Nearly Perfect: Looking Back On WrestleMania XX

The year is 2004 and the setting was New York City, more specifically Madison Square Garden, where WWE was celebrating its 20th edition of the annual spectacle known as WrestleMania with the tagline “Where It All Begins Again.”

It was appropriate that the site where WrestleManias I and X took place would also hold this monumental event. WWE’s roster at the time was arguably the most stacked in history with many veterans as well as younger talent that have gone on to become the legends that we celebrate today. The wrestling back then was at its height and the storylines actually made sense. It was night that showcased the return of a legendary character and the rise of many deserving wrestlers, two of which ascended to the top of the mountain.

This show is very much enjoyable in multiple stages. It starts with a decent opener in the form of the United States Championship match between John Cena and Big Show. Now the match is not good at all, but there is significance to it. Big Show played the big, badass bully while the fans rallied behind Cena to be the one to finally stop the “Big Nasty Bastard.” Cena’s win is his first of many championship reigns and it’s done in his WrestleMania debut, to boot. (Unless you count his WrestleMania XIX rap battle…I don’t.)

Once you get through an ok World Tag Team Title match with Booker T and Rob Van Dam (that’s wasting talent on a show right there), we get right into a really good Christian and Chris Jericho match. Jericho was already a proven household name by this point, but it always seemed that since Christian split from Edge in 2001, he couldn’t quite break through the glass ceiling. This performance, on top of the win and the Trish Stratus heel turn, gave Christian exactly what he needed to move up the ladder and get into the main event picture. Sadly, WWE would continue to drop the ball on “Captain Charisma” and he wouldn’t win his first World Championship until he left in 2005 and joined TNA Wrestling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZW8TBlFlYc

We transition from a good match to a great match between Evolution (in the form of Batista, Randy Orton, and Ric Flair) and the Rock N’ Sock Connection. The match starts fast with all five guys giving us an all-out brawl for a bit, then the action slows down, but not enough that bores you. Seeing these five in the ring together knowing now the careers ahead of Batista and Randy Orton is an amazing sight. This is the only place where you can say you saw The Rock mix it up with Flair, Batista or Orton. Foley would wrestle Flair in a feud in 2006, wouldn’t get anything again with Batista and would wrestle Orton in a bloody NO DQ match the following month at Backlash. This handicap match would end abruptly with an RKO “Outta Nowhere” to Foley. It brought the Legend Killer even more to forefront as he was groomed for the main event and a brief world title run in August.

We now get a string of five “not good” to “horrible” matches. The tag team evening gown match with Sable, Torrie Wilson, Jackie Gayda and Stacy Kiebler was there for nothing more than sex appeal. The Cruiserweight Open Invitational for the Cruiserweight Championship was ok, but with weird rules and a crappy ending that saw Chavo Guerrero retain over Rey Mysterio.

The Goldberg and Lesnar match didn’t live up to any of the hype or anticipation. Both men were heading out of the company after this night; Goldberg’s contract was at its end and Lesnar was ending his deal to go to the NFL. Stone Cold Steve Austin couldn’t save this match, but at least he gave both men a Stunner on the way out. This would be the last match for both men until Lesnar resurfaced in 2012 and Goldberg in 2016, against Lesnar.

The WWE Tag Team Championship Match was not good and just a way of getting as many people on the show as possible. The Women’s Title match between Victoria and Molly Holly was a good, short match, but yet another example of how WWE treated their women’s division back then. It’s a shame because both of these women had amazing talent. Over time, it has been revealed that it was Molly’s idea for the Hair vs. Title match just so she could get on the show.

Now we’re back on track with the good parts of the show, specifically, the excellence that is the WWE Championship match between Eddie Guerrero and Kurt Angle. This was Guerrero’s first and only WWE Championship reign and he was in the deep end to start with. This match was done so wonderfully with both men hitting their big moves, and there were multiple occasions where you believed that Guerrero’s reign was ending early. The ending was one of the most creative in history with Angle applying the Ankle Lock submission repeatedly; once the move was released, Guerrero kept loosening the strings of his boot to seemingly relieve the pressure on his ankle. One last time Angle would apply the hold, only for Guerrero to kick him back with his boot flying off and into the hands of Angle. A surprised and confused Olympian blindly charged towards Guerrero, only to be quickly rolled up and pinned. Latino Heat would retain the title and gather his boot outside the ring to show that his ankle wasn’t actually hurt at all. Eddie “Lied, Cheated, and Stole” victory at WrestleMania.

After being seen as the “American Badass” for almost four years, it was time for The Undertaker to return to the dark side. To see his signature entrance once again was an amazing sight, even seeing it back again over 15 years later, and the return of Paul Bearer was very appropriate for the occasion, but as we know, Bearer wouldn’t last too long. The Kane character at this time was one of my favorites with his unmasking taking place nine months earlier and him embracing his inner monster. However, the battle between the brothers was very underwhelming. Undertaker and Kane was always one of the most creative storylines, but the matches weren’t your 5-star classics. This evening was no different, but the return of the “Deadman” and the continuation of The Streak was enough to make this a good moment for the show.

For the first time, WrestleMania was main evented with a triple threat match for the World Heavyweight Championship: Triple H, the champion, against Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit, winner of the 2004 Royal Rumble Match. I have listened to and read many wrestling fans’ opinions on this match and agree that this is one of the greatest main event matches in WrestleMania history. Matches like HBK and Undertaker from WrestleMania XXV, Steamboat and Savage from III and Bret and Owen Hart from X have been the matches that are most remembered throughout history, but they weren’t the main events of those shows. This match is the crowning moment in the career of Chris Benoit and showed that he finally made it in WWE after joining the company in 2000. The final moments of the show are one of the most emotional moments to close any event, as Benoit celebrates with the crowd before turning around to realize that Guerrero is standing behind him, already tearing up. Benoit breaks down into tears himself and embraces the WWE Champion. This is one of the few moments in history where the two world champions close the show in the ring together and it’s appropriate that it was best friends Guerrero and Benoit based on their career paths that were very parallel to each other. This was the night that both men were made.

This could go down as one of the greatest WrestleManias of all time if there wasn’t an almost two-hour gap between some of the best matches of the show. If the Goldberg-Lesnar match goes differently and actually lives up to the hype, then there is little to complain about. The matches to watch are within the first hour (Jericho vs. Christian and Evolution vs. Rock and Foley) and the final hour and half with the two world title matches. WrestleMania 20 is a good show that is appropriate for the occasion, but perhaps over saturation of matches and talent take away some of the luster of it all. If the show gets cut down to just the major matches, then this show is next to perfect.