10 Best WWE Raw Brand Pay-Per-Views Ever

9. Vengeance 2004

Randy Orton Edge Vengeance 2004
WWE.com

More Vengeance, albeit painful retribution from two years prior. This was another excellent example of WWE in the mid 2000s, as top quality main event wrestling was dragged down a little bit by shenanigans and a woefully-flimsy midcard.

The show opened with a tag team match that saw Rhyno and Tajiri defeat Jonathan Coachman and Garrison Cade, a bout that was far better than it had any right to be. Edge defeated Randy Orton for the Intercontinental Championship in a match that went 26 minutes, and within 18 months both men would win their first world championships. When was the last time that happened?

Elsewhere, Eugene and Ric Flair unsuccessfully challenged for the World Tag Team Championships, proving to be a far more entertaining team than one would imagine. Batista also continued his development with a win over Chris Jericho, gaining vital experience working against one of the best of all time.

The main event was mid 2000s WWE in a nutshell. Chris Benoit and Triple H put on a clinic, an excellent high level world championship bout that was brought down by a nutty finish featuring Eugene. Benoit retained, but his title reign would be over the following month.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.