) Brock Lesnar vs Eddie Guerrero (****1/2)