By Triple A on January 21, 2004 at 2:32 AM EST

The following report is courtesy of Kelly Lucas and wrestlingobserver.com.

They opened with a Wrestlemania XX video. Biggest pop was for Hogan. Sigh. I noticed a disturbing juxtaposition of scenes in the video with a shot of Michaels riding the harness from the rafters to the ring, immediately followed by a shot of Owen Hart.

Opened with a dark match between Lenny Lane and Paul London. Crowd was semi-into the bout with decent work by both men. Solid support and relatively loud "Lenny" chants by the crowd. London won after catapaulting himself into the ring and rolling up Lenny. Didn't seem like many people had much of an idea of who London was, while a number of fans recognized Lenny because he's from the area and his exposure in WCW.

Velocity

Next, they introduce Josh Matthews and Bill DeMott to begin Velocity.

Haas and Benjamin over Rikishi and Scott 2 Hotty. Decent support for the heels, probably given Benjamin's history at the UofM. Heat segment on Scotty ends with him tagging in Rikishi who cleans house. Scott hits the worm but H & B eventually win after the Benjamin hits Scotty with a superkick while he's held by Haas. Ok match.

Bashams over Funaki and Ultimo Dragon. Heat on Funaki before Dragon is tagged in and gets some offense. Shaniqua distracts the ref while Danny-not-the-legal-man sneaks in (as if they were the Conquistadors) and rolls up Dragon with the tights for the pin. Eh match.

Orlando Jordan beats Matt Wolftime(?) (aka a jobber). Only notable part of this match was the peanut gallery behind me describing Jordan as WWE's answer to Billy Blanks.


Smackdown!

Smackdown begins with introduction of Tazz and Cole and pyro.

They begin with a nice intro video recapping the Guerreros controversy and Angle's involvement. Essentially announce a main event of Chavo Jr. & Chavo Sr. vs. Eddie and Angle.

Mysterio defeats Chuck Palumbo after reversing a fireman's carry slam into a sunset flip. After the match the FBI beat up Mysterio. Cousin Jamie Noble's music and video begins playing. He holds the cruiserweight belt while standing over the beaten Mysterio.

Backstage Promo airs where Heyman continues to shove his character's head completly into the McMahons' proverbial [behind]. He repeats the story of the McMahons taking wrestling from dirty, smoky clubs to "modern day arenas". He wants to lift Smackdown above the thuggery exhibited by Cena and Benoit last week so he books a 2 on 4 handicap match of Benoit and Cena vs. Lesnar, Show, Morgan and Rhyno.

Backstage Chavo Jr & Sr are lectured by Kurt Angle.

Tajiri defeats Kidman. I was getting (more) beer. But said to be a good match. Must have been short.

Backstage Promo where Lesnar makes fun of Show and says the only reason he's been hanging around him is to protect him from Bob Holly (as if). Otherwise, Big Show's gas problems would have driven him away long before. Interesting.

A-Train comes out. Dawn Marie comes out and announces that the winner of the next match will get a spot in the Royal Rumble and that A-Train's opponent is a man who has beaten him before. An aside: I obviously missed the episode where Dawn Marie became Heyman's proxy. It must have happened though right? In any case, the opponent was Shannon Moore. During the match The Cat came out and distracted no one but Train. I think Moore got a near fall before his squash. A-Train is in the Rumble. Well, that just downgraded my purchase of the PPV to the web cast.

Heyman gives a pep talk to the four man team backstage--except Show is absent. Lesnar surmises (jealously it seems) that Show is hanging out with his "cop buddies".

Handicap match is next. Cena comes out to a big pop. He raps about how his opponents are all homos and about how Show has a neckbrace from bobbing for Heyman's apples. The crowd loves it. Though I don't think they caught on to the subtle compliment. Benoit comes out. Sometime during this a judges/lifeguards' chair is set up at ringside for Heyman. The heels are introduced. Lesnar gets a good hometown pop that is soon forgotten in the face of Cena's popularity. And the crowd was even into Benoit not a little bit. Show is the last to be introduced and doesn't come out. Seems some thugs have parked a forklift or something in front of his locker room door. One does feel sorry for his cop buddies given his alleged flatulence problem.

Match was decent until the end. May be better on TV. Lesnar and Rhyno do virtually all the work for their team. Which was good. Lesnar ends up walking out on the match but Holly stops him in the aisle and they brawl. I think Lesnar just clonked Holly with the belt and left anyway. See ya at the Rumble Brock. Rhyno works the rest of the match alone despite Morgan's presence. Heat segment on Benoit ends with hot tag to Cena. He pumps his Reebok pumps before ascending to the ropes and hitting a standing elbow. Cena wins with the DVD. He and Benoit clear the ring leaving Heyman alone. They tip his chair and he tumbles into the ring. They prepare to beat him down before Show struggles to ringside to squash them both with chokeslams. Great. Fabulous.

I may have missed something in my notes but the next match appears to be the main event. At some point Angle is blinded for some reason and accidentally hits Eddie with the Angle slam. The refs do a fake X sign to sell the eye injury. Chavo the Younger hits a frog splash on his uncle for the pin. Again, a decent match. Chavo Sr. took a few bumps.

Afterwards (probably after the cameras stopped rooling) Eddie calls Chavo II out for another match and they have a short one-on-one match with Eddie winning. Eddie gets a huge pop as he did all night.

Not a bad show. May come off better on TV but I don't understand squashing Cena and Benoit to Show's chokeslam.