Royal Rumble (2004) - Aftermath

Aftermath

As a result of winning the Royal Rumble, Chris Benoit earned a WWE Championship match at WrestleMania, as he belonged to the SmackDown brand. However, he became the first (and only) person in WWE history to make use of a "contract loophole", enabling the Royal Rumble winner to change brands and challenge the world champion of his choice. On January 26 edition of Raw, Benoit defected to the Raw brand due to his knowledge of the SmackDown General Manager Paul Heyman's intentions to ruin his world championship opportunity, so he challenged Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania by interrupting an argument between Triple H and Shawn Michaels. On February 9 edition of Raw, Benoit and Triple H had a contract signing for their title match at WrestleMania, but Michaels interrupted it by performing a Sweet Chin Music on Benoit. Michaels signed the contract himself. On February 16 edition of Raw, the Raw Sheriff Stone Cold Steve Austin announced that Triple H would defend the title against Benoit and Michaels in a Triple Threat match at WrestleMania. At WrestleMania XX, Benoit defeated Michaels and Triple H in a Triple Threat match to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Beginning in 2005 the choice of which title to chase was automatically given to the winner of the Rumble match.

On January 29 episode of SmackDown!, because of Benoit's defection to Raw, the SmackDown General Manager Paul Heyman announced that a second Royal Rumble match would take place between 15 wrestlers from the SmackDown brand and the winner would challenge Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship at No Way Out in February. This match featured the 15 Royal Rumble entrants from SmackDown, with Eddie Guerrero replacing Benoit and Hardcore Holly replacing the injured Matt Morgan. Guerrero won the match and earned the title opportunity. At No Way Out, Guerrero defeated Lesnar to win the WWE Championship.