SmackDown entered the spring of 2004 in dire straits, as Kurt Angle (rehabbing from neck surgery) and Brock Lesnar (trying his hand at a football career), arguably the two most established names on the brand, were now out of all post-WrestleMania plans. The newly reinstated WWE Draft had the opportunity to get the show the starpower it so desperately needed, but instead, SmackDown was handed castoffs and scraps, left to build a cohesive main event scene out of whatever drawing power was left in Booker T and Rob Van Dam, and youngsters like Rene Dupree and Mark Jindrak. SmackDown was almost thrown a bone when Triple H was drafted to the show, but that was quickly nixed, and an injury to The Big Show in the weeks between WrestleMania and Judgment Day forced yet another potential contributor to the sideline. With Booker already scheduled for a program working against The Undertaker, there were no heels left on this shockingly empty roster to challenge the beloved Eddie Guerrero for his WWE Championship, and it was time to throw a dart at the board, and pray it struck dead center. Vince tabbed Bradshaw of the APA to be next for Eddie, a wild concept considering how little the Texan had accomplished in his years spent toiling in the midcard. Layfield hadn't become what Vince had hoped he could be, and with no else left to step up to the plate, it was time to sink or swim, with Layfield's WWE tenure likely hanging in the balance. Against all odds, it worked, as the former beer-swilling and poker-playing babyface transformed into the dastardly John "Bradshaw" Layfield, a self-made millionaire with an eye for the horizon, and a racially tinged feud with Guerrero quickly established Layfield as one of the most hated men in the company. The angle that saw Layfield terrorize Eddie's mother (inducing a legitimate medical episode on her part) upped the intensity heading into this pay-per-view main event, where JBL had his chance to become a household name in what would turn out to be a truly horrifying grudge match.
- Judgment Day 2004 comes to you from the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena, sigh) in Los Angeles, California, the previous host of Unforgiven 2002 and the home of the Lakers. Michael Cole and Tazz are on the call.
- Our opening contest pits the thrown-together tandem of Rey Mysterio (a huge fan favorite here in SoCal) and Rob Van Dam against the Dudley Boyz, who came over to SmackDown in the Draft. Bubba and D-Von have been refreshed as a snarling heels, in league with Paul Heyman, and it suits Bubba especially well, as his constant barrage of trash talk kept this match interesting through it's lulls. The action doesn't slow down often though, and it's electric when all four men get going, as Rey and Rob are all over the place, popping the crowd with ease. Rey is the obvious star here, springing off the ropes for bulldogs and facebusters, while bumping around for Bubba, who gets put over strong by running through and tossing around the two smaller men. Despite their experience advantage as a team, the Dudleys end up overwhelmed by the awesome speed of the two babyfaces, who get the crowd rocking with a terrific finishing stretch, as Rey nails a double 619, gets launched by Van Dam into orbit for a huge avalanche Frankensteiner, and Van Dam polishes off D-Von with the Five-Star Frog Splash. This stayed consistently engaging throughout, and breathed new life into the presentation of Bubba Ray and D-Von, who had been floundering on Raw.
- Kurt Angle, now appointed the SmackDown General Manager, riles up the crowd by taking some shots at the Lakers and bringing up Kobe's sexual assault trial (why go there?), before putting Torrie Wilson's WWE career on the line in her match with Dawn Marie. This is revenge for Torrie's role in a backstage incident involving Angle, as her mockery of Big Show resulted in the giant attacking Angle, which left Kurt in a wheelchair. Despite the added stakes, though, absolutely no one in the arena takes the Torrie/Dawn match seriously, which is fair, as both women still haven't gotten through the first stage of their wrestling training and make even stomps and elbow drops look difficult. The crowd does wake up for Dawn's pants snapping open, which is also fair, though beyond the obvious appeal of seeing so much of what Dawn's packing, I was very impressed by her ability to deliver a facebuster to Torrie afterward, with her flimsy gear about to fall down to her ankles. Both women wisely take it home, as Torrie wins with a backslide, and while she may have saved her job, I assume at least one seamstress was left out of work after this one.
- SmackDown has quite some range, as we move from bare ass to an angel of death debuting in a wrestling ring. Mordecai (otherwise known as Kevin Thorne) has gotten the pre-taped vignette treatment on SmackDown over the last couple months, and while the gimmick definitely had potential, this new entity failed to generate much of a reaction out of the folks here at Staples. The guy is bland in the ring, with nothing more than a few rope holds and some Irish whips in his arsenal, leaving it up to his opponent to get him over. Scotty Too Hotty tried his best, but Mordecai was dead on arrival, delivering his version of the Razor's Edge to complete apathy.
- After a couple dire matches, Judgment Day truly reaches the bottom of the barrel with a WWE Tag Team Championship pitting the champions, Rico and Charlie Haas, against the duo of Billy Gunn and Hardcore Holly. This is nothing but the pure essence of gay panic distilled into one wrestling match, as Rico snatches and fondles every part of Gunn and Holly he can reach, while the crowd reacts in delight, because I guess sexual assault is cool now. I feel awful for Haas to be involved in this nonsense, but it has to have been so much worse for Rico, a well-trained and capable wrestler who became a complete caricature and the face of WWE's most homophobic tendencies. Nothing about this makes anyone look good, especially the fools that booked it. Rico and Haas retain, for whatever that matters.
- In a further attempt to drag their championships through the muck, the maniacs in charge of SmackDown have put together a complete farce of a Cruiserweight Championship feud, as Chavo Guerrero lost the title to Jacqueline on SmackDown. The writers have gone for all the low brow humor here, as Chavo Classic got pantsed by Jackie, who's been running around taunting Chavo for "losing to a girl", and presented the former champ with lingerie in a painful backstage segment earlier in the night. Thankfully, Chavo is allowed to move on from this circle of Hell by re-capturing the gold from Jackie, overcoming the disadvantage of having his arm tied behind his back thanks to his father, dropping Jackie with a Gory Bomb.
- John Cena's reign as US Champion immediately presents him with a difficult challenge, as after working with a plethora of veterans on his path up the card, Cena is positioned against a fellow newbie in Rene Dupree in this title match. Considering how young both men were, and how little in-ring experience each had, this was an impressive outing. Dupree builds heat by working Cena's back after Cena took a painful bump attempting a crossbody to the outside, applying a Bearhug and clubbing away at the kidneys. Dupree's aggressiveness and Cena's intensity helped keep this struggle interesting, and the two then move fluidly through an engaging final sequence with the crowd fully invested. Dupree counters a Cena dive with a DDT, and wiggles free of the F-U to deliver a neckbreaker. The crowd bite hard on two nearfalls, as Cena almost wins it with back-to-back pinfall attempts, before he scores chessmate, catching Dupree attempting to float over out of the corner, quickly delivering the F-U to retain. Much like with JBL in the main event, these two blue chippers were sent out there to sink or swim under the pay-per-view spotlight, and I thought they acquitted themselves well.
- Booker T has lost whatever remained of his marbles upon transferring over to SmackDown, understandable given what we've seen tonight, and he's ended up in the crosshairs of The Undertaker after insisting that he was the biggest star on the brand. Booker's main defense against the revived Deadman is a black bag that he acquired from a shaman, and his insistence to go after the bag for protection turns this match into a meandering mess, with the pace slowed to an absolute crawl. After a large amount of kick and punches, plus the occasional crowd-pleasing signature move from Undertaker, Booker avoids a Last Ride and throws powder from the bag into Undertaker's face. That doesn't do much to help him, though, as after a couple more minutes of brawling, Undertaker lays Booker to rest with a Chokeslam and Tombstone Piledriver.
TRIGGER WARNING: The match that follows may be too much for a squeamish reader. My description of what is about to occur will not be excessively graphic, but there's I can do to dance around the horrors that lie ahead. Please turn back now if you have a weak stomach, I don't want to be responsible for any heaving that might follow my next paragraph.
- Main event time, as Eddie Guerrero and John "Bradshaw" Layfield collide in what has to be the most violent WWE Championship match ever televised. It starts meekly enough, with Eddie embracing more underhand tactics to punish Layfield, and the former tag team champion working headlocks and tossing Eddie around on the outside. The dial gets cranked up halfway through, though, as Layfield catches Eddie with a stiff chair shot to the head, and in a terrifying mishap, Eddie infamously botches his bladejob, puncturing an artery in his forehead. In seconds, Eddie is covered in the red stuff, and you can actually see it all spurting out from under his skin, which is as gross and unsettling as it sounds. Blood is everywhere as this match continues, as Eddie and Bradshaw are decorated in red, the mat turns into a painting of carnage, and despite all of it, Eddie fights on. Eddie gets a stroke of luck when a ref bump precedes the Clothesline From Hell, gifting him a precious few seconds to kick out, but a ring-rattling powerbomb is greeted by an emphatic kick out from the champion, with no BS necessary to save him. At that moment, everyone in the building knows JBL is done for, and the fire of Eddie's soul ignites in a fury of chair and title belt shots, leading to the most obvious of disqualifications. It's the most tired of WWE tropes; the babyface being antagonized into a costly, self-destructive mistake, but after the torment JBL has dished out, it feels justified. The Staples Center crowd agree with him there, as the usual jeering that greets a DQ never materializes, as they remain enthralled by Eddie, who can barely get his feet under him but insists on carrying on with the post-match routine anyway. It truly is a testament to Eddie's pride and will that he can still charge Layfield down on the ramp, and leap off the top rope for that beautiful Frog Splash. This was an experience, the likes of which you so rarely see. It was a difficult watch, and I'm not sure it could even be called a "good" match, but it was a historic achievement by Eddie Guerrero, who left more of his soul in a pro wrestling ring than anyone else.
4/10
2004 Average: 7.2 (Down from 8)
Judgment Day had all the makings of a bottom-tier WWE pay-per-view, but with every bucket of blood that Eddie Guerrero spilled, it slowly climbed up those rankings. It's still largely unwatchable, but if you have the stomach for it, the main event deserves to be seen as a tribute to everything that made Eddie special.
- Henry
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