The main feud heading into New Year's Revolution was between Triple H, Edge, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Batista and Randy Orton over the vacant World Heavyweight Championship. The build-up started at Survivor Series (2004), where 'Team Orton' (consisting of Orton, Benoit, Jericho and Maven) defeated 'Team HHH' (consisting of HHH, Edge, Batista and Gene Snitsky) in a 4-on-4 Survivor Series match to win one night as General Manager of RAW for each member of the team in the four upcoming weeks.[4] The position of General Manager was open due to Eric Bischoff's (Kayfabe) one-month vacation. Maven was the first to control RAW, and on the 15 November2004 edition of RAW he booked himself in a World Heavyweight Championship match with Triple H. However, his involvement ended here, as he lost the match and continued his feud with Snitsky (who interfered in the same match to help HHH retain the title).[5] On the 22 November2004 RAW, Benoit took his turn as general manager, and booked himself in a steel cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship against Triple H. The match never occured, as Evolution deceived Benoit into thinking HHH had been attacked by Batista, and Benoit ended up facing Edge in the cage match instead. [6] Randy Orton took his turn as general manager on the 29 November2004 RAW, but could not book himself as Benoit and Maven had done due to a clause from a previous match with Triple H which disallowed him to fight HHH for the title. Instead, a battle royal was held to determine the #1 contender for a match with HHH later in the night. Chris Benoit and Edge drew to win the battle royal, and Orton chose to make the Championship match a triple threat. In the end, Benoit would make Edge tap at the same time the referee counted Edge's pinfall on Benoit.[7]
