World Wrestling Entertainment – Taboo Tuesday 2004 – 19th October 2004
It would be wrong to say that the WWE did nothing to embrace developing technologies and the advancements in communications and networking as we moved through the 2000’s. The had a web-show (Byte This) which although limited in scope, budget and technology (this was back in the dial-up days) was actually rather revolutionary and certainly the last time Kevin Kelly was actually relevant to the wrestling industry. Jim Ross’ weekly column on the website had a vast readership too. However, it would be fair to say that the company treated it largely as a vastly inferior medium through which to reach their fanbase – and still viewed the internet as wrestling’s suspicious, seedy underbelly; full of ‘smarks’ who were ruining wrestling with their insider terms and spoilers. This under-promoted and quickly-forgotten Tuesday night pay-per-view didn’t seem particularly groundbreaking at the time – it was 2004, the internet had been around for a LONG time, constructing a show around online polls was hardly revolutionary. However, the truth is it probably stands out as the first step on an extremely lengthy and winding road which led us to the WWE Network a decade later. Admittedly that is quite an abstract and bombastic way to introduce a show which the WWE cared so little about they ran it on a weeknight (the first time since the mid-90’s that a ppv hadn’t been on a Sunday evening). The Raw brand are the guinea pigs for this experiment – with fans at home voting on anything from opponents, match stipulations to diva outfits. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are at the announce desk in Milwaukee, WI.
SIDENOTE – Everything about this show looks brutally dated – from the cheesy electro music blasting overhead to the ‘hacker code’ graphics, to the stage made up to look like a keyboard and monitor to JR and Lawler stumbling over their words explaining the basic concept. I’ve done a lot of these retro WWE reviews and it’s amazing how this – something that seemed so modern at the time – has actually aged more than anything else.
Jonathan Coachman is at the voting ‘Control Center’, and brings out the Raw divas to announce the results of their public vote. They will compete in a ‘Fulfill Your Fantasy’ Battle Royal for the Women’s Title later – with the online poll determining that they will competing in schoolgirl custumes.
Chris Jericho vs Shelton Benjamin – WWE Intercontinental Title Match
Shelton won an online poll to Jericho’s challenger for the evening – beating fourteen other Raw superstars including Batista, The Coach, Rhyno and Christian to the spot. He had recently returned to Raw and was receiving something of a push after returning from a severe hand injury. By this point he had been around the WWE for quite a while, and hyped as a future star for most of that time. Is tonight the night he starts to live up to that potential?
Benjamin tries to use his speed and wrestling skill to get the better of the experienced champion…so Jericho boxes him around the ears then peppers him with chops. Y2J takes a huge spill after being back dropped over the top rope…then eats guardrail off a baseball slide when he tries to get back to his feet. It is that enthusiasm which catches Shelton out though, with Jericho countering him as he runs in again to nail his standing enziguri for 2. He starts kicking Benjamin in the back, apparently targeting that body part to soften him up for the Walls Of Jericho. Shelton struggles to climb up the turnbuckles, but eventually does so and manages to lift the champ into a big superplex. Dragon Whip gets 2! Lionsault missed by Jericho, allowing Benjamin to get serious hangtime on a flying lariat from the top rope. Stinger Splash dodged…Walls Of Jericho countered to a small package for 2! Y2J nails the Lionsault at the second time of asking but doesn’t put Shelton away. Jericho walks into the T-Bone Suplex, which is enough to give Benjamin the win at 10:57
Rating - *** - I really enjoyed this. It is hard to call it particularly memorable or spectacular, but it felt so much more energetic than the vast majority of Smackdown’s No Mercy 2004 ppv that I just sat through. Benjamin and Jericho didn’t do a whole lot more than run through their usual moveset – but at real pace and with genuine intensity. Jericho looked to bully and dominate the pumped up youngster but never truly found a way to suppress his explosive offensive skill…and that is what ultimately led to Y2J’s downfall. It is quite a bold move to kick off this supposedly interactive show with a title change too. It certainly perpetuates the notion that truly ‘anything’ can happen tonight…
In the back Edge, Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels standby to receive the results of the poll to determine which of them faces Triple H for the World Title tonight. Shawn admits he is carrying a serious knee injury, but promises to give it his best effort tonight if the fans decide they want him to challenge HHH tonight. Sure enough – Michaels wins the vote…and Edge storms off in a rage. He and Benoit will now team up for a World Tag Title shot later.
WWE Women’s Title Fulfil Your Fantasy Battle Royal
As we found out at the start of the show, the titular ‘fantasy’ being fulfilled is that all of these women will be competing in schoolgirl outfits. Trish Stratus is the reigning and defending champion, being challenged by Victoria, Gail Kim, Molly Holly, Jazz, Nidia and Stacy Keibler. Personally I’ve always found the ‘schoolgirl’ fetish somewhat creepy…and some of the outfits these ladies are wearing are downright perverse!
Apparently the rules have been amended for women – meaning you an be eliminated by being tossed out of the ring by any means, as opposed to over the top rope. To that end Jazz rips Nidia’s shirt off then boots her out…before getting kicked out herself by Victoria. Gail Kim gets dumped by Victoria as she tries to hit a hurricanrana too, so the field has rapidly emptied. Victoria saves Stacy from being eliminated for literally no reason – other than to prolong this awkward non-wrestling match. She gets punished by Trish and Molly, who catapult her over the top rope to the floor. It leaves poor Stacy alone with two actual wrestlers, who unsurprisingly want to bully her. Holly eventually bashes her out of the ring…but in the process turns her back on Trish. She shoves Molly out to take the win at 05:36
Rating - DUD - Normally I try to be sporting on the poor female competitors who get sent out to parade around in ridiculous outfits during matches like this. However, the rules here were a mess, the live crowd had no idea what was going on and if people were eliminated or not, meaning all this boils down to was five minutes of watching some talented performers pretend to wrestle in slutty costumes. If that is your thing then maybe you’d enjoy this more than I did.
La Resistance react to facing Chris Benoit and Edge for the World Tag Titles, and blame the corrupt American voting system for some reason. Therefore they are wrestling ‘under protest’…
Gene Snitsky vs Kane – Weapon Of Choice Match
The fans got to vote on which weapon would be legal in this match, and opted to make a steel chain their ‘weapon of choice’. At the time I found the Kane/Snitsky/Lita angle somewhat juvenile and silly, but watching the video package back twelve years later, and now fortunate enough to be a parent myself, I found it absolutely vile. To provide further context, I actually found this far more loathsome to watch than the Katie Vick stuff. When last we saw Kane and Lita she was pregnant with his child and forcibly enslaved as his bride…but things changed when an unfortunate in-ring mishap involving Snitsky led to her ‘miscarrying’. Cue some awful acting (I mean insultingly awful) from Lita, some disgusting promos from Snitsky which are so wildly inappropriate and offensive I cannot believe they made air, and of course the infamous ‘it wasn’t my fault’ gumpf too. Kane, with a heartbroken Lita at his side, is here to destroy the massive Raw rookie for his part in Lita’s miscarriage.
Kane throws the chain out of the ring as he wants to beat on Snitsky with his bare hands for a little bit first. JR desperately tries to act like this is a credible wrestling match by discussing Kane’s previous experience in an actual Chain Match giving him an advantage here. He really is the greatest announcer of all time. Gene smashes Kane’s head into the ringpost then starts whipping him with the chain. And still Jim Ross is busting his ass to put this match over – playing up how impressed he is with Snitsky’s power and ability to dominate Kane. The issue Snitsky has is that he is so green and limited that he just doesn’t have the presence or moveset to carry a sustained offensive period in a match of his calibre. He has nothing but kicking, punching, clotheslines and chain whips and it quickly gets rather boring. Finally Lita takes the chain from Snitsky, allowing her husband to throw him to the floor. Snitsky grabs a chair and jabs it into Kane’s jaw – which surely should be a DQ if only the chain was made legal? Kane drops to a knee, presumably irate at Gene’s blatant disregard for democracy as he’s just made the fan’s vote irrelevant. Snitsky lifts one of Kane’s tricks – and STOMPS a chair around the Big Red Machine’s throat. Kane bleeds from the mouth…and Snitsky walks out. Has he just forgotten to end the match? A rather uncomfortable length of time passes before he returns and tamely pins the fallen Kane. Regardless, it is still a huge win for him at 14:17
Rating - DUD - It may not seem remotely similar, but I actually watched this match with a comparable level of sympathy for the performers as I did for the women who just got sent out in schoolgirl outfits to contest a bogus battle royal. It isn’t their fault that creative thought this disgusting angle was a good idea, and you could totally see how hard these poor guys were working. Jim Ross did a f*cking incredible job on commentary in what was a thankless task calling this match too. But when push comes to shove, this whole storyline was appalling – and actually makes me glad we live in the PG-era now where WWE wouldn’t get away with putting this filth on television anymore. Perhaps the biggest casualty of it all was Snitsky; i.e. the guy it was designed to get over. I’m not saying he was a great wrestler or had limitless potential. But he was a big guy, with an ugly face and he LOOKED like he would legitimately beat the sh*t out of you. He might not have been WWE Champion, but that should have been enough for a decent career. Ezekiel Jackson was basically exactly the same in his early days, and he has made a half-decent living out of pro-wrestling. Unfortunately for him, this angle bombed. Fans rightly ridiculed and rejected it along with Snitsky, who could have been a scary ass-kicking machine, but instead became the goofball who said it wasn’t my fault and killed a make-believe baby. Oh…and since I’ve barely mentioned it, the match sucked.
Backstage Edge is still sulking at not being chosen for the World Title shot tonight, and calls the Tag Titles nothing more than a ‘consolation prize’.
Eric Bischoff vs Eugene
The poll for this one determines which forfeit the loser will be forced to undertake. The victorious forfeit dictates that the loser will have their head shaved (beating out ‘loser wears a dress’ and ‘loser is the winner’s slave’), so the stakes are high for ‘Just For Men’ Bischoff. He has been a jerk to his ‘nephew’ Eugene since he arrived on Raw – and tonight Eugene wants to make him pay.
Bischoff attacks Eugene during his entrance, which is just as well as it was taking far too long. He even fakes a knee injury just to get an extra kick in to his nephew’s face. Eugene eventually ‘hulks up’, and hits a Hogan Leg Drop for the win at a mercifully brief 02:10
Rating - N/A - I won’t give this show a third consecutive ‘DUD’, because I can at least applaud the decision to keep this one short. Eugene’s act was stale by this point and Bischoff certainly wasn’t the worker to drag a good match from this gimmick. Actually, when you stop to think about it, the fact that Eugene stretched another three years out of this ridiculous gimmick during this run with the WWE is a remarkable feat…
The Coach tries to intervene and prevent Eric having his head shaved…but is interrupted by an appearance from Mr McMahon. He says he’ll fire Bischoff if he backs out, and so sure enough Eugene gets to shave his head. Vince also forces Coach to wear a dress just because he can. ‘Don’t be a slut, button that thing up’ is a hysterical line though…
Edge is still complaining – now in Shawn Michaels’ locker room berating him for not pulling out of the vote knowing he is injured.
La Resistance vs Chris Benoit/Edge – World Tag Title Match
The sub-text of the vote earlier in the night to determine Triple H’s challenger was that the two losing participants would join forces to challenge La Res for the Tag Team Championship instead. Both have been Tag Champions within the WWE before, and indeed were on opposite sides of the ring for some epic matches during the ‘Smackdown Six’ period. But for two men with aspirations of becoming World Champion this is almost about how they manage their disappointment. Edge has made it crystal clear that he isn’t happy about being in this one at all, whilst Benoit pointed out earlier in the show that he is unbeaten against HHH recently and stood the best chance of the three contenders of actually beating him tonight. Can they hold it together despite their disappointment to sustain a viable challenge to the long-reigning Raw Tag Champs? Certainly they have the experience and championship pedigree to do so. But Grenier and Dupree already hold a win over them as a team – and themselves are motivated tonight, wrestling under protest at being forced to defend their belts against challengers they couldn’t prepare for.
I’m guessing the ppv is running short, as Grenier gets to sing the entire Canadian national anthem uninterrupted tonight. Edge, one of the most decorated tag team wrestlers in WWE history, and Benoit, a former World Champion, dominate the opening period. That is until Edge gets distracted by heckling fans and leaves the ring to argue with them – continuing to show his frustration at not being in the World Title Match. Conway takes a tackle off the apron, and we get a brawl on the floor to follow with Benoit and Grenier really laying into each other. The melee enables La Resistance to take control for the first time and they appear to be wisely targeting Edge’s bad neck. It isn’t attractive but their pugnacious and persistent assault on the back and neck is admirably efficient. Even when Benoit gets the hot tag, he has a bum neck as well and Sylvain has no problem taking shots at his injury too. Clearly the attack was effective as the Wolverine is only able to execute a singular German suplex instead of his usual flurry. Meanwhile Edge’s temper has completely boiled over…and he walks out on the match after the referee misses a tag and blocks him from entering the ring. He quite literally leaves the arena and drives off as Grenier retains a vice-like grip around Benoit’s neck. Au Revoir blocked with a German suplex as Benoit looks to mount some kind of comeback. CRIPPLER CROSSFACE on Conway! HE TAPS! Benoit and Edge are Tag Champions at 16:14!
Rating - *** - This might very well be my favourite La Res tag match that I’ve seen. It never got outrageously exciting, but I’ve never seen them wrestle such a solid, crisp and well-executed match before. On a strategic level I loved their tactics, and on a performance level I thought they delivered the goods and more than held their own with a couple of really experienced opponents. Edge’s acting was also really good in this. It would have been easy for him to completely over-sell the anger, but instead he played it subtly and did a hell of a job portraying someone slowly but surely losing their temper. The fact that the production REALLY committed to his tantrum and filmed him storming all the way to his car and driving off was a real highlight.
Triple H bashes internet fans and hates the Taboo Tuesday concept – to the surprise of nobody. He tells Todd Grisham that he doesn’t believe Shawn Michaels is actually injured, but promises to give him a legitimate injury before the end of the show…
Christy Hemme vs Carmella DeCesare – Lingerie Pillow Fight
These two arrived during the 2004 Diva Search and got into something of a rivalry before Christy was eventually crowned the winner. I was about to trash the Diva Search concept, but did a little research and realised that the 2004 edition produced Christy, Maria Kanellis, Michelle McCool and Candice Michelle – all four of whom went on to make something of a successful living from the wrestling business (for better or worse). Carmella didn’t last as long though, and was let go before the end of 2004. The fan vote here determined whether they fought in a Lingerie Pillow Fight, an Evening Gown Match or an ‘Aerobics Challenge’.
The two women are made to change for their match on the stage, with King and Coach leaching over them to the point of it becoming seriously uncomfortable. Neither women has any training, so this is quite literally two girls forced to hurriedly dress in lingerie then flog each other with pillows. If Vince and the WWE are so internet savvy, surely they should have realised that by 2004 there was more porn on the internet than you could shake a stick at – meaning watching two fame-hungry, naïve women roll around in feathers is entirely redundant. Christy wins by random pin at 01:49
Rating - DUD - This was actually more uncomfortable to watch than the Diva Battle Royal earlier. Christy and Carmella were two young women looking for fame and riches, basically exploited for no reason on what is supposed to be a wrestling show. Of course they were complicit, but hearing Lawler and Coach bark instructions and leer at them as they were getting changed in a sleazy sex-show-esque set-up on the stage was creepy as anything. This was not a viewing experience I’d like to repeat.
Triple H vs Shawn Michaels – World Heavyweight Title Match
The history between these two men needs no introduction. They have fought on an almost permanent basis since Shawn returned to active competition in 2002 and don’t look like stopping anytime soon. As of Unforgiven Hunter has returned to the summit of the Raw mountain…and sure enough his old rival is still ready to fight. HBK won the fan poll for the title shot tonight, but is an overwhelming underdog due to the knee injury he advised us of earlier in the show.
Shawn comes out with the most exaggerated limp imaginable, resembling a chubby kid trying to get out of a cross country run. Obviously HHH goes after it and quickly reduces Michaels to a screaming, writhing mess on the canvas. The entirety of the first five minutes of the match consist of Triple H kicking, elbowing and stretching the leg – and of course that is all preparation for the Figure 4. Whilst in the hold Michaels has to physically restrain referee Mike Chioda to stop him stopping the match, which makes for quite a dramatic visual. We are almost nine minutes into the match before Shawn gets back to his feet for the first time since the opening bell, and he succeeds in propelling Helmsley’s face into the ringpost to buy him some breathing space. He starts sacrificing his own body for the World Title now, using the heavy brace around his bad knee to deliver a succession of inverted atomic drops which render him as incapacitated as his opponent. Despite being on one leg HBK decides to climb the ropes…and NAILS the flying elbow! Batista runs in to blindside Michaels! SWEET CHIN MUSIC ANYWAY! Now Edge is in the ring too! SPEAR ON SHAWN! He is still can’t get over not getting the title shot it seems. Hunter crawls on top and pins Michaels to retain the title at 14:05
Rating - *** - These two have contested some really long and elaborate matches, which whilst grand in scope were actually quite laborious to sit through. I’m thinking of their Three Stages Of Hell match back in 2002 and their Hell In A Cell from earlier this year in particular. So it was actually really refreshing to see them try something different. The knee injury gave them a clear, defined focus to the match; around which they worked a punchy and well-told story which the audience could really relate to. Michaels is so good at eliciting sympathy inside the ropes, and he did it again here. He fought 90% of the match flat on his back and was still so good that HHH didn’t actually need to do any hard work or heavy lifting whatsoever. The fact that they could do something interesting and totally different to their previous work despite having fought SO many times in major matches over the last two years is an impressive feat.
We need to stall for time whilst the Steel Cage is set up for the main event (not to spoil the result of the final vote), so first we see the shaven-headed Eric Bischoff backstage shouting at people (including a young Mike Mondo) for laughing at him. Then we go to ringside for JR and Lawler to show highlights and replays of every single match on the show like someone might have tuned in to an overpriced pay-per-view halfway through or something.
Ric Flair vs Randy Orton – Steel Cage Match
The cage beat out Falls Count Anywhere and Submission Match stipulations to win the final fan vote of the evening. Flair is a former colleague of Orton’s in Evolution, and even the man that first dubbed him the ‘Legend Killer’. But he is also the man that got involved in Randy’s match with HHH at Unforgiven where he lost the World Championship. It led to Orton questioning why the great Nature Boy is now happy to act as a back-up dancer for Triple H – which really got under Flair’s skin. He dished out a savage beating to Randy on Raw, costing him a match against Batista and with it the chance to be included in the World Title Match vote here tonight. Instead we have Legend Killer vs Legend in a Steel Cage grudge match. Can young Orton, once the golden boy of Evolution, overcome the ‘dirtiest player in the game’?
Flair is obviously motivated for this, foregoing his usual showmanship and dragging Orton into the corner to drive him some chops. He then pokes the youngster in the eyes when he tries to square up to him! The Nature Boy shows all his experience in Steel Cage matches – needing just one head shot against the steel mesh to slice the Legend Killer wide open. The veteran is like a shark and now targets every offensive move towards the bloody forehead. He needs to avoid getting into a fist fight with the younger, stronger man though…and he gets severely punished the second he does so. Orton brains him repeatedly then makes him bleed after a nasty trip into the cage. Both men are covered in blood, as Randy traps Flair in the ropes to dropkick his head into the cage again. Headlock backbreaker gets 2, and it looks like Orton’s superior stamina is starting to become a factor. Reaching into his bag of tricks, Ric reaches into his trunks to NAIL Orton with brass knucks. He tries to leave the cage only to be hauled back into the RKO! Orton wins at 10:35
Rating - *** - I’ve seen it written many times that Flair sullied his legend by continuing to wrestle well beyond the point at which many think he should have retired. I’ve even written that myself at times I’m sure. However, one thing I’ve always said is that Flair retained a keen understanding of his ROLE on a show. He wasn’t capable of being a World Champion or a top guy anymore, but he stuck around on the undercard entertaining people, rattling off his greatest hits and becoming a decent manager to boot. However, on rare occasions like this show when he gets to step back into that top billing, he almost always delivered something really good. Tonight he bled, bumped and busted his ass to put Orton over. This didn’t go long but what an exhilarating rush it was. The natural contrast between them – a young, handsome rookie World Champion against the aged, grizzled most decorated champion in history – gave them everything they needed to produce an exciting and extremely enjoyable contest.
Orton and Flair shake hands and share a bloody show of respect as the ppv ends.
Tape Rating - ** - Watching and reviewing this during the 3-hour Raw era, one couldn’t help but escape the feeling that this FELT like an episode of Monday Night Raw. In fact, the whole fan vote concept could have been a really neat concept to build an episode of the TV show around. Unfortunately at no point did this really feel like it was justifying the exorbitant pay-per-view prices the WWE were charging. The highlights were obvious: Michaels and HHH delivered a totally unique instalment to their lengthy rivalry, and the main event gave a rare glimpse of the ‘old’ Ric Flair as he and Randy Orton tore lumps of flesh from each other in a violent sprint of a main event. Edge had a key role to play throughout the show which I thought he did really well with too. Had this been an episode of Raw it would have been extremely well received. But asking your audience to pay the best part of $40 for this just isn’t justifiable. I know there are a lot of male wrestling fans – however do they really care that much about seeing Trish, Stacy, Christy Hemme, Carmella and the like paraded around in their underwear? Are they really so juvenile and insensitive that they find the Snitsky/Kane storyline anything but intolerable? I’d like to think not. As a WWE Network view this gets a mild recommendation, but yet again this stands as another colossal ppv rip-off for the fans of 2004.
Top 3 Matches
3) La Resistance vs Chris Benoit/Edge (***)
2) Triple H vs Shawn Michaels (***)
1) Randy Orton vs Ric Flair (***)