Judgment Day was first held as the pay-per-view (PPV) in October 1998; In Your House was a series of monthly PPV shows first produced by the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in May 1995. The In Your House branding was retired following February 1999's event, as the company moved to install permanent names for each of its monthly PPVs. Judgment Day returned in May 2000, thus establishing Judgment Day as the annual May PPV for the promotion, which was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in May 2002. The 2004 event was the sixth event in the Judgment Day chronology and was held on May 16 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. While the previous year's event had featured wrestlers from both the Raw and SmackDown! brands, the 2004 event featured wrestlers exclusively from the SmackDown! brand.