Dark Pegasus Video Review: No Way Out 2004

No Way Out 2004 by J.D. Dunn but has dunn ever reviewed war to settle the score 1985 WWF/SWS Wrestlefest 91 UK Rampage 1991 KOTR 93 Survivor Series 1997 In Your House XXVII – The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Summerslam 1999 KOTR ’93 and SS ’97 will be added after I’m done with the WWE reviews. In fact, KOTR ’93 is already in the queue. It seems like I reviewed Rampage ’91 because I remember Jim Neidhart vs. the Warlord. February 15, 2004 Live from San Francisco, Calif. Your hosts are Michael Cole and Tazz. Torrie Wilson and her mom come out to hype their Playboy cover. Oh, wait. That’s Sable. Opening Match, World Tag Titles, Handicap Match: Rikishi & Scottie II Hottie vs. The Bashams & Shaniqua. The issue here is… Christ, I don’t even care. Scottie and Rikishi are the left-over remnants of II Cool. Rikishi aime le chocolate *pop* — Scottie ne pas. The faces dominate until Shaniqua breaks up the Worm with a clothesline. Scottie plays face-in-peril for a while, even making Shaniqua look like a million bucks. Scottie is really underappreciated. Probably because people got sick of the gimmick after a while. He tags Rikishi who goes for the Banzai Drop on Shaniqua. The Bashams save and slam him off the second rope, but Scottie takes them out. That allows Rikishi to squash her with the Banzai Drop and get some revenge after months of… whatever. Champs retain at 8:16. *1/2 Recap of Nidia sucking Jamie Noble’s inheritance dry. Blindfold Match: Jamie Noble vs. Nidia. These two were bf/gf until Nidia got blinded by Tajiri’s dreaded BLACK MIST! You’d think Jamie would at least have a size advantage on a girl, but you’d be wrong. He’s blindfolded here to pay him back for all the months that Nidia was “blind.” This is fairly heatless, I think because a decent amount of guys sympathize with Noble and look at Nidia as a gold-digger. Well, she ain’t messin’ with no broke-broke. Mostly, the match is just Nidia kicking Jamie in the ass and making fun of him. He nearly gets to second-base on PPV, but he turns at the last second. Finally, after four minutes of tomfoolery, he waits for the ref to turn his back, lifts up the hood, sees Nidia, and slams her off the top. All this begs the question, if he couldn’t see out from under the hood, how did he know the ref’s back was turned? Jamie gets the submission with the Front Guillotine (not the Dragon Sleeper, as called by Tazz) at 4:26. This falls under the old Krusty the Clown “if the pie to the face is going to work, the sap has to have dignity” rule. 1/2* In the back, John Cena confronts Kurt Angle, who had accused him of jumping Kurt from behind. Big brawl ensues. The APA vs. The World’s Greatest Tag Team. Shelton Benjamin injured Bradshaw’s arm to set this up. Yes, there was a time when ECW’s designated gerbil was on par with JBL. Ron Simmons plays face-in-peril as Haas & Benjamin do lots of “grappling,” according to Michael Cole. Basically, it’s a lot of holds on the mat. Bradshaw gets the hot tag and powerbombs Shelton. Charlie makes the save but gets Clotheslined from Hell. Oh, but Bradshaw’s arm is injured from Smackdown, so Benajmin is able to recover and finish him with a superkick at 7:20. Bizarre, considering how things are today. It was the usual formula with no bells nor whistles. ** Bill Goldberg shows up as a special guest of Raw’s Steve Austin. Paul Heyman comes down and gets in his face about it. That brings out Brock Lesnar to challenge Goldberg to get in the ring. Finally, Brock says the magic word (“bitch”), and Goldberg is forced to defend his honor. Brock tries to tackle him, but Goldberg winds up on top and hits the Jackhammer to leave Lesnar laying. Cole and Tazz jump on Goldberg’s case, trying to defend Smackdown’s honor, even though Lesnar is a heel. That’s pretty cool. Goldie gets arrested for assault, one presumes. It’s too bad both guys left when they did because they were just learning how to use them. Through in Batista, and you have a trio of monsters. Hardcore Holly tries to get him some of Brock for breaking his neck over a year earlier. That conveniently sets up… Hardcore Holly vs. Rhyno. They hook it up in the aisle and fight down to the ring. Cole touts both men’s physical intensity as Hardcore… grabs a headlock. Rhyno comes back with a bodyscissors and slugs Holly in the gut. Holly comes back with a running dropkick and goes up. Rhyno catches him and superplexes him to the canvas. That sets up a spinebuster and the GORE! Holly rolls to the floor, teasing the countout. He dives back in at nine and finishes with the Alabama Slam at 9:57. Well, that finish was lame, not to mention anticlimactic. The match was about average. ** Recap of Chavo Guerrero turning on Eddy. Rey Mysterio didn’t care for that and let him know about it – through his fists. Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio (w/Jorge Paez) vs. Chavo Guerrero (w/Chavo Guerrero Sr.). Jorge Paez is a boxer friend of Rey’s. Rey’s friends with a lot of boxers. What’s odd about the whole Rey-Eddy-Chavos situation is that Chavo turned on Eddy but spent far more time feuding with Rey over it. Rey uses his usual array of headscissors, but Chavo grounds him with an armbar. Rey hits the 619, but Chaviejo breaks up the Dime Drop. Paez knocks Chavo Sr. cold, but since the ref only sat the second punch, he tosses Jorge. Rey flies out on Chavito and Drops the Dime for two. He catches Chavo going up and goes for the Dragonrana. Instead, Chavo counters to a top-rope gutbuster. Chavo grabs an abdominal stretch and a SICK half-crab. Rey squirms out and sunset flips Chavo for two. Chavo catches him with a gutbuster for two. He goes for another half-crab, but Rey counters to a Wheelbarrow Bulldog. A headscissors sends Chavo into the post. A Stroke gets two for Mysterio. Awesome spot as Rey goes for the West Coast Pop, but Chavo rolls through into the half-crab. Rey is next to the ropes, though. Rey goes up, but Chavo Sr. shoves him off, and Chavo gets the pin at 17:21. It would have been far better if the roll-through to the half-crab had been the finish, but you take what you can get. The match was quite solid, the first in a series for them in 2004. ***1/4 #1 Contender’s Match: Kurt Angle vs. Big Show vs. John Cena. Cena stirs stuff up between Show and Kurt before the match and then just hangs back. Show gets tired of being laughed at and tosses Cena to the floor, tweaking his already injured knee. Show starts dropping the legs on Cena’s face and fights off Kurt Angle. Angle teases his apron German suplex and then goes low when the ref gets knocked aside. That finally takes Show out of the match. Angle hits Cena with ROLLING GERMANS! Show returns and saves, though. Angle and Cena turn their aggressions on Show (for survival). Cena knocks him silly with an elbowdrop, and Angle adds a missile dropkick. That sets up the FU from Cena on Big Show. Reaaaaalllly should have saved that for WrestleMania. Angle tries to jump Cena from behind but eats a DDT. He tosses Cena anyway and hits the Angleslam on Big Show for two. Cena returns, but Angle takes him down into the Anklelock. Show recovers and chokeslams Angle to break it up. Cena tries to FU Angle, but Show trips him from behind. He slams Cena’s knee into the turnbuckle, but Angle knocks Show to the floor and finishes Cena with the Anklelock at 12:19. This was a lot of “how do we deal with a man who has hands the size of skillets and a head the size of a typewriter?” plus a whole lot of finishers/finisher reversals. *** We get a commercial for the ill-advised “originals” CD that featured WWE Superstars singing their very own songs! I think I’ll stick with Steve McMichael’s fantastic work on “The Superbowl Shuffle,” thank you. WWE Heavyweight Title: Brock Lesnar vs. Eddy Guerrero. This was odd, mostly for the fact that there just wasn’t enough time to build a feud between them. In fact, Lesnar’s major feud was with Goldberg, which put Eddy behind the 8-ball right off the bat because it made the championship secondary to Goldberg. But, hindsight is 20/20. Brock shoves Eddy backward and tells him he ain’t nothing. Eddy gets his feet up to block a charge, but Brock blocks a huracanrana and helicopters Eddy across the ring. Brock tosses him around like a ragdoll and destroys Guerrero with a running knee. Brock belly-to-bellies Eddy all the way to the outside. Eddy is just getting murdered in there. Eddy tries a little strategy by wrapping Brock’s leg around the ringpost. Brock just yanks Eddy into the post. Brock drops Eddy with a Fireman’s Cradle Suplex for two. Eddy counters a chinlock to a jawbreaker and dropkicks Lesnar’s knee. Brock explodes with a clothesline. Lesnar delivers shoulderblocks in the corner. He tries another high knee, but Eddy ducks out of the way! Lesnar topples over the top, injuring his knee even further. Back in, Eddy drops Brock with a suplex. He charges but takes a hotshot for two. Brock talks trash, but Eddy takes him down into an STF. Brock shoves out of a figure-four. Crowd chants “Goldberg!” Eddy slips out of a suplex and headscissors Brock down. Eddy goes back to the leg and finally locks in that figure-four. Lesnar pulls himself to the bottom rope. Eddy slaps on another STF, but Brock just brushes him off. Brock just MURDERS Eddy with a spinebuster. ONE, TWO, THR–NOO!!! Brock suplexes Eddy and yells, “Just die!” Brock applies a gutwrench lock to wear Eddy down even further. Eddy starts to power up, so Brock tosses him across the ring. Eddy headbutts him and goes back to the knee. Brock pops up, but Eddy sends him down with another headscissors. Eddy delivers the Triple Verticals and goes up. Eddy comes off for the frogsplash, but Brock rolls out of the way. Brock hits the F5, but sends Guerrero into Referee Brian Hebner. Brock covers, but there’s no ref. Lesnar brings in the title belt, but Goldberg slides into the ring and SPEARS HIM! Eddy covers. ONE, TWO, THRE—NOOOOO!!! Eddy sees that the ref is still groggy, so he picks up the belt and…MISSES! Brock picks him up for the F5, but Eddy counters to a DDT on the title belt. Eddy hits a frosplash. ONE, TWO, THREE! New champion! (30:05) Tremendous, long match. It felt a little like Flair vs. Vader from Starrcade with Guerrero just whittling away. Goldberg’s interference was a bit of a blight on the match, but since it didn’t lead directly to Guerrero’s win, it’s forgivable. ****1/4

The 411: If you can get through the sluggish undercard, the last three matches make the show worth watching. Eddy's win is a MOTYC and, more importantly, a great moment. A month later, Benoit, would win the World Title, and the Radicalz dream was finally realized. In the long run, it didn't mean much for either guy outside of being able to call themselves former World champions, but it signaled a sea change in the WWE's willingness to try new and creative things. Thumbs up.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]