WWE™ "Unforgiven" - RAW™ Only Pay-Per-View
Location: The Rose Garden, Portland, Oregon
by "Rockin" Robin Drodge
Event
Date: September 12, 2004
Report Date: September 13, 2004
First, I would like to say that I almost did not get to watch this pay-per-view event, thanks to a technical problem by Roger's Cable Network. I was in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, that night and ordered the pay-per-view for 9:30 PM (NDT). Due to technical problems, the event wasn't shown until 1:00 AM.
Match number one - Chris Benoit and William Regal vs Batista and Ric Flair.
This was the first match and a very good one. Batista and Flair came out to the ring first, and then Benoit and Regal followed. Benoit picked up the victory for his team when he got Flair to tap out to the crippler crossface. Back-stage they showed Trish, Christian and Tyson Tomko talking. Christian informed everyone that it would be Tomko's last night accompanying Trish to ringside for her matches.
Match number two - WWE™ Women's Championship Trish Stratus vs Victoria.
This match was very good, Victoria got a lot of offense on Trish. Later, Trish came back and got some offense on Victoria enabling her to take full control of the match. Victoria then hit a top rope high cross body onto the floor to take out Tyson Tomko, then when she got back into the ring Trish hit the "Stratusfaction" to pick up the pin-fall victory to retain her title.
After the match, Tomko got back up and went into the ring. It appeared he was going to do something to Victoria. A person dressed up as a woman came to her rescue. Tomko had enough, I don't know why the WWE™ waited until this pay-per-view to reveal to the fans who this mystery woman was. Tomko wanted to wrestle this person and to solve the mystery. So a referee came out to the ring and a match started to take place
Match number three - Tyson Tomko vs Mystery Woman (Steven Richards).
Tomko removed everything that this mystery woman was wearing. Jim Ross said for weeks now there had been speculation on whom this person was, so now the mystery was solved, it was in fact Steven Richards. The match continued, however, the fans weren't at all interested in this match. You could hear a lot of boring chants during the match; it was very loud on times. The match ended when Tomko hit his finisher, some kind of neckbreaker, to pick up the pin-fall victory
Match number four - Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match, Chris Jericho vs Christian.
The winner would be the new Intercontinental Champion. The first person to climb the ladder and pull down the championship belt would win the match and the championship. This match was very good. There were quite a few shots with various Ladders at ringside.
In one incident, Jericho was climbing a Ladder in the ring, and Christian had brought in a higher Ladder, where they were both climbing to retrieve the Intercontinental Championship. They both ended up falling off their Ladders. They tried another attempt at retrieving the belt by placing the two Ladders very close to each other. Both Jericho and Christian had their hands on the title when the belt started to swing back and forth; they both fell from their Ladders. Finally, Jericho climbed the ladder again and pulled down the belt to win the match and to become the first person to win the Intercontinental Championship for the seventh time in his career.
Afterwards, backstage Todd Grisham went to interview Kane. However, instead of Kane, he got to interview Lita. He asked Lita about the match between Shawn Michaels and Kane. Lita said she hoped that Michaels would destroy Kane. She also said she hoped his throat gets crushed and that he would be hospitalized. Kane responded by saying, "thanks for the encouragement from my wife". Then he asked Lita for a good luck kiss before his match. He also informed Lita that Eric Bischoff had made his match with Michaels a no DQ match and that both him and Lita would be responsible for what happened to Michaels.
After this, another interview took place with Jonathan "the coach" Coachman interviewing the new Intercontinental Champion, Chris Jericho.
He asked him how he felt about becoming the new Intercontinental Champion. Jericho responded by saying, "how do you think I feel about the Match I just went through, and pointed to the ice pack on his shoulder". Jericho then brought up the fact that he is the first superstar to win seven Intercontinental Championships, which he made history, being the first to hold the Intercontinental Title for seven times. Then Edge walked in and said he did not want to interrupt Jericho's celebration, but said as soon as he gets back to being 100 percent, he is coming after Jericho to get back his Intercontinental Title. Jericho told him that he would be waiting for him.
Match number five - No DQ
Shawn Michaels vs Kane with Lita at ringside in Kane's corner.
Kane worked on Michaels' back and had suplexed Michaels onto the Spanish announcers table. Later in the match, Michaels blocked the choke slam and low blowed Kane and then used a steel chair. Michaels then tried to go for the sweet chin music but Kane blocked it and gave Michaels a big boot instead and got a two count. Then the ending saw Kane go for the chair in the ring to use on Michaels, but Lita grabbed the chair away from him. This caused Kane to be distracted. When he turned around he received the sweet chin music from Michaels to pick up the pin-fall victory. Michaels had a little blood on him during the match.
Backstage, Todd Grisham interviewed Triple H regarding his match with Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship. Triple H said he had made Orton and he was going to break him. He also said that Orton had spit on him and that tonight at Unforgiven™ he was going to spit in the fan's faces by beating Orton and walking out as the new World Heavyweight Champion.
Match number six - World Tag Team Championship, La Resistance vs Tajiri and Rhyno.
This match was very good. Rhyno and Tajiri used the flag pole that La Resistance had at ringside. They used this but it didn't help them win the match and the championship. Then La Resistance used the flag pole to pick up the pin-fall victory to retain the World Tag Team Championship.
Match number seven - Main Event - World Heavyweight Championship Randy Orton vs Triple H.
Orton seemed to have had the advantage for most of the match. Earl Hebner was the referee. Orton tried to go for his finishing move, "the RKO", however this did not happen, Orton hit Hebner by mistake resulting in no referee.
Later, Ric Flair came down to ringside and tried to help Triple H. Batista also came down to help Triple H. Orton tried to take them out but not all of his efforts worked. Then the Coach came down and started to count. It appeared he was going to fill in for Hebner, as the referee, for the match. Orton kicked out and did everything he could to keep the Championship.
The end of the match saw a steel chair in the ring where Orton got pedigreed on the chair. Then Batista threw the referee, Earl Hebner, back into the ring to count the three count, resulting in a new World Heavyweight Champion in Triple H. This is Triple H's ninth time as World Heavyweight Champion.
Additional comments relating to Unforgiven™.
First for some reason, the WWE™ did not announce how many people were in attendance for this pay-per-view event. I don't know the reason for this but I would assume it wasn't a sell-out. I found this interesting because they usually announce the number of fans in attendance. This was Portland's first WWE™ pay-per-view.
I don't understand why they had Triple H win the World Heavyweight Title from Randy Orton. In my opinion, I think that Orton should have kept the title. Orton had the title for less than a month, if they were going to have him drop the Title why give him the Title in the first place. If the WWE™ wanted Orton to be their champion they should either let him keep the title or have him win it at a later time. I don't understand because right now the WWE™ seem to be going backwards instead of forward. Randy Orton and the younger superstars are the future of the WWE™ and RAW™, so in my opinion things are gone back to where they were before and nothing has changed, this makes me wonder of where they are going from here. It seems as though if a Title keeps switching back and forth without someone holding it for a long period of time, there is no respect or prestige for that specific title.
I don't understand why they went ahead with the Tomko and Richards match. Yes, I am sure the main goal was to reveal who the mystery woman was, but to make it a match was a mistake because the fans lost interest. You could hear throughout the match a lot of chants, boring…. boring…boring. I am not sure if it were the two wrestlers, but for whatever reason this match did not go over well. The last few months on live events this mystery woman has been showing up often, the fans knew who it was, and even on the Internet, people knew who it was, so maybe the WWE™ should have revealed this months ago.
I also think that Rhyno and Tajiri should have won the World Tag Team Championship. My reason for this is because for the last few months the two teams were feuding against each other. La Resistance always had the upper hand on Rhyno and Tajiri. So, giving the titles at Unforgiven would have been a good thing but this was not the case. I wonder what will happen from here if they will still feud against each other or if they will wait until October 19 at Taboo Tuesday to finally give them the titles, or if the feud is over, will Rhyno and Tajiri go their separate ways and wrestle in singles action. This
has been another report for The Canadian Connection by your author,
"Rockin" Robin Drodge.
(This page was last updated on 2007-01-01 )
© 2004 Robin Drodge, All Rights Reserved
WWE™™, WCW™, Wrestlemania™, SummerSlam™, Survivor Series™, the names of its events, superstars and finishing moves are all registered trade marks of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
