SummerSlam (2004)

World Wrestling Entertainment pay per view event

The 2004 SummerSlam was the 17th annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay per view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown! brand divisions. The event took place on August 15, 2004, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Nine matches were contested at the event, including one on the Sunday Night Heat pre show. It was held during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens in reference to the promotional poster. The main match on the Raw brand was Chris Benoit versus Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship, which Orton won by pinfall after performing an RKO. The predominant match on the SmackDown! brand was John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) versus The Undertaker for the WWE Championship, which JBL won after Undertaker was disqualified. The featured matches on the undercard included Kurt Angle versus Eddie Guerrero and Triple H versus Eugene.

SummerSlam is an annual pay per view (PPV) produced every August by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) since 1988. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer", it is one of the promotion's original four pay per views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four". It has since become considered WWE's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. The 2004 event was the 17th SummerSlam and featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown! brands. It was scheduled to be held on August 15, 2004, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The main feud heading into SummerSlam on the Raw brand was between Chris Benoit and Randy Orton, with the two feuding over the World Heavyweight Championship. At Vengeance, Benoit defeated Triple H to retain the title. On the July 26 episode of Raw, Orton won a 20 man battle royal, last eliminating Chris Jericho, to become the number one contender to the title at SummerSlam. Also that night, Benoit defeated Triple H in a 60 minute Iron Man match to retain the title with the help of Eugene. On the August 9 episode of Raw, Benoit defeated Orton and Triple H in a Handicap match by disqualification. The primary feud on the SmackDown! brand was between John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) and The Undertaker, over the WWE Championship. JBL had won the title two months prior at The Great American Bash by defeating then champion Eddie Guerrero in a Texas Bullrope match. On the July 22 episode of SmackDown!, JBL defeated a jobber to retain the title. After the match, Undertaker came out and challenged JBL to a match at SummerSlam. On the August 5 episode of SmackDown!, as JBL called out Undertaker, a midget wrestler came out and began to imitate the real Undertaker. The real Undertaker came out shortly afterwards and attacked JBL, until Orlando Jordan came out to help him. On the August 12 episode of SmackDown!, Undertaker defeated Jordan by disqualification after JBL interfered and executed a Clothesline from Hell on Undertaker. The secondary feud on the SmackDown! brand was between Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero. The feud first started at WrestleMania XX, when Guerrero defeated Angle to successfully retain the WWE Championship. Guerrero lost the title to John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) at The Great American Bash, when Angle, then SmackDown! General Manager, screwed Guerrero and declared JBL the winner. On the July 22 episode of SmackDown!, Vince McMahon fired Angle as SmackDown! General Manager and scheduled a match between Angle and Guerrero for SummerSlam. Capitalizing on this opportunity, Triple H began to befriend the star struck and naive Eugene even making the young wrestler an honorary member of Triple H's stable Evolution. However, Triple H soon revealed that this was all a calculated ploy and that he planned to utilize Eugene to help him win back the World Heavyweight Championship from Chris Benoit. Yet, Triple H's plan failed miserably when during his title match with Benoit at Vengeance, Eugene inadvertently hit him with a steel chair costing him the match and the championship. On the July 12 episode of Raw, Triple H attacked Eugene in the ring after falsely implying that he had forgiven him for what happened at Vengeance. On the July 26 episode of Raw, Eugene would return to exact a degree of revenge by costing Triple H his re match with Benoit. On the August 2 episode of Raw, Triple H demanded a match between the two at SummerSlam, to which Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff agreed.

Before the event went live on pay per view, Rob Van Dam defeated René Duprée in a match taped for Sunday Night Heat. The first match was a six man tag team match between The Dudleys (Bubba Ray Dudley, D Von Dudley, and Spike Dudley) and the team of Rey Mysterio, Billy Kidman, and Paul London. Spike pinned Kidman after a 3D from Bubba Ray and D Von to win the match for his team. After the match, Evolution (Batista, Ric Flair, and Triple H), threw Orton a mock celebration, only to reveal that they were not pleased with his new victory. While Batista had Orton propped on his shoulders, Triple H gave him a pleased thumbs up, but abruptly changed it to a thumbs down. He then told Batista to drop Orton to the mat, and Flair and Batista attacked Orton as Triple H told him that he was nothing without Evolution, and decided that Orton was on his own. Orton refused, and then he spat in Triple H's face and hit him with the title belt turning Orton into a face. The feud between John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) and The Undertaker continued. The next few weeks on SmackDown!, JBL wore a neck brace, to signify that he was recuperating from Undertaker's chokeslam. On the August 26 episode of SmackDown!, Orlando Jordan defended the WWE Championship for JBL against The Undertaker. Undertaker won the match via disqualification following interference from JBL; as a result, JBL retained the title. The following week on SmackDown!, General Manager Theodore Long scheduled a Last Ride match at No Mercy between JBL and Undertaker. At No Mercy, JBL retained the title after interference by Heidenreich.