The Great American Bash 2004: Two Strong Matches Cannot Save a Terrible SmackDown Pay-Per-View

The opener has enough talent and crowd investment to be watchable, but the structure never fully exploits a four-way elimination match. Rob Van Dam supplies the quickest bursts of offense, yet the match repeatedly settles into two men working while the others wait outside. That choice makes the stipulation feel smaller than it should. Cena remains the obvious focal point, and his popularity gives the final stretch with Booker T some life. The eliminations are logical enough, even when Van Dam leaving first removes the most explosive performer. As a vehicle for Cena, it works. As a pay-per-view opener with four established names, it feels like a decent match that left a much more entertaining version on the table.

Luther Reigns versus Charlie Haas is a developmental showcase placed on a card that desperately needed depth. Haas gives the match its cleanest wrestling, including a sharp bridging German suplex, but the contest is built almost entirely around establishing Reigns as Kurt Angle's new heavy. The pace is slow, the crowd has little investment, and the finish arrives before either man has created a compelling escalation. Reigns' offense looks forceful in spots without making him feel like a future attraction. There is nothing offensive about the basic idea of a seven-minute prospect win, yet pay-per-view placement raises the standard. On this card, it becomes the first sign that SmackDown is stretching a thin roster farther than the available material can support.

Mysterio and Chavo rescue the first half of the show by treating the Cruiserweight Championship like a serious wrestling title. The match is built around limb work rather than an endless sequence of aerial moves, with Chavo attacking Rey's knee and Rey adjusting his offense around the damage. Their familiarity produces crisp counters, believable near falls, and a final stretch that accelerates without abandoning the story established earlier. Chavo's single-leg crab gives the match a strong submission threat, while Mysterio's sunset-flip counter provides a clever finish instead of a routine signature sequence. Nearly twenty minutes never feels excessive because the match keeps changing. It is the clearest example on the card of two wrestlers being given time and then actually using it.

Kenzo Suzuki versus Billy Gunn is eight minutes that feel much longer because almost nothing creates forward motion. The match leans on holds and basic strikes without establishing a compelling size, speed, or personality contrast. Gunn's comeback briefly wakes up the structure, but it arrives after the audience has largely checked out. Suzuki's low blow and inverted headlock backbreaker finish at least provide a defined ending, yet the sequence does little to make him feel more dangerous than he did at the opening bell. This is not merely a weak match beside better material; it is a pay-per-view slot used on a pairing that has no heat, no strong story, and no in-ring hook capable of compensating for either problem.

Sable and Torrie Wilson are asked to carry six minutes of conventional wrestling despite a rivalry built far more around presentation than ring work. The offense is tentative, transitions are loose, and the crowd is given little reason to care about anything beyond the personalities involved. The finish hurts the match further because Torrie's shoulder is visibly raised during the schoolgirl pin, making the deciding moment look like an officiating mistake rather than a clever heel escape. A short spectacle can work when it knows its limitations; this one stretches beyond them. The result is a match that neither advances the rivalry with conviction nor functions as satisfying wrestling, leaving another dead patch in the middle of an already struggling pay-per-view.

Mordecai versus Hardcore Holly has more physical urgency than the two matches immediately before it, which is faint praise on this card. Holly's strikes provide a little edge and Mordecai's power offense is serviceable, but the match quickly settles into slow control work without a story strong enough to support it. The audience never invests in Mordecai as a threatening new force, and Holly is positioned as an obstacle rather than a character with anything meaningful at stake. The crucifix powerbomb finish looks decisive, but it cannot erase the sense that this is another attempt to establish a recently introduced heel through a generic pay-per-view win. By the third such showcase of the night, the formula has become exhausting.

Guerrero and JBL take an awkward four-corners bullrope stipulation and build the card's most dramatic match around it. The rope and cowbell are used as weapons, the physicality recalls their violent Judgment Day fight, and the turnbuckle-light system gives the audience a clear visual measure of each man's progress. Some stretches slow while the wrestlers reset the corner sequence, but the final tug-of-war over the fourth turnbuckle creates genuine tension. The reversal after Guerrero is initially declared the winner is a strong heel finish: JBL wins because his shoulder reaches the final corner first, and Kurt Angle makes the technicality official. It is not a clean coronation, which is precisely why it works for the character and launches the title reign so effectively.

The advertised main event is the event's biggest failure because the match and the angle both fight against basic dramatic logic. The Dudley Boyz are tag champions, yet the handicap format rarely makes them feel capable of beating Undertaker, so the threat to Paul Bearer never gains credible momentum. The wrestling is slow, repetitive, and secondary to shots of the cement truck. Undertaker wins decisively, which should end the danger, then chooses to pull the lever himself and bury Bearer anyway. That twist creates shock but no satisfying explanation, turning the conclusion into a stunt detached from the match viewers just watched. As a short clip it is unforgettable. As a pay-per-view main event, it is one of the weakest closing attractions of the era.