The smallest hope in the building against the biggest man in wrestling. One of the most emotional nights WWE ever produced.
Eddie Guerrero defeated Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Championship, the first world title of his career and the first time a wrestler of Mexican descent held WWE's top prize. The dominant champion had every physical advantage; the challenger had an entire arena praying for a miracle. He got it.
This page is built to be spoiler safe. Enjoy the build-up, the tale of the tape and the match first. Reveal the outcome whenever you are ready, and everything after the bell unlocks with it.
On paper this was not close. That was the point.
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This was a monster and an underdog, booked to perfection. By early 2004, Brock Lesnar had spent nearly two years being presented as an unstoppable force. A genuine amateur wrestling champion with freakish size and speed, he had run through most of the SmackDown roster as WWE Champion. Eddie Guerrero was the opposite in every measurable way, and the crowd loved him for it.
Eddie's rise was one of the great sustained stories of the era. As one half of Los Guerreros with his nephew Chavo, he turned cheating into charm, telling the world he would lie, cheat and steal and being cheered louder for every wink at the referee. He became the first champion of the revived United States Championship, then a top SmackDown babyface whose connection with the audience grew week after week until the people simply wanted to see him win the big one.
The path opened up in a very specific way. Chris Benoit won the 2004 Royal Rumble, then chose to move to Raw to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship rather than face Lesnar on SmackDown. That left the number one contender's spot open, and a second SmackDown battle royal decided it. Eddie won, and the title shot was his. Running parallel was a Goldberg thread, planted when Goldberg was shown arriving at ringside, a seed for a WrestleMania collision to come.
Brock Lesnar debuts, is branded the Next Big Thing, and becomes the youngest WWE Champion in history by beating The Rock at SummerSlam 2002.
Eddie Guerrero and Los Guerreros catch fire on SmackDown. Eddie wins the United States Championship and turns into one of the most beloved acts in the company.
The road to the title shot clears. A SmackDown battle royal crowns Eddie the number one contender to Lesnar's WWE Championship.
No Way Out. The Cow Palace in Daly City hosts the David and Goliath main event that the whole feud was building toward.
WrestleMania XX at Madison Square Garden. The story of this rivalry pays off on the grandest stage of all.
Lesnar loads the F-5 and accidentally wipes out the referee.
Brock grabs the championship belt to use as a weapon.
Goldberg storms the ring and gets involved.
Brock spears Goldberg, then eats a Jackhammer for his trouble.
A second F-5 is reversed into a DDT onto the belt.
Frog Splash. One. Two. Three.
Eddie collapsed in tears, then rose with the title held high as confetti fell and the Cow Palace shook.
Two careers went in wildly different directions from here, and both stories are, in their own way, about legacy.
Eddie carried his run with the same guile and heart that got him there, feuding with JBL over the title and, in 2005, wrestling his real-life best friend Rey Mysterio in an emotionally charged storyline. He remained one of the most cherished performers in the business, at the peak of his craft and his connection with the crowd.
Eddie died suddenly on November 13, 2005, at 38. What followed was one of the most heartfelt outpourings the industry has ever seen, tribute shows where wrestlers broke character to weep for the man they loved, and a posthumous WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2006. His rallying cry, Viva la Raza, endures, and he is credited with opening WWE's doors wider to lucha libre and Latino talent for the generations who followed.
His legacy became a triumph through his best friend. Rey Mysterio dedicated his 2006 to Eddie. He won the Royal Rumble from the number two spot in a marathon effort, then beat Kurt Angle and Randy Orton to win the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 22, pointing to the sky and doing it, as he said, for Eddie. Tragedy became one of the most moving arcs wrestling has ever told.
Within weeks of this feud, Brock walked away from WWE at the height of his drawing power, one of the most stunning exits the industry had seen. It was not an ending. It was the start of the most audacious second act in sports.
He trained his way into an NFL camp with the Minnesota Vikings, surviving deep into preseason before the final cuts, despite not having played football since high school. He won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in Japan. Then he entered the UFC and, in only his fourth professional fight, beat the legend Randy Couture to become UFC Heavyweight Champion, later avenging a loss to Frank Mir and surviving a life threatening illness to win again on pure heart.
Then he came home. Brock returned to WWE in 2012 and, at WrestleMania XXX, did the unthinkable by ending the Undertaker's undefeated streak. As the Beast Incarnate he held the WWE and Universal Championships across multiple reigns. He remains the only man to hold an NCAA wrestling title, a WWE Championship, a UFC Heavyweight Championship and an IWGP Heavyweight Championship, a combination no one else in history has matched.
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