The 2005 No Mercy was the eighth No Mercy professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's SmackDown! brand division. The event took place on October 9, 2005, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Nine professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card.
Three of the four championships exclusive to the SmackDown! brand were contested for; one was lost while the other two were retained. The main event was a standard wrestling match, in which World Heavyweight Champion Batista defeated challenger Eddie Guerrero to retain his title. This would be Guerrero's final pay-per-view match before his sudden death one month later. One of the featured preliminary matches was a Casket match between The Ortons (Randy and "Cowboy" Bob) and The Undertaker. The Ortons won the match after placing Undertaker inside the casket and closing it. Another primary preliminary match was a standard match between John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) and Rey Mysterio, which JBL won.
The event received 219,000 pay-per-view buys, which was greater than the 193,000 buys the previous year's event received. The event was claimed to be "unmerciful" by Canadian Online Explorer's professional wrestling section, as they rated none of the matches higher than a five out of ten. When the event was released on DVD, it reached a peak position of fourth on Billboard'''s DVD sales chart for recreational sports. It remained on the chart for four consecutive weeks.
Production
Background
No Mercy was first held by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a United Kingdom-exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) in May 1999. A second No Mercy was then held later that same year in October, but in the United States, which established No Mercy as the annual October PPV for the promotion. The 2005 event was the eighth event under the No Mercy chronology and was held on October 9 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Like the previous two years, it featured wrestlers exclusively from the SmackDown! brand.
Storylines
Nine professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's card, which were planned with predetermined outcomes by WWE's script writers. The buildup to these matches and scenarios that took place before, during and after the event were also planned by the script writers. The event featured wrestlers and other talent from WWE's SmackDown! brand, a storyline expansion in which WWE assigned its employees. Wrestlers portrayed either a villainous or fan favorite gimmick, an on-screen character, for the entertainment of the audience.
The main rivalry heading into No Mercy was between Batista and Eddie Guerrero over the World Heavyweight Championship. On the September 16 episode of SmackDown!, Palmer Cannon, a miscellaneous on-screen authority figure of SmackDown!, a portrayed match maker and rules enforcer, announced that Guerrero was the next challenger to Batista's World Heavyweight Championship. Guerrero, who had recently portrayed a manipulative character, came out and claimed he was now more about compassion than manipulation. Two weeks later, on the September 30 episode of SmackDown!, Guerrero, as part of the scripted events, accidentally hit Batista with a folding chair while attempting to hit MNM tag team member Joey Mercury. The following week, Batista showed Guerrero the footage of him hitting Batista last week. Batista, as part of their storyline, then proclaimed that he would hurt Guerrero if he were to revert to his villainous character.
The feud between The Undertaker and Randy Orton and "Cowboy" Bob Orton began at SummerSlam. At the event, Randy faced off against Undertaker. During the match, "Cowboy" Bob (disguised as a fan) came into the ring and interrupted the match. Following this, Randy pinned Undertaker after he jumped and pulled Undertaker's head down over his shoulders, a move dubbed the RKO, to win. After the match, Randy peeled off the latex mask of the fan and revealed him to be his father, "Cowboy" Bob. On the September 16 episode of SmackDown!, Undertaker defeated Randy. During the match, "Cowboy" Bob drove a U-Haul truck down to the ring and unloaded a casket. As Undertaker went to put Randy inside the casket, he opened it and found a mannequin of himself inside. Despite this distraction, Undertaker pinned Randy after he hit him with the Tombstone Piledriver. The following week, druids wheeled out a casket. Undertaker appeared on the TitanTron and urged The Ortons to look inside. The Ortons opened the casket and found mannequins of themselves inside. Undertaker then proclaimed that this would be their fate at No Mercy.