Grilling JR - Backlash 2004 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Let’s get into our topic today JR - discussing what took place 20 years ago in the WWE - the build and the show of Backlash 2004

We’re coming off WrestleMania 20 and the giant upheaval that is the WWE talent roster…

Exiting coming off the show…the Rock, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar. This isn’t your run of the mill roster reset was it?

The main takeaways for the Raw brand were Evolution defeating The Rock & Mick Foley in a handicap match, Christian defeating Chris Jericho and aligning with Trish Stratus.

And Chris Benoit defeated World Heavyweight Champion Triple H & Shawn Michaels to become champion and close the show. Having Benoit be on top of the brand isn’t something that many ever expected when the Radicals were signed by the WWF - but having a WrestleMania end with Benoit over Shawn Michaels & Triple H in Madison Square Garden on a card put together by Vince McMahon - shocking wasn’t it?

Business is hot as the Raw after WrestleMania drew 17,418 fans - the largest crowd for a WWE television taping in a few years…and it is announced that a draft lottery was coming the next week. How bad did the roster need to be reset - and as head of Talent Relations - everyone starts coming to you didn’t they?

From the Observer

“All members of Smackdown will be rushed back from a 3/21 show in Glasgow, Scotland to Detroit on 3/22 and appear on the show. None of the Smackdown wrestlers were aware of any of this until they got word in Manchester, NH that McMahon had made the announcement on Raw, and that they had to now be in Detroit. It should also be noted that when McMahon was at a Wrestlemania press conference in New York where fans were invited, at Planet Hollywood, when he brought up the success of the brand extension, he was heavily booed.”

When something like this takes place - how difficult is it to rearrange lives?

What were the feelings on the inside regarding the draft extension?

“Jim Ross in an interview with “The Wrestling Guys” radio show said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Austin wrestle at least another match. He said nothing is on the drawing board but if his health

continues to improve, they may do a retirement match at the right time and under the right circumstances.”

It wouldn’t be until 2022 that this match takes place - but the relationship with the WWE and Steve was icey at best at this point in time was it not?

Just a few weeks later this would come out…

Wade Keller would report - Steve Austin is a free agent.

“Five years ago those words would have reverberated across the wrestling industry world wide and threatened to shift the balance of power toward the highest bidder. Today, it's barely a headline story due to Austin's health and his lack of options in wrestling outside of WWE.

Negotiations reached a break-point last week, leading to WWE posting a statement on its website - "WWE and Steve Austin part ways." It was followed by a standard, pithy statement saying they were unable to come to terms on a new agreement and mutually agreed to part ways. It said both parties are open to negotiations in the future. Then WWE wished him luck.

Sources say the negotiations came down to a simple, yet unresolvable difference - Austin's desire to gain use of the "Stone Cold" monicker for non-WWE projects and WWE's unwillingness to transfer such rights. Austin had become eager to test his marketability on outside projects without being beholden to the WWE schedule of weekly appearances on Raw.”

There’s been a lot of talk of the Rock gaining his IPs and copyrights - how much was this an issue?

Were you involved in this?

You couldn’t have been surprised that this ended the way it did right?

Keller went on to write - Austin is interested in exploring non-wrestling projects, including a long talked about syndicated hunting and fishing show, movie deals, and other acting opportunities. During Austin's peak run as a headliner, WWE was presented with an offer for a small part for Austin in a Jean-Claud Van Damme movie. WWE turned it down without consulting Austin because they didn't want him to miss any schedule matches or appearances for them. The part went to Goldberg, then in WCW. Austin since then realized the value of being in charge of his own schedule and his own opportunities.

What can you tell us about this issue he had with the office?

“Although Austin hadn't been saying so out loud or on-record, many within WWE believe Austin also had realized his character had dipped to a low point in terms of relevance within storylines. Austin has always had tremendous pride in how he is presented, and the poor reaction to his "Raw Sheriff" gimmick and a lack of obvious directions for it to take in coming months led to him considering new career options. Austin was still getting great crowd pops, but it was clearly based on his reputation and star-status, not any particularly hot issues he was involved in as "Raw Sheriff."

Did he need to take a break instead of turning into a comedy character?

“Jim Ross in a New York Times story noted they were going to recruit at the NCAA tournament, which takes place 3/18 to 3/20 at the Savvis

Center in St. Louis. All sessions are sold out as the goal is to top 100,000 tickets sold over six sessions. Last year, in the same building, they sold 96,994 tickets. I believe Gerald Brisco will be going since he’s the unofficial liaison to keep up with amateur wrestling because of his background and friends in that game.”

Was this the first time this was attempted? Why was this important for you in recruiting?

From the Observer

“What was billed as a night that would change the face of the WWE wound up simply being a very entertaining shuffling of mid-carders, and not really addressing the major problem, leaving Smackdown at present with the weakest PPV main event in modern company history scheduled for May.

With the quitting of Brock Lesnar, who had been the focal point of the Smackdown show from when Hulk Hogan quit in August of 2002, until the spot was given to Eddy Guerrero in February, Smackdown’s heel side was weakened. Vince McMahon called for a lottery, theoretically

to find a logical way to fill the gap. The decision was made before Kurt Angle called the morning after Wrestlemania with numbness in his fingers, which put his career in jeopardy.”

It just didn’t end for the WWE at this point in time did it?

The rebranding of Bradshaw - the shuffle - the weakest main event for WWE between Bradshaw & Eddie Guerrero - the company was almost forced to do this wasn’t it?

On that Raw - Eric Bischoff would draft Paul Heyman - who was then Smackdown GM - and then quit. This is the move Heyman into a role as a manager instead of GM - was Paul interested in something like this do you know at the time?

Kurt would avoid surgery and come back a few months later - but his issues made for a gigantic move by putting Triple H on Smackdown. But before he can work one SmackDown - he’s traded back to Raw for Booker T & the Dudleys. Does that make SmackDown look even worse?

Here’s how it all went down - and let’s do something we don’t often do JR - word association.

NEW TO SMACKDOWN

*Rene Dupree - Most likely he’ll be repackaged as a single as “The French Phenom,” his OVW role.

Rene Dupree never went very far did he…

*Mark Jindrak - The plan is to give him a bigger push, and the idea to alleviate his lack of charisma is to make Teddy Long his manager 

*Rob Van Dam 

He recently appeared on AEW - Rob Van Dam in 2004 - could he had been higher up on the card?

*Spike Dudley - 

Did Spike ever have a chance?

*Dudleys - 

They were in teh company at this point 5 years - there wasn’t much else for them to do was there?

*Booker T - This is the one positive, since he’d been relegated to the tag team division in Raw, which meant little. Smackdown is strong on the face side, and matches with Guerrero, Undertaker, Cena and Van Dam would all be fresh.

Booker needed this as well right?

*Rico & Jackie Gayda - Rico is dead. Gayda is fresh meat for the bikini contests and lingerie contests Smackdown house shows are noted for. Basically she’s filling Nidia’s role.

Rico was so highly regarded by Jim Cornette - why didn’t this work?

NEW TO RAW

*Shelton Benjamin - 

Shelton would immediately come to Raw and get a win over Triple H before the next week Hunter essentially defeated him and ate him up. Could Shelton had been something if it didn’t happen that way?

*Nidia - 

Recently saw her doing an appearance and she looks great JR. If there was a NXT back then - could she had turned out to be longer in the company?

*Chuck Palumbo - 

Was he another victim of not having a NXT?

*A-Train - 

Look at Matt Bloom now - and where he was at this point. It pays to always be a professional doesn’t it?

*Edge - This was planned even before the lottery idea. He will get a big push, as evidenced by his spearing of Bischoff. 

This is the first real elevation of Edge since his 2002 feud with Kurt Angle. Was it his time - or just out of necessary?

*Tajiri - 

Talk about a great worker - personality - was it size and inability to speak English?

*Rhyno - 

What happened to Rhyno? It always seemed like he had a chance. What stopped him? 

Do you know if Booker and/or the Dudleys were offended at all that it took all 3 of them for just Triple H by himself in this trade in storyline?

Keller reported about the draft - Wrestlers from both rosters are upset over the way the office handled the roster lottery draft. 

Given the various pre-WrestleMania functions the crew had to take part in, some members of the Smackdown roster will have been away from home for close to two weeks, and, as of Monday afternoon, wrestlers from both rosters had no idea whether they were going to be moved. "Guys can't even tell their wives when they're going to be home next," said one wrestler. Wrestlers were also frustrated with the way various company officials acted on the day of the show. 

There was real concern among wrestlers that WWE would make them go to the WWE website to find out if they had been shipped to a new brand. Two years ago, wrestlers were told to visit the website to find out their position because WWE didn't want anyone to leak info of who was on which roster before their company website had the news. This year it wasn't quite so bad. Wrestlers who were part of the draft or trades were pulled aside and told privately. 

 Was there always a worry in the office about these things? 

Wrestlers say most office members used the company line when discussing the lottery, which is that it will create a number of opportunities for wrestlers to move up. While the wrestlers may agree with assessment of the lottery move, they still feel as if the office could have given them more notice, or at least addressed their frustrations instead of acting as if there was no reason for the wrestlers to be upset about the situation. They're not pleased that management is using their desire to not see storylines leak to the wrestling media as an excuse to not inform them of major changes in their jobs until the last second.

How difficult was it in your role to walk this line? 

Ron Simmons was released from the WWE at this time. It ended up resulting in the biggest push of Bradshaw's career after that happened. What's your memories of Ron's release and how was it taken backstage?

Observer 4/5:

The company announced the beginning of a video-on-demand type service for its 75,000 hour library of old WWF, WWWF, WCW, NWA, ECW, SMW and AWA footage. Vince McMahon made the announcement on 3/24 of a subscription service called WWE 24/7. This would release 20 hours of content every month of old shows. The plan is to introduce this service through a free-on-demand promotional effort before instituting the pay service. The price hasn’t been decided, but they are talking about something in the $6 to $9 per month range, of which it is expected (no deals have yet been signed but this is the usual industry breakdown)

would be shared 50/50 with the PPV distributor.

This would lead to more content - with you being a part of a lot of Legends of Wrestling roundtables. What were your favorite and least favorite memories of those roundtables?

The build to Backlash features Cactus & Randy Orton really getting heated up. This was the program that pushed Randy to a whole new level wasn’t it?

Did you see him as a World Champion by the end of the year?

How important was Cactus to getting Orton over the hump so to speak?

At the same time - Benoit is returning to his home country as the conquering hero - to defend his title against Hunter & Shawn Michaels again. Does Backlash sometimes fall into that rut of having WrestleMania matches be rematches?

John Hennigan would become Johnny Nitro as a kiss ass gimmick to Eric Bischoff. Look at Johnny TV now still working the gimmick all these years later JR.

The other heat program was Chris Jericho, Trish Stratus & Christian’s love triangle that blew up at WrestleMania. Trish in this role was just tremendous was she not?

Jericho & Christian together…as a tag team…against each other they just continue to work amazing together didn’t they?

From the Observer

“The first ever WWE event in Mexico on 4/3 was a big success with a crowd of 10,850 (reported locally as 16,000, but that is because locally they claim the new arena holds 20,000 when it really holds closer to 15,000) paying $443,207 at the new Arena Monterrey. With the high ticket prices ($155 ringside), it set an all-time live gate record for the country. The old record was $400,000 set on April 30, 1993, for the AAA Konnan vs. Cien Caras loser must retire match at the Plaza de Toros in Mexico City.

Fans came from all over the country for the three-and-a-half hour show. It was a big deal, because traditionally in Mexico, tickets to Lucha Libre are inexpensive, and there was some question whether in a poor country they could charge high prices.”

Was that a surprise to see how well received the WWE was for the first time?

“Terri Boatright Runnels and Sean O’Haire were both let go this past week. Runnels, 37, reached some sort of a mutual agreement, since she had a longer-term contract. They had stopped using her on television so this wasn’t unexpected. She had been a television character in wrestling dating back to her days as Alexandra York some more than 13 years ago in WCW. That’s pretty much as long a career as a woman non-wrestling character is going to have in the modern business. O’Haire’s being let go was also expected. He’d gotten over great in OVW, but that was due to his storyline as being Jim Ross’ personal rep to counteract the John Laurinaitis storyline of trying to mess with

everyone in the company.”

Chat me up about this JR?

“Rock was on Howard Stern on 4/2 and said he’d

purchased the rights to use the name “The Rock” from Vince McMahon. He said the negotiations went easy. Stern said that Vince must have lost his mind when he gave him the rights to use the name.

That’s a big deal, because until recently, he’d been trying to get the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson name over to prepare for dropping of The Rock when his WWE contract ran out and if he didn’t make a new

deal. His contract expires later this year and that means after that point, WWE would no longer get an Executive Producer title credit on his movies and a cut (which is close to if not seven figures per

picture). He said he’s not sure what he’s going to do about renewing.”

Look at how different things are now JR…

Grandmaster Sexay - Brian Christopher returns on the go-home Raw - and quickly loses to Kane in under 2 minutes. Was this a favor to Jerry for his return?

Around the time of the PPV, John Laurinaitis officially replaced Jim Ross as head of talent relations. We have covered this in depth in our Talent Relations episode in the archives. Was it different for you to call a show without the task of talent relations?

We’re at the show now

Backlash - April 18, 2004

PPV buys - 320,000

Last year Backlash 2003 buys - 345,000 main event was Goldberg vs. the Rock

Last month WrestleMania XX buys - 885,000

Observer 4/26:

WWE BACKLASH POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 324 (99.7%)

Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)

In the middle 1 (00.3%)

From the Observer

“Whether the 4/18 Backlash PPV from Edmonton will result in Chris Benoit and Randy Orton being significantly bigger stars than they were a week earlier is up for debate. Whether they and the company could have done much of anything better in one night to get them there isn’t.

Benoit, in his home town of Edmonton, with it being made clear throughout the show it was the city he considers home, retained the World title in a perfect main event finish, beating HHH and Shawn Michaels when he made Michaels tap to a sharpshooter with Earl Hebner as ref. By taking a bump off the ramp through tables and one on thumb tacks, Orton, as weird as this sounds, added a toughness to his aura that he needed to be a money player, and had easily the match of his career against Mick Foley. While regular usage of matches of this type are a negative, because WWE hasn’t done this type of a match in years, it was very effective.”

With Benoit and his role in history now - Orton and Foley end up being the stand out affair now. But Benoit getting to beat Michaels in Canada with the sharpshooter…nice poetic justice wasn’t it?

“As far as the poll goes, it is one of the best responses for a pro wrestling show in history. I can’t recall one show in company history to get 0 thumbs down. The 1997 Calgary Stampede show, which had four matches, two of which were *** or better and all four of which topped ** had one thumbs down and 99.6% thumbs up. In a sense, that surprises me. Not that two legit match of the year contenders on the same night doesn’t make a show a thumbs up, but there have been better shows, including the recent Wrestlemania, that didn’t get anywhere near this kind of unanimity.”

This show is really lost in history - but it’s a tremendous event looking back is it not?

A. Val Venis pinned Matt Hardy in 7:56 with the money shot after Venis blocked an attempted twist of fate off the middle rope. Even though Hardy played heel, the crowd cheered him. Hardy also bloodied up his nose. **

Did you see Matt Hardy recently returned to TNA as the Delete version of himself?

“1. Shelton Benjamin pinned Ric Flair in 9:29. Even with his big TV push in recent weeks, the people are slow in getting into Benjamin as a main guy. Flair, flying in from a several day U.K. promotional tour, took a backdrop, landing even more than usual on one side, on the floor. Flair did a lot of face first bumps, once, early from a slap doing the delayed deal, which got a pop but seemed comedic. Flair did his first flip into the turnbuckles in months. Benjamin won with a sloppy clothesline off the top rope. **½”

Was this something that showed maybe Benjamin wasn’t exactly ready?

“2. Jonathan Coachman pinned Tajiri in 6:25. This was different than you’d think, because Coach didn’t play the role of pussy manager. Instead, he did a lot of wrestling and was positioned as a great athlete. He even used shoot moves like an ankle crank after Tajiri kicked the post and sold for a few minutes. Finish saw Garrison Cade deck Tajiri with the power of the punch, and Coach schoolboyed him.

½*”

This…was not the best use of Tajiri was it?

“3. Chris Jericho beat Christian and Trish Stratus in a handicap match in 11:12. Christian got near falls with a reverse DDT, and with the unprettier. Christian tagged Stratus to humiliate Jericho by having her pin him. Of course, Jericho kicked out. Finishing sequence saw Christian use the Texas cloverleaf, but Jericho reversed it. Jericho got the walls on Stratus, but Christian schoolboyed him for a near fall playing off the Mania finish. Christian went for the unprettier, but Jericho blocked it and catapulted Christian into Stratus. Jericho got the pin after a running enzuigiri on Christian. ***¼”

It’s amazing to me that this isn’t a story that’s done anymore…but all 3 in their roles here were tremendous weren’t they?

In the beginning of the Eugene comedy segment, he was reading the Divas magazine and somehow stumbled into the women’s dressing room. Gail Kim was wearing her underwear, but it didn’t look much different than her old ring costume. Molly Holly came out without her wig. William Regal did his comedy, and made faces about seeing Kim without clothes.

Having Regal back and his facials - quite tremendous.

“4. Victoria pinned Lita to retain the women’s title in 7:22. Lita has a certain cool charisma that could make her as big a star as she once was, but her wrestling just isn’t holding up. They were given time to have a decent match and crowd was into her at the start, but it was sloppy. They both slipped out of the ring once. At another point, Victoria did a moonsault that was supposed to miss, but ended up hitting. After a series of near falls, Victoria won with an inside cradle. Kim and Holly both ran-in and left Victoria and Lita laying. Looks like Kim got Jazz’s spot. 3/4*”

We’re at a weird spot in women’s wrestling at this point - but Victoria was quite good was she not?

“5. Randy Orton retained the IC title over Mick Foley, who was wearing his Cactus Jack tights and Cactus Jack t-shirt, in 23:03 of a falls count anywhere weapons match. Foley looked the closest to slim as he’s looked since the earliest part of his career. Place went nuts as Foley kept rubbing the barbed wire on Orton’s face. He then put the bat on Orton’s groin and leg dropped the bat and groin. He pulled out some supposed gasoline and poured it on the bat and teased setting it on fire. Eric Bischoff came out and said that if he lit it on fire, he’d be fired and the entire show would be stopped by the fire marshal. That was Bischoff’s only appearance on the show. Foley brought out a board covered in barbed wire. But of course, it was Foley who went into the barbed wire, and was then dropkicked into a second crash. Foley bled from the arm. Orton then pulled out a bag filled with tons of thumb tacks. In the surprise of the match, it was Orton who took the bump into thumb tacks. He were sticking all into his back and shoulders. It was quite sick. Orton acted like he was running away and quitting. Foley went back, brought him back out, and hip tossed him off the ramp onto a gimmicked set up of tables. Foley then did an elbow off the ramp onto Orton no the tables for a great near fall. 

Orton got the barbed wire bat and hit Foley with it, so Foley juiced from the head. He did two more bat shots to the back. Foley came back with the Socko claw. Orton broke it with a low blow. Foley went for the Socko claw again, but Orton broke it using he RKO, for a near fall. Orton then got the pin with an RKO with Foley’s face landing on the barbed wire bat. They took the camera away from Foley and went backstage, so if he got a big reaction, it wasn’t shown. ****½”

What a match and what a way to get Randy Orton over to the highest degree. Was Randy ready for this?

“6. Hurricane & Rosey beat La Resistance in 5:02. This was designed to be a dead match, with the idea it would enable the next match to get over. Crowd wasn’t into it. Rob Conway looked good in what he did. Eugene wandered into the ring and started bouncing off the ropes. Hurricane did a plancha on Conway and Grenier. Finish saw Regal come up. Conway made a move after Eugene and Hurricane got him from behind with the final cut. *”

Didn’t need this match did you?

“7. Edge pinned Kane in 6:25. This was the one negative spot of the show that was considered an important match. Crowd wasn’t much into this and it wasn’t much of a match. Earl Hebner was ref, and the crowd was more into the “You screwed Bret” chants early. He got bumped. Kane went for a choke slam, but Edge gave him a low blow, a

shot with the cast, which had been ruled illegal, followed by a spear for the pin. I don’t think people bought the finish. *”

Did this help anyone?

“8. Chris Benoit won a three-way rematch from Mania over Shawn Michaels and HHH in 30:08. Crowd may have hated Michaels even more than HHH, and that was no surprise. The whole match was booked as the vindication over Michaels for 1997.

Jim Ross noted that if HHH won the title, he’d move to second place on the all-time list of most world titles, tying Verne Gagne and Rock. Well, Rock does have nine and HHH has eight. Gagne is listed as having ten reigns of the major Minneapolis based AWA title, although if you add the Omaha version, you’d get four or five more. Lou Thesz would have anywhere from 12 to 17, depending upon what you’d count as legit.

Towards the finish

Outside the ring, HHH set up a pedigree on the ring steps, but Benoit reversed and catapulted HHH into the post. Again no juice in this match. Benoit got in the ring and Michaels went for the superkick. Benoit caught the foot and put Michaels in the sharpshooter. He had him in for a long time. Michaels struggled to the ropes but just before he could touch them, Benoit pulled him into the center. HHH was getting up and they teased him making the save, but he was slow getting there and Michaels tapped out. 

After the TV went off the air, Benoit draped himself in the Canadian flag, talked about Michaels screwing Bret and challenged him to come back. Michaels hugged and gave Earl Hebner a high-five to get the crowd hot, and left. HHH ended up back out and Benoit put him in the crossface and made him tap to end the show. 

****½

This ends up being more about Benoit and Hebner but it’s still one of those all-time classic matches…that have been erased in history. Where do you stand on Benoit being erased?