Chris Jericho vs. Shelton Benjamin

[6.0] "Decent match impressive to call a decent match like this on the fly though cool to see Benjamin get the win here and get some gold on the gold standard"

[6.0] "I think the true praise of this match needs to be due to how they were able to have a match this good without even know they'd be facing each other until the bell rang. Let alone the finish. It starts pretty slowly, and that is probably because they were feeling each other out and waiting to know the finish. After they learn it, Jericho starts working heel to get Benjamin to shine more. They work in some great near falls and a good flurry of offense. It was a good start to this show's concept. It isn't a match for the ages, but it is strong and shows a true art form of wrestling greats. Being able to pull a good match from seemingly nothing."

[7.0] "Great match and if I recall, WWE didn't expect Benjamin to win the fan votes so this came as a bit of surprise. 2004 really was a great year for Shelton and this kicked off his IC title run, which I thought was great up until WWE stopped caring about the belt."

[7.0] "Jericho kind of works as a heel in this, which makes sense. Good audible as Benjamin is over here. They work a pretty good match, nice action. Jericho just makes 1 wrong move and is caught with a T-Bone suplex which was a nice finish."

[7.0] "Was a really good match even with the fact it was all impromptu. Shelton beating Y2J is awesome and this match showcased the professionalism in these 2 and their great craft they have."

[7.0] "I love it due to the fact that they were calling a lot of things mid-match and it only showed how talented these two were. You couldn't tell that they had almost no time for preparation, because they were working with each other so well. Great pace, they didn't rush anything and a surprising finish added to it being even more special and memorable."

[8.0] "This was a good match and gave us a special moment with Shelton Benjamin winning the Intercontinental Championship because of the fan votes. The match being called on the fly actually added quite a lot to the match because it told the story where Jericho was at a disadvantage because he had no way of knowing who his opponent would be. There's a lot of energy to the match and of course to Shelton's performance and it's a solid opener to the show."

[8.0] "These guys had better matches but I will give them credit for coming up with this match completely on the fly as Jericho did not expect to be facing Shelton. Both guys did a great job and had a better match down the line."

[5.0] "The action in this match was alright. Both men were good and Benjamin won clean. This was a solid opener."

[7.0] "Solid match with a memorable conclusion. You can feel that there was some slight awkwardness due to the impromptu nature of this match, but for something completely called on the fly I thought they did a really good job."

[6.0] "This was a good match with the championship win for Benjamin continuing to add and build to his rising stardom on Raw."

[7.0] "Good match for being called on the fly like Taboo Tuesday made them. Both men showed good technical ability. Benjamin was over with the crowd so his win was a nice moment."

[6.0] "Decent starting match, but it was hurt by having basically no time to prepare as it was by the result of a poll. Didn't help that, by the nature of the thing, this wasn't a very heated match either. It was a nice moment for Shelton to get the win, establishing that this wouldn't be inconsequential house show matches, and that anything could happen. Given an actual feud this could have been great though."

[6.0] "Chris Jericho vs Shelton Benjamin was a pretty good opener but I expected more between Jericho and Shelton."

[7.0] "Two talented guys doing what they do best. Although this match is cold, Jericho and Shelton put on a pretty great match considering the circumstances."

[6.0] "Even though there was no build, this ended up being pretty good. Jericho and Benjamin worked together well and both put on great performances, Shelton was on fire at the time and Jericho did a great job at putting him over. Shelton eventually counters into a quick T-Bone Suplex for the win. Solid opener. ***"

[9.0] "I thought this was pretty great from two guys who allegedly didn't have any time to prepare, the story goes Jericho had to ask Shelton what his finish was mid match but you'd never know it from how well they work together! Jericho does a great job putting over Benjamin, who looks awesome in his own right here."

[6.0] "This was solid match, but it's tough without a storyline or any sort of interaction between them going into the match. They had to call it in the ring, so that limits what you can do sometimes without any planning of the important spots. They built up to some good nearfalls towards the end of the match. Solid contest **3/4"