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By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

Tonight's WWE Summerslam PPV is WWE's biggest event at the Staples Center since WrestleMania 21 from Los Angeles. At WM21, Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle tore down the house, Batista and John Cena won their first major WWE Titles, and WWE debuted the Money in the Bank ladder match.

While living in Southern California from 1997 to 2005, I attended and covered several events in Los Angeles, not including WrestleMania 21 and WM 2000 from Anaheim. My first show at Staples was actually a WCW Nitro from 1999 when the booking was going downhill and everyone could see it. Since then, several other big moments from L.A. stick out in my mind.

(1) Eddie G. spills buckets of blood at J-Day 2004. Eddie Guerrero won his first and only World Hvt. Title at No Way Out 2004 in Northern California, then he came to L.A. a few months later to defend the title against JBL in what turned into a blood bath. I can vividly remember Eddie bleeding buckets during the main event title match, then having to be dragged to the back by refs and officials after the cameras stopped rolling.

The rest of the PPV was a typical mid-2000s Smackdown-brand PPV that had a terrible undercard with the main-eventers trying to save the show. In this case, Eddie put the entire brand on his back trying to prove himself as a main event draw and lost a tremendous amount of blood in the title match main event.

(2) Mordecai. Speaking of the terrible Smackdown undercard in the mid-2000s, J-Day 2004 also featured the debut of Kevin Thorn's Mordecai character. Oh, what a disastrous gimmick. The L.A. crowd absolutely crapped on the debut. But, with completely apathy. This led to future really, really bad mid-2000s Smackdown gimmicks like Gunner Scott, Paul Burchill the Pirate, and Vito. My, how far the Smackdown brand has come.

(3) John Cena & Hulk Hogan & HBK in the same ring. The June 27, 2005 WWE Raw actually took place in Anaheim, rather than in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, but it was a very surreal moment seeing three generations of top WWE stars in the same ring together for a six-man tag match.

John Cena was red-hot after winning the WWE Title in Los Angeles several weeks earlier at WM21 and had just been drafted to the Raw brand in the June Draft. Amazingly, of all three wrestlers, Cena had the biggest pop despite tremendous momentum behind Hogan to set up the Michaels vs. Hogan match at Summerslam 2005 a few weeks later. This was one of the defining moments in Cena's career.

(4) Raw after WrestleMania 2000. WWE was riding a hot streak into WrestleMania 2000 at the Anaheim Pond, then hit the reset button the next night at the Staples Center. There are only two things I remember from that Raw: Eddie Guerrero's Latino Heat program with Chyna and Taz's big bright orange "13" flashing on the screen for his ring intro before facing Chris Benoit for the IC Title.

L.A. delivered a major reaction to Taz that night. Wade Keller said in Torch Newsletter: "The Benoit vs. Tazz match was another example of why Tazz should be pushed harder than he is. Not only was the match good, but Tazz got another strong pop for his entrance." I still remember that pop nine years later. Taz was already banged up from wrestling a stiff style in ECW, but WWE missed an opportunity to make more money with Taz during his WWE career.

(5) 2003 house show - Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly. In winter 2003, WWE ran a house show at Staples headlined by World Hvt. champion Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly. Holly was coming off the broken neck from Lesnar and the storyline was Holly seeking revenge all the way to a title match at the January 2004 Royal Rumble. Holly was presented as a legit main eventer that night at the house show, but was booked to take a decisive loss to Brock at the Rumble. There went Holly's career.

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