SHOT OF NOSTALGIA #7.7: THE SMACKDOWN SIX ERA | THE LEGACY RUN | JAN–MAR 2004 | THE DUAL ASCENT | TWO CHAMPIONS, ONE MOMENT
Shot of Nostalgia: The SmackDown Six Era rolls on with your host Acefield Retro, and this week we're stepping into one of the heaviest, most emotionally loaded chapters of the whole project. Episode 7: The Legacy Run covers January through March 2004 — the stretch where the SmackDown Six philosophy stops being "just" a great TV formula and becomes the backbone of WWE's entire main-event scene. Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, the two workhorses who defined this era between the ropes, finally break through the ceiling and hit the very top of the industry at the exact same time.
We start at the 2004 Royal Rumble, a one-match show that actually delivers exactly what WWE needed. Paul Heyman stacks the deck, forces Benoit into the #1 slot, and dares him to fail. Instead, Benoit puts together a marathon performance: 61 minutes, six eliminations, and a finish built around pure will, dragging Big Show over the top rope in a head-and-arm choke that feels earned instead of cute. Along the way we hit all the key beats that made this Rumble feel alive in the building — Orton's elevation through the Foley feud, Goldberg getting robbed by Brock, Big Show as a real "final boss," and the sense that for once, the obvious story actually got the right payoff.
From there, we turn to No Way Out 2004, where Eddie Guerrero walks into San Francisco with three weeks of build… and a lifetime of baggage. We walk through how a thrown-together title program becomes a full redemption story: the SmackDown Rumble that sends Eddie to the title shot, the promo duel where Brock mocks his addictions and Eddie weaponizes his own past, and the infamous mariachi "celebration" that starts as comedy and turns into something dead serious. Then we break down the match itself as a heavyweight title fight built on structure and psychology — Brock's 2002 monster template, Eddie chopping down the base, the STF that flips the crowd from hopeful to believing, Goldberg's spear that protects the champion without stealing Eddie's moment, and the DDT-onto-the-belt into Frog Splash finish that still plays as one of the most cathartic three-counts WWE has ever produced.
After that, we head to Madison Square Garden for WrestleMania XX, where the World Heavyweight Championship closes the show for the very first time. We don't ignore the reality of Benoit's crimes or how impossible it is to watch his work the same way after 2007 — that context lives with this match forever. But we also walk honestly through what this main event represented in 2004: the SmackDown Six template blown up to world-title scale. We dig into how the triple threat with Triple H and Shawn Michaels turns a format that usually feels cheap into a 24-minute clinic — the "Let's Go Benoit" crowd, the rotating pairings, the Crossface spot where Hunter literally grabs Shawn's hand to stop the tap, the table bump that buys time for the final act, and the visual of Triple H tapping clean in the middle of MSG. It's the one time in that era where the finish matches the story they told for months.
We keep rolling with Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle from that same night — maybe the most "pure SmackDown" match on the card. This is where we zoom in on everything that made Eddie special at this stage of his career: the improvisation, the timing, the creativity that compensated for a body that had taken way too much punishment. Angle tries to strip the magic away and turn it into a straight amateur wrestling lesson — grinding holds, targeted rib and ankle work, suplexes on a loop — and for most of the match, he succeeds. Eddie's comeback isn't about overpowering him; it's about surviving just long enough to create one opening. We break down the boot spot in detail, why it works as psychology instead of a cheap gag, and how that final small package stacks up as the perfect "lie, cheat, steal" finish without burying Angle for a second.
And then we close with the image that defined this era at the time: confetti falling in Madison Square Garden as Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit celebrate together, both holding world titles, both representing a version of WWE where skill and heart could overcome size and politics. Today that shot is complicated, even haunting, because of what would happen in the years that followed — Eddie's death, Benoit's actions. We sit in that discomfort instead of pretending it isn't there, but we also talk about what that night meant in 2004 for fans who had lived through the entire arc of the SmackDown Six: the B-show workhorses finally standing on top of the company they had quietly carried.
By the time we're done with early 2004, the SmackDown Six era isn't just about a tag formula or a handful of TV classics. It's a storytelling blueprint — athletic, grounded, character-driven — that bleeds into both brands, reshapes what a WWE main event can look like, and influences everything from peak-era NXT to how AEW builds its big match payoffs today.
Shot of Nostalgia: The SmackDown Six Era Episode 7 — The Legacy Run — premieres Saturday, December 13, 2025, wherever you listen. Like, subscribe, and leave a review to help the show grow. Visit TurnbuckleTavern.com for merch, archives, and the full network schedule, and support the project at Patreon.com/TheTurnbuckleTavern for just $2.99 a month to help keep these deep dives going.
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