WrestleMania XX was the 20th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place on March 14, 2004, at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The event was a joint-promotion pay-per-view event, featuring performers from the Raw and SmackDown! brands. The card for the event featured two main events. The main match for the Raw brand was a Fatal 4 Way match for the World Heavyweight Championship between champion Triple H, Shawn Michaels, IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shinsuke Nakamura and NWF Heavyweight Champion Yoshihiro Takayama. Nakamura won the match, making Takayama submit via the Reverse Armbreaker, retiring the NWF Championship after only being active for one year. The main match for the SmackDown! brand featured Eddie Guerrero versus Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship which Guerrero won after a small package. The event featured the return of The Undertaker in his Dead-Man persona, who defeated Kane after a Tombstone Piledriver. John Cena made his WrestleMania debut at the event by defeating Big Show to win his first WWE title, the WWE United States Championship. Also on the card was a match between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the special guest referee. This was both Lesnar's and Goldberg's final match with WWE until the 2012 edition of Extreme Rules and the 2016 edition of Survivor Series respectively. After Goldberg won the match following a Jackhammer, both men were given a Stone Cold Stunner by Austin on their way out. The undercard saw NJPW mainstay Jushin Thunder Liger defeat Pro Wrestling Noah's Takashi Sugiura to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship, marking the first time a Noah championship changed hands at a January 4 Tokyo Dome Show. Additionally Gedo and Jado successfully defended the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Heat and Tiger Mask and Hiroshi Tanahashi retained the IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship against Yutaka Yoshie.
Pre-Game Entertainment[]
To celebrate the 20th WrestleMania, the Most Valuable Players of the previous WrestleManias were featured during the pregame festivities. The number one song of the year coupled with video plays from each Super Bowl accompanied the presentation of each player. Performers formed the score of each championship game. The show concluded with the question of who would be the next Champions. This would start a tradition occurring every ten years (in WrestleManias XXX, XL and 50) in which past WrestleMania MVPs would be honored before the game.
Matches[]
| John Cena defeated Big Show | |||
| Ladder match for the Love of Trish Stratus (WWE Smackdown vs Raw) | |||
| Goldberg defeated Brock Lesnar | |||
| NWA World Heavyweight Championship (WWE Day of Reckoning) | |||
| Unification Match #1 (WWE Smackdown vs Raw) | |||
| Unification Match #2 (WrestleMania 21) | |||
| (WWE SmackDown Shut Your Mouth) | |||
| Unification match #3 (WWE Smackdown vs Raw) | |||
| (King of Colloseum II) |