Smackdown – June 24, 2004: Twenty Minutes Of Undertaker vs. Cena

Battle Royal

Scotty 2 Hotty, Chavo Guerrero, Funaki, Akio, Billy Kidman, Spike Dudley, Jamie Noble, Nunzio, Paul London, Shannon Moore

Chavo sends London over the top but he skins the cat, only to have Nunzio pull him down to the floor. Shannon is sent to the apron and kicked out by Akio, only to have Chavo dump Akio as well. Scotty saves Funaki for no apparent reason and loads up the Worm on Chavo, only to superkick Jamie. Kidman dropkicks Scotty out and Chavo baseball slides, leaving Kidman, Chavo and Noble. Jamie takes Kidman down with a nice German suplex and Billy gets double teamed. The crowd is all over Chavo here as he and Jamie try their hardest to get rid of Kidman.

Heyman is on the phone with the company making the concrete crypt on Sunday. He wants there to be no escape whatsoever. The Dudleys come up and want to know why they should believe Undertaker will do the right thing. Heyman gives one of his speeches when Mordecai (religious zealot who wore all white) and Hardcore Holly come in with Mordecai destroying Holly, pounding him into the arena. Luther Reigns breaks it up as Angle tells Heyman to make sure Undertaker takes Cena out tonight.

Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn

Kenzo hits his lame claw leg sweep post match.

We recap Eddie Guerrero vs. JBL which saw Eddie keep the title by DQ at Judgment Day, necessitating a rematch with a bullrope involved.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Luther Reigns

A butterfly suplex puts Eddie down and we hit the bearhug. Reigns gets bored of holding Eddie in the air and switches to a reverse waistlock. Eddie gets out with a jawbreaker and drops Reigns with some elbows to the jaw. There are the Three Amigos but the referee gets bumped. Luther clotheslines Eddie down and hits a quick powerslam as Angle comes in for a very fast two count.

Reigns goes to get the belt but Eddie hits him low and cracks him in the head with the title. In classic Eddie style, he throws the belt to Angle and falls down as the referee gets up. A frog splash should be enough for the pin but JBL comes in for the DQ. Why? Did we really need to protect Luther Reigns?

JBL beats up Eddie but the champion gets the bullrope away and takes JBL down.

Rob Van Dam vs. Rene Dupree

Rating: D. This was REALLY boring with the fourway on Sunday sounding like one of the least interesting matches I can remember in a long time. Dupree is as generic of a heel as you can get and Van Dam had it in slow motion tonight. Nothing to this match for the most part and it just killed time.

Rundown of the PPV card.

John Cena vs. The Undertaker

They slug it out with Cena taking over with a shoulder and hard clothesline for two. Cena goes up for a top rope ax handle to set up the Throwback (flipping faceplant) and Shuffle for two. Undertaker escapes the AA and connects with a big boot and legdrop (BROTHER) for his own two count.

The referee gets bumped before Cena scores with another clothesline. Undertaker sits up but walks into the FU for no count as the referee is still down. Cena checks on the referee but turns around into a chokeslam for still no count. Undertaker embraces the evil and blasts Cena with the chain before tombstoning him for the pin.

Rating: A-. Gah that stupid story hurt what was an otherwise great match. At least Undertaker had Cena beaten before he used the chain, but this could have been a match of the year candidate if it had ended closer to clean. This was Cena showing that he was going to be a main eventer one day in the near future and he came off looking great.

Heyman comes out holding the Urn to end the show.