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AUGUST 30, 2004 - MONDAY NIGHT RAW
The first full year of the Pat Dooley Era of World Wrestling Entertainment comes to an end as the World Title #1 contender tournament continues with a second-round match pitting WWE Tag Team Champion Kane taking on Fred Williams. Williams manages to get in a bit of offense, but Kane eventually dominates, picking up the win in a squash with the Tombstone. Afterwards, Kane pounds the hell out of Williams some more. Kane has earned the first quarterfinal berth in the tournament!
Kane's tag team partner Big Show takes on fellow Natural Born Ministry member (and Kane's brother) Kane next in what winds up being a horrible match. Undertaker winds up pinning Show with a handful of tights. After the match, Taker goes to shake hands with his former minion, but Show refuses and walks off.
Taker gets a hype video while I try to salvage his career. This guy's overness is dropping like mad, and this match definitely didn't help. But he's in the quarters, so I have to try something.
Tag-team specialists Shelton Benjamin and Rene Dupree are out next for another second-round match. Vast improvement over our previous match, as this one goes back-and-forth several times. Eventually, Shelton hits a butterfly suplex to set up a superkick for the win.
Our next second-round match pits Rhyno against William Regal. Rhyno has been on a hot streak of late, including his Summerslam victory over Undertaker. He picks up another big win here in a competitive match against the veteran Regal. He hits the Gore for the win. The announcers bring up that Rhyno's quarterfinal opponent is Undertaker, who will be looking for revenge after two PPV losses to Rhyno this year.
World Champion Sean O'Haire hits the ring. He cuts a very good promo about his victory eight days ago over Kurt Angle to not only retain his title, but drive arguably the greatest wrestler in the history of the industry out of WWE forever. He then loses his cool a little bit talking about how he ended Kurt Angle's career just like he told us he would, he retained the World Title just like he told us he would, but the next night on RAW, they couldn't even give him a slot. But that's fine. Fortunately, the Natural Born Thrillers stacked the brackets. His eight stablemates all got slots in the tournament for a shot at his title, and then all of his original NBT friends got wiped out. So that's when O'Haire leapt into action. He wants to apologize to Shawn Stasiak for accidentally costing him his match against A-Train last week. And he can assure Damien that tonight he's going to do whatever it takes to help him get into the quarters along with Kane and Undertaker. But, obviously, he's not telling us anything we don't already know.
Earlier tonight, Charlie Haas' tag team partner Shelton Benjamin advanced to the tournament quarterfinals. Now Haas attempts to join his partner, but first he has to get through the "Legend Killer" Randy Orton! They put on a pretty good match that ends with Orton hitting the RKO for the win and a quarterfinal berth. The announcers hype up Randy Orton against Kane next week!
Chris Jericho heads to the ring to take on his former Thrillseekers partner Lance Storm. And despite the fact that I clicked "Put on a good match" and gets a 79% match quality rating, Jericho literally uses two moves in the entire match to get Storm to tap out. Super Frankensteiner, Walls of Jericho, win. After the match, Storm extends his hand to his former partner, who shakes it.
2004 King of the Ring and United States Champion Chris Benoit gets the hype video treatment. Hopefully this will cheer the miserable bastard up before he kills his family or something.
The (relatively) undefeated rookie monster Damien is out next for his match against A-Train. The match itself is mediocre, but the crowd is into both guys. Eventually, Train manages to surprise Damien with the Derailer. Hoping to save the match, Sean O'Haire hits the ring and blasts Train with the Prophecy. Unfortunately, the ref sees it and disqualifies Damien. Whoops! A-Train advances to take on Chris Jericho in the quarters.
And now for our main event, pitting the aforementioned Benoit against ECW original Tommy Dreamer. The winner will face Shelton Benjamin next week in the quarterfinals. Solid match that ends with Benoit getting Dreamer to tap out to the Crippler Crossface.
So, the elite eight is set:
Rhyno vs. Undertaker
Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Benoit
A-Train vs. Chris Jericho
Kane vs. Randy Orton
Who will take on Sean O'Haire at Unforgiven for the World Title?
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