WWE WrestleMania XX

WrestleMania XX

New York, New York - March 14th, 2004

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, the WWE Champion is Kurt Angle, while Triple H holds the World Heavyweight Championship. The Intercontinental Champion is Randy Orton while The Big Show is the reigning United States Champion on SmackDown. The Cruiserweight Championship is held by Chavo Guerrero while the Women's Championship was held by Victoria. Finally the WWE Tag Team Champions were Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty and the World Tag Team Championships were Booker T and Rob Van Dam. 

COMMENTATORS: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler (RAW), Michael Cole & Tazz (SD)

WrestleMania XX begins with the Harlem Boys Choir singing "America The Beautiful" followed by a video package hyping the historical significance of this show and its setting. I wasn't watching wrestling regularly at this point so I have no nostalgic appreciation for any of this. In fact, from some time in 2001 (maybe WrestleMania XVIII ?) to SummerSlam 2005, I don't think I'd watched any wrestling whatsoever - though I did play a wrestling video game or two somewhere in there.

Anyway...John Cena challenges Big Show for the United States Championship in the opening match. This match has not aged well, though I'm guessing it wasn't critically praised at the time either. Big Show dominates 95% of it as Cole and Tazz try their darnedest to put over the Big Show as an unbeatable monster on an all-time great win streak (despite the fact that he lost the Rumble in January and then lost another high-profile match a month later at No Way Out). Big Show, when motivated, as he was in 06' for that killer Extreme Giant run, can actually be entertaining, but this match came at a time when he was overexposed and no longer felt like an "attraction." Big Show, despite controlling so much of the match, never changes gear and plays to the crowd or gets pompous - which is the kind of dickish heel stuff he should almost always be doing when he's in control. Instead, he just kinda decides to leave an opening for Cena, who in turn stops selling entirely, and cheats his way to a victory with the crowd cheering behind him. Cena is over, no doubt, but this is the kind of performance and match that his detractors must've loved to bring up when he started getting pushed to the top of the card. (0.5/5)

Before the next match, Randy Orton, with Flair and Batista beside him, runs down the history of his feud with Mick Foley. This is a terrific segment - the kind of promo that I wish they would run on WrestleMania more often, where you're not just getting a highlight package but you're actually getting new, unique content (think The Miz's entrance video from WrestleMania XXVII). (+1)

The World Tag Team Titles are up for grabs in the next match with the champions, Booker T and Rob Van Dam, defending the straps in a Fatal Fourway against Cade and Jindrak, The Dudley Boys, and La Resistance (Conway and Dupree). I watched this match. I mean, I know for a fact that I watched this match. I looked it up and it ran roughly 8 minutes. I watched every minute of it. I could probably name three spots in it. Booker T was in the ring for a lot of it and then Rob Van Dam got tagged in and he hit a dropkick from the top rope and eventually a frog splash. There was a brief "3D" chant when the Dudleys looked like they might hit their finish on Booker T, but Conway broke it up. Aside from that, I don't recall if Dupree or Jindrak or Cade actually did anything at all. I'm not even sure Dupree was really Dupree and not Sylvan Grenier. If you told me Cade's partner here was one of the other Natural Born Thrillers, I'd believe you. I don't think this match was actively bad because if it was, I'd probably have remembered more of it. Instead, this match was just meaningless and unimportant, which kind of goes against everything that a WrestleMania bout - let alone a title match - should be. (1/5)

Thankfully, Christian vs. Chris Jericho is our next match. The build-up for this match is regularly cited as one of the best storylines from this era of WWE, the rare instance when the writers developed a storyline based around a female that wasn't 100% misogynistic and embarrassingly offensive. Now, that's not to say that this storyline was flawless or not at least half misogynistic and mildly offensive, but compared to the Pretty Mean Sistas stuff? Or the Linda-in-a-Wheelchair angle from a few years prior? Jericho, Christian, and Trish Stratus deserve a ton of the credit too, as they elevated the storyline from "bad soap opera" level to "so bad-it's good" soap opera level. With so much drama building up to this match, Christian and Jericho were obviously motivated to deliver in the ring too and this is definitely a bit of a "coming out" party for Christian, the longtime tag specialist finally getting a chance to show what he could do in a serious, emotion-driven match with the spotlight fixed firmly on him. I'm not sure its a total home run, but as the commentators dutifully note, Jericho was the company's first Undisputed Champion so Christian pushing him to his limit meant he was keeping up with one of the top talents in the industry (even if, by this point, Jericho hadn't really been booked like a main eventer in over a year). There are some really good moments in this match - Jericho refusing to release Christian out of the Walls of Jericho, Trish Stratus' interference - and they certainly didn't let up on each other at any point, but it still doesn't quite live up to what this match could've been. Maybe Christian needed to target a body part? Maybe blood would've helped? Maybe an extra 2-3 minutes would've nudged it closer to feeling like an epic? The finish and post-match angle are executed wonderfully and seemed to genuinely shock as the audience, though, on closer inspection, it all made perfect sense (the mark of a great swerve). Below a "should watch" match, but the last 5 minutes help push it closer to that level. (3.5/5)

The Rock and Mick Foley return to a WWE ring for the first time in a long while to take on Evolution's Randy Orton, Ric Flair, and Batista. In later years, the WWE would get much, much better at matches like this as despite the initial buzz of seeing The Rock n' Sock Connection reunited and a very game crowd, this one is just too pedestrian to really register as a "special attraction" match the way, say, Rousey or Mayweather or even Sting's admittedly imperfect WrestleMania matches did. Its also noticeable, watching in 2018, how much the audience had not yet fully warmed back up for The Rock (who, in 2004, was also some years away from becoming the mega-successful action star that would demand such adoration). Its hometown hero Foley then who plays the face-in-peril and is treated by the crowd as the star of the match, which seems a little silly now but is undeniably true. Batista is the greenest worker of the bunch and his minutes are kept to a minimum because of it. Flair gets plenty of spotlight, but the design of the finish and all the actual hard-hitting spots (which there aren't much of) are clearly to put Randy Orton over. Speaking of the finish, I really liked it even if the live crowd didn't and the right man ate the pin as it added fuel to the Foley/Orton fire. I don't think this match needed the 17 minutes it got and could've done more in less time. Not a bad match, but not necessarily as good as it would look on paper when you figure the star power involved. (2.5/5)

The 2004 Hall of Fame inductees are trotted out. Jesse Ventura was the big name of this year, though he had good company in Bobby Heenan, Junkyard Dog, Tito Santana, Sgt. Slaughter, and Greg Valentine in his class. This class also featured Pete Rose, the only guy who got booed when their name was called. I guess some of these fans were still pretty angry about Rose fighting a Met in 1973?

Back to the ring we go for even more filler as Sable and Torrie Wilson take on Miss Jackie (not Jacqueline, this is Jackie Gayda) and Stacy Keibler in a Playboy Lingerie Match. Usually these matches are built around the women trying to rip each other's clothes off but they don't even bother and just have them strip down before the match even starts. This might be the most "extreme" (meaning the sleaziest) women's match I've ever seen as each and every sequence seems to have been planned out to either cause a wardrobe malfunction or expose one of the women's crotches to the rabid, salivating cameramen in the first row. I wonder what sort of backtracking/contortionist act Stephanie McMahon would do to explain why this was even remotely acceptable/appropriate in 2004 or really any time in human history. This is the kind of match that, if you had it on in front of people, you would (or at least should) feel utterly ashamed. (0/5)

The first ever Cruiserweight Open Invitational is next. It wasn't hard to predict who the final two would be so the fun of this match isn't in the suspense, but rather in just watching to see who would bust out the craziest high spot. Things start off on the mat for the most part with Shannon Moore and Ultimo Dragon starting things off. Moore is eliminated in under 2 minutes, which makes him come off as a jobber, and then Jamie Noble comes in taps out Dragon after another minute. Way to make Ultimo Dragon, who had also stumbled coming into the arena, look important in his first big match in months. Funaki comes in and gets cradled immediately. Nunzio is the next man in and the next man out after Noble hits him with a somersault splash on the outside. Why even run this match to feature so many guys when you're going to basically bury half of them? Finally we get some real action once Billy Kidman comes in. Kidman maximizes his minutes by nearly killing himself with a Shooting Star Press to the floor onto Noble and Nunzio. Back in the ring, Kidman continues to execute high impact offense, including a nasty BK Bomb from the corner that finishes off Noble's run. Rey Mysterio is the next in and he and Kidman get to showcase their legendary chemistry on the big stage. Akio (aka Jimmy Wang) interferes to try to screw over Mysterio for no real reason and Kidman hits a second BK Bomb. Mysterio manages to kickout, though, and ends up delivering an absolutely devasting sunset powerbomb from the corner. Kidman takes the bump like an absolute champ but I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered a concussion from it. Tajiri is in next but only lasts a minute (during which time he accidentally blows his mist into Akio's face, thus making him unable to compete as the 9th Entrant). Finally we're down to Mysterio and Chavo, who nearly tore the house down the month prior, but here are only given 2-3 minutes to impress the crowd. Chavo is able to score a victory after some shenanigans involving his father, which at least is a bit of a twist. There were enough elements in this match to keep me engaged, but I'm unconvinced this wouldn't have been an all-out classic if they had just limited it to maybe 4 guys (Kidman, Rey, Chavo, and Noble) and give them the same 10 minutes to wow the crowd. You could have even kept the finish the same. Instead, this was, as many others have described it, 10 1-minute matches strung together and it made at least 5 of the guys look like schlubs. At least they got a Mania pay day. (2/5)

After a video package chronicling their feud, it is time for Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg (with Steve Austin as the Special Guest Referee). Speaking of that video package, it really does make it seem like its Austin who was feuding with Lesnar (and not Goldberg) by the end of it. I think this had something to do with Goldberg's dates being all used up almost a month out of the show? This match is infamous for the crowd reactions as both Goldberg and Lesnar would be departing the company after and the audience knew it. The crowd boos both guys during their respective entrances and then showers them with "You Sold Out" chants and a rendition of "Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye." I'm not sure if Lesnar really "sold out" by attempting to go into the NFL as he was probably making plenty of money in the WWE by this point. Goldberg was just flat out leaving the company after what was, by most accounts, a not-so-hot, poorly managed run. To make matters worse, Lesnar and Goldberg don't touch each other for several minutes and when they do start locking up, they run through a sequence that borrows heavily from the Hulk Hogan/Ultimate Warrior playbook of power wrestlers mirroring each other to show how much power they have. The audience shits on all of it, chanting "This Match Sucks" and "Boring." Goldberg manages to finally get a pop for his patented press slam-into-a-powerslam, but then the crowd remembers they hate him. Despite this being the first and only real explosive move of the match so far, Lesnar slows it down with a front headlock, further enraging the crowd. From here, the match actually improves as both guys hit their signature moves and Austin gets involved. Unfortunately, the crowd can not be won over, which means that there's no drama about the finish as the audience just wants it to be done with. Lesnar kicks out of a spear. Goldberg kicks out of an F5. Goldberg finally hits the Jackhammer for the win. These should be exciting highlights, but they actually produce groans from the crowd. After the match, Austin saves the day by giving a Stunner to both guys. This match is too interesting to watch for it to be considered a waste of your viewing time, but its not a good enough match on its own to warrant much praise. My rating reflects the fact that this match lands somewhere in the middle of being a match that people should watch (simply due to how much the crowd's involvement back then almost inspired the WWE Universe idea that we have today) and a match that, if you turned the sound off, might bore you to tears. (2.5/5)

The next match serves as a bit of palate cleanser as RIkishi & Scotty 2 Hotty defend their World Tag Team Championships against The World's Greatest Tag Team, The APA, and The Bashams. Its very hard to buy in to the idea of The World's Greatest Tag Team being the world's greatest tag team when they can't beat the anachronistic 2/3rds of 2 Cool or whoever else the champions were since the previous summer. The Bashams had come in with similar initial success but were floundering by this point too. The APA would break up and JBL would be repackaged by SummerSlam if I'm not mistaken. So, yeah, this is kind of a pointless match made even more pointless by the decision to keep the titles on Rikishi and Hotty even though their act was staler than a year old hot dog bun. The best part of this match is seeing JBL mercilessly club one of the Basham's heads off their shoulders with a vicious Clothesline from Line. Its really kind of sad - the Bashams are far from smooth, but multiple times in the match it almost looks like the rest of the crew, mostly all veterans, seem none too eager to make The Bashams look good. Of course, the Bashams' timing and execution isn't great, so who knows? The end result is a match that has more sloppy moments than good ones, but luckily, doesn't overstay its welcome. Filler. (1/5)

Jesse Ventura comes out and interviews Donald Trump, who is sitting in the first row. I wish this segment had some sort of extra meaning now or featured some cool "Oh My God - The Foreshadowing!" snippet, but it doesn't. Could you imagine if they had given this job to Roddy Piper? Ventura makes his second comment about possibly running for President of the weekend, but this just goes to show how out-of-touch Ventura was as the wrestling popularity bubble had popped by 2004.

Speaking of welcome, actual women's wrestling clearly wasn't in the WWE in 2004 as Molly Holly and Victoria are given less than 5 minutes for their Women's Championship Match. The crowd is dead silent for almost all of it too, but its not like Holly and Victoria tear the house down either so its hard to blame them. They obviously work a much rougher style than anyone in the Playboy Lingerie match, but this match doesn't feature enough or really any attention-grabbing sequences that would've helped it get over with the crowd (the way, say, the WrestleMania 18 and 19 matches did). Those matches also featured Trish Stratus (and, at 18, Lita), who was far more over than either of these women were, which makes it a somewhat unfair comparison. To make matters worse, the post-match shenanigans drag on an interminable number of months. No joke - the shaving of Molly's head goes on so long that when Kurt Angle shows up for the next match, Victoria is still clipping. It is an absurd moment that Angle, by the expression on his face, is absolutely appalled by...and he's not wrong! This would be like if Doink was still pouring buckets of water and confetti on audience members while The Undertaker made his entrance. The juxtaposition is just ugly as it is so painfully obvious how one championship match was being used as the backdrop for bad comedy while the next was supposed to be taken serious. I wish I didn't have so many negative things to say about this match as I do think Holly and Victoria were underappreciated workers, but this was terrible. (0.5/5)

Eddie Guerrero defends his WWE Championship against the aforementioned Kurt Angle next. After the past few matches, you can tell the crowd wants to see some really great wrestling action, but I'm not necessarily sure this delivered it - or at least the delivered the type of match that holds up too well in 2018. Like in his match against Lesnar at No Way Out, Guerrero spends a majority of the match wrestling underneath and trying to garner sympathy by withstanding all sorts of suplexes, on-the-money strikes, and submissions from the Olympic Gold Medalist.  Unlike that No Way Out match, though, the size differential between Guerrero (who was definitely on the juice at this point in his career) and Angle (also legendary for his performance enhancer diet) isn't as pronounced, so Guerrero playing the under-matched, undersized underdog just doesn't pull on the heartstrings with the same force. Despite Angle going all out with his verbal tirades against Guerrero (painting him as a drug addict which is definitely one of those "pot meet kettle" moments), the crowd isn't fully behind Guerrero. With these two, you know you're going to get lots of hard-hitting action and a "go! go! go!" pace, but what this match lacks is the registering of any of the big spots. Guerrero and Angle trade countless suplexes, but none seem like they really do any damage. Nobody seems fatigued at really any point - at least not to the level that they should considering the pain we're supposed to believe they're inflicting on each other. At over 20 minutes, nobody can say they didn't get enough time to tell that story either. They chose to go all out here, but less might've been more. A match like this is above average because of the talent level and execution on display, but its not a career highlight for either guy (which makes it not quite as good as it probably should've been). (3/5)

The Undertaker makes his triumphant return to the WWE next to take on his brother Kane in a match that goes under 10 minutes and does nothing to erase the memory of all the other times these two put on relatively uneventful matches. Prior to this bout, Taker had been gone for several months and this marked his return to the "Deadman" character after a couple years of playing the soulless biker JR unsuccessfully nicknamed "Booger Red" (because no matter what a "booger" meant in the South in the 1960s, it meant something way different in 2004). Taker dominates for the vast majority of the match (which is pretty much a squash), though Kane does get a few minutes of shine off of an unexpected reversal of the Old School. The fans in the arena are glad to see Taker based on the reaction he gets for his entrance, but it would be a couple years before he won over the critics with some genuinely great matches against Kurt Angle, Batista, Shawn Michaels, and others. This was not the start of that career renaissance, but at least they didn't overstay their welcome and kept things simple. (2/5)

Main event time - Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels challenging the World Heavyweight Champion, Triple H, in the first triple threat match to ever main event a WrestleMania. This has become one of the most divisive matches of all time, though in 2004, it was almost universally praised as the greatest triple threat match of all time. That distinction/honor, even for those that can separate the wrestler from the atrocious acts he committed, has been challenged in the years since - maybe most recently by Lesnar/Cena/Rollins match from a few Rumbles ago that Steve Austin called the best he'd ever seen on his podcast (the WrestleMania 30 main event is also remembered fondly). Even if Benoit had not murdered his wife and child and then killed himself (forever tainting this match as a "feel good" watch), I'd still probably consider this a touch overrated. The match is rightfully praised for its tight sequences and a pace that is breakneck without ever feeling rushed or sprinty. There are a handful of truly great moments too - from the not-so-subtle nods to Montreal to the understated "DX reunion" table spot to a terrific tree of woe spot. I read a review once say that this match is perfect because it doesn't contain any errors, no blown spots, nothing incredulous or overtly gimmicky. While that might be true, I still wouldn't call this match a real masterpiece. For starters, the "story" of the match - of Benoit overcoming the odds - is not fully cooked and is more attributable to what the fans (in 2004 and even today) hoisted upon the match rather than what we actually see. Benoit is treated as the match's babyface by the live crowd, but put this match in San Antonio and nothing about Michaels' performance (aside from the double-team table spot) would keep him from getting that same sympathetic treatment. Triple H has been praised for "doing the honors," but why shouldn't a heel who doesn't cut any corners ever win a match like this? It would have been a bigger honor for Benoit to triumph against a Triple H that really would do anything it took to win - including grabbing his trusty sledgehammer or a chair - rather than a Triple H who was uncharacteristically keeping things on the level. Are these criticisms fair? To some I could see my gripes being seen as unjust - like criticizing a hamburger for not being spaghetti - but a true masterpiece is more than just a match where nothing goes wrong, it's a match where everything goes right. On that night, in front of this audience, this match delivered what it needed to and gave the crowd the moment they wanted - but I'm not convinced it couldn't have been achieved in a way that would've resonated for years and years to come, arguably even after that fateful and tragic weekend in June 2007. (4/5)


With a Kwang Score of 1.96-out-of-5, too much of WrestleMania XX falls short of even average for the whole show to be considered an all-time great show. The show suffers from being too representative of its era and all that entailed - from its disgusting treatment of female talent to the many tired characters still floating around like ghosts of a bygone era (Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty, The APA, and even The Rock). The show practically screams "Wrestling is still as cool as it was 4 years ago!" but at no point will you ever think you're actually watching a classic show from that year or the ones immediately before and after. Like WCW in 98' or 99', the issue here isn't a lack of roster depth - its that so many of these talents, through questionable booking or character touches, had lost their "specialness." As much as a company built around honor roll workers like Benoit and Guerrero and Lesnar and Angle and HBK and Mysterio and Christian and Jericho should've propelled the company to record profits, especially with Austin and The Rock and Foley and Flair still around doing cameos, there is a sense - even on this night of grand coronations - that a new direction not quite developed or thought of yet is necessary. For a show billed as being the start of a new era, it feels more like the transitional show between two very different ones. There are far worse shows out there - including many WrestleManias - but I'm also not sure who this show would appeal to if not for pure nostalgia...for a time period that I personally have no nostalgic feelings for. (And if you're someone who vehemently loathes Chris Benoit, steer well clear of this). 

FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver