Re: WWE 2004: Road to WrestleMania XX
WWE Raw
March 29, 2004
The announcers welcome us to the show as Raw gets underway with an Intercontinental Title Match. Lance Storm's music hits as he makes his way down to the ring. Storm requests a microphone prior to his match. He’s tired of losing and it has to stop and he doesn’t want to be traded to Smackdown. He needs to get back to winning ways. He can’t continue to disgrace himself and now he has the chance to get his career back on track by becoming the Intercontinental Champion again. Backlash is in Canada and since Bischoff likes to keep him off ppvs, he could end finally end up wrestling on ppv if he wins the title tonight. If he does not beat Orton tonight then he will retire from wrestling and his last match will be on Raw in his hometown in Calgary which is the night after Backlash. However if he wins the IC belt tonight then there is no need for retirement. Orton’s music hits as he comes down to the ring and he has a smile on his face. Randy Orton requests a microphone and gloats about being the legend killer. Although Storm is not a legend, he wants to be responsible for Storm retiring.
Match 1
Intercontinental Title Match
Randy Orton (c) vs Lance Storm
The bell rings as the match gets underway. This was a good back and forth contest. Orton takes control of the match and Storm fights back and knocks down Orton with a few right hands. Storm gets a dropkick and follows up with an armdrag and works on Orton’s arm. Orton makes a comeback and hits a dropkick for a two count. Orton gets a suplex and goes for a powerslam and Storm slips out and nails Orton with an enziguri. Storm gets Orton in the single leg Boston crab but Orton makes it to the ropes. The match ends with Orton hitting an RKO on Storm. Orton pins Storm for the 3 Count to retain the title.
Winner and still Intercontinental Champion Randy Orton
Orton’s posing in the ring as he taunts Storm. Storm is very upset but receives a great ovation from the crowd as Storm makes his way to the back. Orton gets a mic and poses in the ring and tells the fans that he demands respect. Suddenly Mick Foley’s music hits and he makes his way down to the ring.
Foley tells Orton that the only way to earn respect is to earn it and Orton still hasn’t beaten him one on one. Orton pinned him at WrestleMania but that was a tag match and last week Foley pinned Orton and that was also a tag match and now they are even. Now they need to settle this once and for all in a one on one match. Orton agrees and he’s sick and tired of seeing Mick Foley here calling himself the hardcore legend and Orton kills legends, this is why he is called the legend killer. Mick just doesn’t get it, last year he was kicked down the stairs by Orton, he was spat in the face by Orton. He’s been humiliated by Orton and became a coward. Mick won last week because of The Rock. Mick could never beat him one on one. Foley has a solution for this and it will end once and for all. He challenges Orton to put his Intercontinental Title on the line in a Hell in a Cell Match at Backlash and Evolution will be barred from ringside. Orton was stunned, he didn’t like this but he accepted Foley’s challenge but only on one condition. He’s sick and tired of Foley making these pointless comebacks in the ring. Foley was retired by the great HHH but Foley made a foolish mistake to step back in the ring. Orton adds his own stipulation to the match, if Orton wins, Foley’s career is over in the WWE. He is done. Orton wants Foley to bring his family to Backlash so that they can see Orton ending Foley’s career. Orton said that Foley has no chance and will fade into obscurity after he loses at Backlash.
Foley accepts and talks about how many stars in the past tried to put him out but he always came back. At the Royal Rumble 1999, he had one of the most brutal brawls ever against The Rock, Rock may have won but Foley was back the next night. HHH beat him in the hell in a cell match at No Way Out but he came back and wrestled at WrestleMania the next month. So no matter who tries they can never put him down. He warns Orton that tonight against Flair he will show Orton a sneak preview of what’s in store for him at Backlash. Have a nice day!!!
Backstage Coach meets Bischoff in Bischoff's office. Eric Bischoff is in a great mood. Coach asks Bischoff why he is such a great mood. Bischoff laughs and tells Coach that from now on Stone Cold’s no longer the sheriff as he is no longer in the WWE. He couldn’t agree on a new contract so now Coach no stupid Stone Cold Law. He was abusing his power and Eric Bischiff is the one who will be making the decisions around here and that’s the bottom line coz Eric Bischoff says so. Coach laughs and tells Eric that’s not the reason he was out here for but he’s glad Bischoff told him some great news. Well he’s out here because he wants to know what Eric Bischoff will do about Smackdown’s lethal lottery this week. He winds Bischoff up by saying boss, didn’t you have this in WCW. Bischoff’s says that’s exactly right and mocks Heyman and Heyman should get some new material. Did Bischoff ever do a Raw Rumble? No because he is innovative. Coach asks Eric what if Paul ever ends up doing a Smackdown roulette? Bischoff talks about WCW and how Paul Heyman is not a creative genius. When Eric was running ECW he took all of ECW’s stars and put on a superior product, he made the ECW stars who were nobodies into stars in WCW. He will continue to come up with new material and will prove why Raw is always a far superior show than Smackdown. He doesn’t need to do what Austin did and show up on Smackdown, he will just put on better shows and better ppvs. Backlash is already shaping up to be an awesome ppv, for the first time ever the Intercontinental Title will be defended in a hell in a cell match. Over there on Smackdown, Paul Heyman can’t even control his own roster. Now that Austin’s gone he will show Heyman how a show should be run. Tonight he will make a big announcement by outdoing Smackdown’s lethal lottery tournament.
Match 2
10 Man Tag Team Match
La Resistance and The World’s Greatest Tag Team vs The Dudleys, Jindrak & Cade
Good back and forth action with the heels in control at the start of the match. Mid-way into the match Buh Buh and Haas tag in and Buh Buh hits Haas with a few punches followed by an irish whip and clothesline. He takes a tag to D-Von and D-Von hits a neckbreaker on Haas for a near fall because Shelton breaks up the cover. The Dudleys go for a 3D and Shelton stops it and we get a big brawl in the ring between the heels and the faces. Some of the stars are battling on the outside while Haas and Spike continue the match in the squared circle. Shelton slips back in the ring and level Spike with a kick to the face and Haas pins Spike for the 3 count to win the match.
Winners: La Resistance & The World’s Greatest Tag Team
After the match the brawl continues on with the WGTT escaping as The Dudleys hit a 3D on Sylvian Grenier. The Dudleys motion for the tag team belts.
Backstage Chris Jericho Interview. Coach walks by and tells Grisham that he’s got this. He mocks Jericho and asks Jericho how it will feel like when Trish and Christian rub salt in Jericho’s wounds tonight when they have the Sex celebration in the ring? Jericho talked about how Trish and Christian got one over him at WrestleMania and tonight they want to embarrass him further by having sex in the ring. Jericho issues a challenge to Christian at Backlash. They can have all the fun they want but at Backlash he will get his revenge.
Match 3
World Title Match
Chris Benoit (c) vs Matt Hardy
Benoit and Hardy exchange some armbars and other grappling maneuvers, including a couple of roll ups. Benoit chops away at Hardy and ducks a clothesline from Hardy and ends up hitting five german suplexes on Hardy. Benoit goes for the headbutt and Hardy moves out the way. Shawn Michaels is shown watching the match on a monitor. Hardy stomps away at Benoit and hits a legdrop from the second rope. Hardy hits a side effect and Benoit kicks out at two. Hardy goes for the twist of fate but Benoit counters into a crossface and Hardy taps out.
Winner: Chris Benoit
Backstage Evolution storm into Bischoff’s office and HHH wants Rock at Backlash. HHH blames Rock for putting him out the title picture when he deserves to be in. He’s still not had his rematch against Benoit but at Backlash once he’s done with the Rock, Bischoff must give HHH the title shot he truly deserves. Bischoff agreed.
A fairly short match, this was ok for what it was. Lita misses a top rope moonsault and Jazz follows up with a piledriver and covers Lita for the three count.
Winner: Jazz
Backstage Matt Hardy is in his locker room and he’s upset. Coach approaches Matt and tells Matt that he did a good job but he wanted to remind Matt that next week Eugene will be here and Matt has to live up to his promise. Matt tells him that he will now think about it. Coach is like what do you mean think about it, you agreed. Matt responds back by telling Coach he had his title shot and lost. Now if he takes someone under his wing, he will end up concentrating on that guy and his opportunity for another title shot and a singles run will be damaged. Coach tried to get Hardy to change his mind and warned him not to cross the boss and next week Matt's assignment is to make Eugene his Mattitude follower. If he doesn’t there will be serious consequences.
Trish and Christian SEX Celebration
Trish and Jericho come out. Christian says they haven’t had sex since WrestleMania and they’re saving the celebration for tonight instead. They were going to do this at the end of the show to send the fans home happy but they couldn’t resist because what they will do now, they will continue off later on in their hotel. They didn’t want the peeps to wait that long. Trish talked about how Jericho wanted to nail her but couldn't and Jericho can never have her. She tells Christian lets get straight into this. They start making out and then started disrobing.
They get into the bed and into the covers and Christian removes Trish's bra and throws it near the announce table and King gets excited. Chris Jericho’s music hits as he runs down to the ring to put a stop to this. Christian gets out of the bed and gets tackled down by Jericho. Christian escapes and ran up the ramp. Trish has remained in the bed for the entire time because she’s completely naked. Jericho taunted Christian from the ring and notices that Trish is naked under the covers of the bed as he peaks under the covers and says omg what an amazing sight. He smiles and likes what he saw. He threatens Christian that he’s going to pull back the covers. He asks the crowd should he go for it. HUGE cheer from the crowd. Or should he take off the cover of the bed, MASSIVE OVATION from the crowd. Jericho says this is the woman he once loved but now she's turned into a slut who's worse than Stephanie McMahon. He is not going to have sex with Trish but he can show the whole wide world Trish's T & A. Trish who's clutching the blanket to hide her boobs from the audience.
Jericho taunts Christian and shouts come on you creepy little bastard get in here and try to stop me. Eric Bischoff’s music hits and calls security. Jericho threatens Bischoff if they step in he will take off the cover of the bed and Trish will be exposed. Bischoff threatens Jericho if he does not hand himself over to security then he will be fired on the spot. Jericho agrees to hand himself over but on one condition, he wants his rematch from WrestleMania against Christian at Backlash. Bischoff agrees and Jericho smiles and hands himself over and security escort Jericho out. Coach runs down with a towel in his hand and passes it to Trish. Trish covers her with a towel and Coach gets Trish out of there as soon as possible. Fans booed the hell out of Coach. Jericho is loving it and he’s happy. Trish has been humiliated by Jericho.
RAW cuts backstage, where Lance Storm is standing by. Todd Grisham asks him will he ever win a match before his retirement. Storm believes he definitely will and even hoped that Bischoff will give him a ppv match at Backlash. He is serious about retiring, he’s become a joke on Raw. He could have gone to Smackdown but decided not too. He wants his last few weeks on Raw to be successful. Ric Flair shows up and confronts Storm. Flair wanted to talk about his own match but he just heard what Storm said and calls Storm weak and a quitter. Tonight Evolution's Randy Orton beat him. He mocked Storm and calls him pathetic for retiring at such a young age, when Flair who’s still in his fifties styling and profiling and he's still going strong whoo. Flair slaps Storm and tells him maybe that slap will knock some sense into him and he will probably end up winning a match before his retirement. Maybe that slap will motivate him whoooo. Flair had a grin on his face and walked off and Storm just walked away.
Match 5
Ric Flair vs Mick Foley
Lock up and some counters to begin, Flair chops away at Foley and whoo’s him. Foley gets his sock out and starts chopping away at Flair with the sock and Flair bails out of the ring. Foley goes after Flair and they brawl outside but make it back inside before the ten count. Flair gets a kneedrop and gets a headlock on Foley. Foley powers out and breaks out of it and takes Flair down with a clothesline. He mocks Flair by doing the Flair strut. Foley backdrops Flair over the top rope. Mid-way into the match Flair is back in control and chops away again at Foley. Flair slams Foley down and goes to the top but this never works as Foley gets back up and knocks Flair off the top rope. Near the end of the match Flair low blows Foley and the ref calls for the bell. Flair goes for the figure four and Foley grabs his sock again and fights out of it and gives Flair the mandible claw.
Winner: Mick Foley by Disqualification
Evolution run down to ringside as Foley starts to fight Orton and HHH off but Foley walks into a Batista spinebuster. Orton proceeds to hit an RKO on Foley followed quickly by a Batista Bomb. They are doing some serious damage to Foley. Evolution continue to beat down Foley. HHH grabs the mic and instructs Orton grab a sledgehammer from underneath the ring. Orton levels Foley with the sledge hammer. HHH taunts Foley and says Come on Mick, where’s your saviour Rock. He made the right decision not to show up tonight because if he was out here this would have been his fate. Foley was busted open and bloodied as Evolution continued the assault ending with a Pedigree by HHH. Orton yells and taunts Foley by saying his career will be over at Backlash. Evolution pose in the ring.
A vignette is aired for William Regal, he is making his return to the WWE next week on Raw. Raw cuts backstage where Eric Bischoff is shouting down the phone to what sounds like Paul Heyman. They are discussing a trade but they couldn't yet come to an agreement because Bischoff was badmouthing Heyman for stealing his concept that he used in WCW. Heyman fired back with his own insults and talked about how Bischoff stole ECW talent to make Nitro into a better show. Now he will take more stars from Raw. Bischoff said Heyman can't do that, and it will be done in a fair way, a trade. Bischoff said he will not give his best stars away because Raw is the #1 show. Heyman insults Eric by saying is this what Raw has now become, a sex gone bad show. Heyman laughs and says tune in to Smackdown to see the very best of wrestling. Bischoff tells Heyman to tune into Raw right now because up next he’s going to outdo Heyman’s Smackdown Lethal Lottery announcement.
Bischoff's announcement
Eric Bischoff comes down and introduces Shawn Michaels. Bischoff then introduces the world champion Chris Benoit. Bischoff has called them out here to let them know which match they will compete in at Backlash. He had a lot of ideas in mind and one of the matches was going to be a match Shawn made legendary at WrestleMania X, a ladder match. Then he had another match in mind which Benoit excels in and that’s a submission match. However since Heyman is doing a tournament over the next 3 weeks by stealing a concept he used in WCW, he’s going to outdo Smackdown’s Lethal Lottery Tournament by coming up with a blockbuster match for the main event at Backlash. He says this time it'll be the match of all matches, a match that will be so legendary and no outside interferences at all. HBK calls himself the icon, the showstopper, the headliner, the main event and Benoit calls himself the best wrestler in the world today. Well we will find out if they can go the distance. At Backlash that blockbuster match is an Iron Man Match. He says you put 60 minutes on the clock and two men in a ring and at the end of the 60 minutes, the man with the most falls wins. Bischoff wishes them luck and drops the mic down and leaves.
Benoit grabs the mic as HBK requests another mic. HBK says he wasn’t expecting this and it caught him by surprise but this announcement surely excites him. He’s been there before when he won the first ever Iron Man Match by defeating Canada’s Bret Hart to become the champion for the first time. Then the previous Iron Man Match he was the referee so he knows all about the Iron Man Match. Since the Rumble he’s been robbed out of the title but at Backlash the showstopper will stop Benoit’s show. You talk about conditioning and if he can still go the distance, he believes he can. He may not be faster as he used to be but he can still go the distance. The four years he spent out, doctors told him he was done but miraculously there was hope and he was back and he ended up becoming champion again. Now at Backlash with HHH out of the picture and no outside interferences we will truly find out who deserves to be the best. He reminds Benoit that he holds a victory over him a month ago and he has the experience and the victory over Benoit. As much as he respects him and as much as he deserves it, he’s in his place and he’s going to become the champion again. Michaels knows that the fans of Canada hate him but he’s got a good record there because everytime he goes there he always gets one over the fans. Then he talks about Benoit’s hero The Dynamite Kid and tells Benoit that Dynamite’s former partner The British Bulldog wrestled him back in 1997 in his own backyard and HBK put one over him as well to become the first ever grand slam champion. Point is... no matter what country he goes, it doesn’t matter to him because HBK will always come out on top. He is the icon, the showstopper, the headliner and the main event.
Benoit then responded by telling Michaels to not underestimate him. Benoit talks about his days when he trained in the dungeon. He's worked so many years to get to the top and he’s not going to let Michaels cut his reign short. He’s a fighting champion and he’s willing to take on all comers. He’s willing to go the distance and he will not let his fans down in his country. For weeks Michaels has been claiming that he beat him a month ago on Raw and then at WrestleMania, HHH was the one that tapped and not him. Anyone can have a lucky night and catch a fall but now that they’re competing in an Iron Man Match he will ensure that he will beat him not once but many times. Now at this time in 2004 he is the best. He’s wrestled all over the world and wrestled many great wrestlers but when he wrestled Shawn last month, he knew that he was one of the best. He will walk into his hometown as champion and will walk out as champion. Prove me wrong Shawn Michaels. Benoit’s music hits as he holds up the world title in the air. HBK extends his hand to Benoit for a handshake as both men shake hands as Raw comes to a close.
Confirmed Matches for Backlash
April 18, 2004
World Heavyweight Title Iron Man Match: Chris Benoit (c) vs Shawn Michaels
The Rock vs HHH
Intercontinental Title Hell in a Cell Match: Randy Orton (c) vs Mick Foley
Chris Jericho vs Christian
Tag Team Championship Title Match: The World's Greatest Tag Team (c) vs The Dudleys
Womens Title Match (c)Victoria vs Jazz