Austin101's- WWE Unforgiven 2004 Review:
"It's ALL About The Game!?!?"
-
WWE Unforgiven (2004) took place on September 12th, 2004 at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon and featured talent from the Raw brand. The official theme song was
"Survival Of The Sickest" by Saliva. The tagline was
"Insane. Pain. Kane."
-The main feud heading into this event was between Randy Orton and Triple H over the World Heavyweight Championship. The previous month at SummerSlam, Orton defeated Chris Benoit to win the World Heavyweight Championship, thus making Orton the youngest World Heavyweight Champion in WWE history. On the August 16th, 2004 edition of Raw, Orton successfully retained the title in a rematch with Benoit. After the match, Evolution (Batista, Ric Flair, and Triple H) threw Orton a fake celebration, only to reveal that they were not pleased with his new victory. While Batista had Orton propped on his shoulders in elation, Triple H gave him a pleased thumbs up; however, Triple H abruptly changed the thumbs up to a thumbs-down and told Batista to drop Orton to the mat. Flair and Batista then began to beat Orton in the ring as Triple H claimed that Orton was nothing without Evolution. On the August 23rd edition of Raw, after Orton refused to give Triple H the World title, Orton spit in Triple H's face and hit him with the title belt. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff then booked a match between the two for the World Heavyweight title at Unforgiven. On the August 30th edition of Raw, Eugene defeated Triple H after Orton interfered and gave Triple H an RKO. On the September 6th edition of Raw, Orton defeated Kane in a Steel Cage match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship, which Orton won by escaping the cage. Shortly after the match ended, Ric Flair and Batista came out and, along with Triple H, began attacking Orton. Orton and Triple H 's feud was originally supposed to have a pay off at WM 21 but that push was ultimately gave to Batista when Orton's face push failed.
-The broadcasters for this PPV were Jim Ross and The King Jerry Lawler.
-On Sunday Night Heat before the event Maven pinned Rodney Mack with a roll-up at 4:42 after Mack collided with Jazz.
Now, onto the PPV ......
1) Opening Contest- Chris Benoit and William Regal vs Evolution (Ric Flair and Batista)
A very solid opener here between two great mat wrestlers and two guys who know how to work a tag match as heels. Flair's obvioussly had the experience and relying on this natural heel tactics is how he got by a lot of the time without needing to carry the load like back in the 80's. Batista was still somewhat green but being in the ring with guys like Benoit and Regal only helps your credibility and I'd say Benoit and Regal did a nice job carrying these two here in this one. Benoit and Regal were very over with the crowd its just I hated how right when Benoit lost the title he's now curtain jerking tag teamer. It was pretty ridiculous after all he went through just to make it on top.
In the end Benoit made Flair submit to the Crippler Crossface at 15:05.
As least the decision was right.
Great match.
***
2) Trish Stratus (c) (W/Tyson Tomko) vs Victoria for the WWE Women's Championship
Hillarious when Trish says backstage "I'm gonna have some maniac jumping me from behind" and Christian responds with "Believe me..it wont be the first person someone has got you from behind!" All this talk made me want to get her from behind. ANYWAYS....
I'll say it again, I absolutely hate seeing Victoria as completely two different people when she goes back to dancing as a face, or glaring as a heel. Make up your mind you dumb psycho bitch. Okay, now I'm probably just cranky because the last two ppv's I've watched have sucked.
Trish pinned Victoria after a Stratusfaction at 8:21 to retain the title. Some of the place pops.
These two have done a better job in the past, more specifically the year 2002.
Still pretty good though.
Unfortunately what was next wasn't.....
* 3/4
Tomko tried to attack Victoria after the match until she was saved by a man in drag (Steven Richards). Tomko challenged him to a match...and here we go.
3) Tyson Tomko vs Steven Richards
Oh. My. God.
This is hands down the worst wrestling match of all time. By far. No, it's not even close. I swear a lot of people say so and so is the worst match ever but this is by far. It consists of Richards in granny panties and ladies wear taking blows by Tomko ever so slowly while the crowd boo's or chant boring. I can't go into this further, just...wow. TO this day I can't believe they went through with this idea.
Tomko pinned Richards after a modified swinging neckbreaker at 6:24 to finally end the misery.
The Worst Wrestling Match of all time.
DUD FUCKING DUD
4) Y2J Chris Jericho vs Christian in a Ladder match for the vacant WWE Intercontinental Championship
For the second straight year at Unforgiven Jericho and Christian are wrestling for the IC Title. This time it's in a ladder match. Jericho has had a brilliant ladder match with Chris Benoit and Christian was in the famous TLC matches and another good one with his "BROTHER" (kayfabe) Edge at No Mercy 2001. So both guys had there experience but would it pay off?
Not really.
They're both good workers and as proven before are capable of putting on a classic match like at WM 20 but I didn't like this match. I was expecting more from memory, well at least more then I got back in return anyway.
They had a pretty good Cage match on Raw that injured Christian for a few months when he landed wrong on his back. This Ladder match, I don't know if they were trying to be cautious or what but it wasn't as violent as you'd expect.
Infact outside a couple of bumps and a high risk move by Jericho there was barely anything violent at all.
In the end Jericho won the match by retrieving the belt at 22:29.
Went on way too long and after the match Jericho had the IC Title backstage and cut the exact same promo he did at RR 01...."How do I feel? How do you think I feel?" I didn't know if he was aware he did that but it was still funny none the less. Edge came by and said he'd rightfully take back his gold soon enough. Yeah, nothing more came from a potential Jericho-Edge feud because Shelton beat Jericho the next month at Taboo Tuesday and held onto the strap for almost a year while Jericho went to mid-card hell with Benoit on the Raw brand until he got tired and went to play music.
This one could of been a lot better. A lot....
**
5) The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels vs Kane (w/Lita) in a No Disqualification Match
I absolutely hate Lita's character post attitude era. She was an annoying slut who I wanted off my TV and even her in ring skills got exceptionally worse after her injury IMO.
Her being in a strange, fucked up relationship with Kane was stupid. Again, what were these writers on at the time?!??
This was the storyline where HBK took some time off and had his throat crushed by Kane.
This was his revenge match, at an appropriately named event- "Unforgiven."
HBK like Benoit wrestled a similar style against Kane at PPV's in 2004 only Benoit's match was at Bad Blood a few months before and was considerably better.
This was still a very good match though, probably match of the night.
Lita was going for HBK outside the ring and she marked out when he won by pinning Kane after Sweet Chin Music at 18:02.
Pretty good quality overall!
***
6) Lá Resistance (Sylvain Grenier and Robért Conway) vs Tajiri and Rhyno for the World Tag Team Championship
You'll remember this feud from The Rock's last in ring segment at the Diva Search in 2004. No? Well yeah, it wasn't that important but at least these were the last days the tag division got some proper attention on Raw anyway despite some recent desperate attempts.
Tajiri, Rhyno and La Ressistance no matter how boring or repettitive they can seem are all good workers and despite the crowd giving little to no support it was a pretty good contest.
Grenier pinned Rhyno after hitting him with the Quebec Flag at 9:40 and La Resistance retained the tag titles.
Pretty good.
** 1/4
7) Main Event- Triple H vs Randy Orton (c) for the World Heavyweight Championship
Randy Orton who was called by me and others in the IWC around this time on another site.."Rocky T Austin" during this Face push because he and the writers couldn't decide who he was each week. Some weekd Orton tried to be funny like The Rock, then he'd stick the hand out like Booker T, then he'd RKO everyone in the ring (Austin like) in stunner fashion. It was hillarious when he tried to be funny and it bombs big time, one of the segments that sticks in my head is when he rolled his eyes in the back of his head trying to be Kane and no one laughed. It was safe to assume they stopped writing comedy sketches for him after that one.
HHH and Orton I believe are likely good friends and I'm sure HHH has helped guide Randy into the worker he is today as has his father among others I'm sure. Triple H needed to carry Orton a little bit despite Orton being the World Champion here because he didn't have very much main event experience. I felt his Reign was so forced and no doubt he was catching steam in the Spring/Summer of 04 they could have waited. Oh well, this just ultimately ruined his character as there were so many flaws in this storyline, it'd take all day to talk about.
Pretty long match for the actual substance we got.
After a series of false finishes and close near falls, the match finally ended when Triple H pinned Orton after a Pedigree onto a steel chair at 24:44 to ONCE AGAIN become the NEW Champion. The fans in the front few rows body language told the whole story. They were pissed off.
In the end no one really wanted this to happen but WWE creative weren't left with many options after Orton's face run had been such a dissapointment and they weren't sure on what to do next.
These guys would go on to do better things including I believe at least a *** 1/4 match at the 05 Rumble together among other things. (Most notably recently in 07/08)
Not bad but all things considered not exactly of main event quality and the two were capable of a lot more then they showed.
Could of been a better pace overall throughout the whole match as well.
** 1/2
------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Rating for WWE Unforgiven 2004 = 5.5/10
7 Matches in total THIS TIME AROUND. Infact only 6 were booked before the event and one was made on the show and it should never have been a match to begin with. It is probably the worst match of all time, infact if for nothing else get this DVD to watch just how bad of a job Tyson Tomko did with Steven Richards. It's unbelievable. Just like 2003's version you might as well avoid this one unless you need it in your collection for a specific reason. A 5.5/10 rating isn't neccessarily very bad but at the same time there's not a lot here you should be wanting to go out of your way to see.
Feedback appreciated as always if you want to discuss.....
Up Next From Austin101: "WWE Unforgiven 2005"
-Then WWE Unforgiven 2006
-Then WWE No Way Out 2008
-Then WWE Royal Rumble 2008 (Updated Review after another watch)
-Then WM 24 (hoping to be here on June 10th)
(stay tuned...)
Official WWE DVD Help/Discussion/Review Thread
Re: Official WWE DVD Help/Discussion/Review Thread
