WWF WrestleMania 2000

Going into WrestleMania 2000 (which is going to create a real problem in the year 3984),  the WWF was resurgent with a new kind of Attitude. With head writer Vince Russo (credited for many of the ideas that buoyed the Attitude Era, and helped the WWF overtake the competition) jumping ship to WCW, and foremost superstar Steve Austin out for nearly a year with an injury, many observers believed it to be a sign of the end for the WWF. Instead, the product improved significantly without Russo – more cohesive, logical angles presented, and more focus put on showcasing the in-ring talents of the promotions significant roster.

Even without Austin, the expanded roster led them to extend the show to over three and a half hours for the first time since settling on a three hour format in the early 1990s, as well as packing the card with multi-man matches – not a single one-on-one match offered other than a ‘catfight’ on the undercard.

The WWF also offered a flawed ‘WrestleMania All-Day-Long’ pre-show (on pay per view, for an extra fifteen dollars) that started at noon, and featured eight hours of WrestleMania history. While fun in theory, sitting through eight straight hours of wrestling, before a four hour show was just too much – leaving me (and pretty much anyone who sat through it) quite burned out by the time the actual show came on the air.

From Anaheim, California; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. Lilian Garcia sings the Star Spangled Banner to kick things off.


Opening Match: The Godfather and D-lo Brown v Big Bossman and Bull Buchanan: Ice-T raps Godfather and D-lo (and their Ho-Train) down to the ring. Brown and Buchanan start, and D-lo blasts him with a spinheel out of the ropes. That triggers a quick four-way brawl, and the dust settles on the Godfather and Bossman - Godfather firing off clotheslines. Savate kick gets two, but Brown gets overwhelmed in a double-team from the rent-a-cops, and Buchanan takes his head off with a flying clothesline. They cut the ring in half, but Bull ends up crotched on the top rope, and D-lo brings him down with a rana before tagging Godfather. He's a whore house of fire, but the four-way brawl sees Brown walk into a Bossman Slam, and Bull finishing him with a flying legdrop at 9:05. Well paced, but dull punch-kick stuff for the most part. ½*

WWF Hardcore Title 13-Man Hardcore Battle Royal: The gimmick here is that the match runs fifteen minutes, and every fall within the time limit results in a new champion - providing you pin the current champion, of course. We've got: Viscera, Hardcore Holly, Tazz, Taka Michinoku, Funaki, The Headbangers, The Mean Street Posse, The Acolytes, and Crash Holly (the defending champion). Big brawl to start (no shit!), though only Tazz is smart enough to target the Crash, and suplexes him for the title. Meanwhile, the entire field is on the floor, but instead of hiding out to run out the time limit, Tazz dives out after Viscera, and gets splashed to lose the title. Everyone gangs up on Viscera (him not hiding out makes more sense - too slow to run, too fat to hide), and the Acolytes slam him off the top rope, and Bradshaw blasts him with a flying shoulderblock - only to put Funaki on top for the title. That leads to a slugfest with pal Taka Michinoku, and Funaki actually has the sense to start running - leading a chase backstage to run time down. They catch him though (well, not Viscera) and The Mean Street Posse exchange the title a couple of times before dropping it to Thrasher. Everyone brawls back to ringside, and Pete Gas uses a fire extinguisher to put Thrasher's fire out - but Tazz suplexes him on the floor to win the title again. The Holly's gang up on him, but Tazz valiantly fights everyone (with less than three minutes remaining), but can't hold them off forever, and Crash pins him with thirty seconds left. He stupidly turns his back to celebrate, however, and Tazz hooks the Tazzmission - only for Hardcore Holly to smash a glass jar over both their heads, and pins Crash for the title as time expires at 15:00. This did nothing to get a burned out audience into the show - what a waste of time this mess was. ¼*

Head Cheese v T&A: Test jumps Steve Blackman at the bell, but walks into a thrust kick, and Blackman passes to Al Snow - who gets a cheap shot from Albert for his troubles. Big boot gets two, but Snow catches him with a clothesline coming out of the corner, and an enzuigiri for two. Four-way brawl allows Head Cheese to double-team Albert for two, and a Snow suplex gets two. Cheese cuts the ring in half, but Snow walks into a butterfly suplex, and Test tags. He's a house of arson as another four-way breaks out, and Albert press slams Blackman for Test to flying elbowdrop at 7:01. Decent, though it's only notable today as the WrestleMania debut of Trish Stratus - as T&A's manager. *

WWF Tag Team Title Triangle Ladder Match: The Dudley Boyz v The Hardy Boyz v Edge and Christian: Everyone brawls at the bell - ending up in the aisle right away - with guys taking turns doing a spot in the ring, then rolling out to let the next pair go. That goes on for a couple of minutes, until Christian manages to get a ladder in the ring, and tries to climb - but Matt Hardy is there to slow him down. Everyone brings it into the ring now that a ladder is involved, and the Hardy's are the first to use it - Jeff Hardy springboarding off of Matt and into a ladder covered Bubba Dudley. Matt with a 2^nd rope flying elbowdrop onto D-Von Dudley, as Jeff DDT's Bubba - but a flying somersault splash misses, and he goes crashing into the ladder. Everyone trade various flying ladder spots, until Bubba starts airplane spinning it to clean house. He gets cocky, however, and Edge blasts the ladder into his face with a dropkick, and Christian stunguns D-Von into it. Then - in one of the most iconic images of the Attitude Era - Christian sets the ladder up at the edge of the ring apron, and dives off of it to take out Bubba and Matt. Jeff climbs, but Edge leaps off of the 2^nd rope with a spear to stop it, and makes a climb himself - only for Matt Hardy to pull him off with a Razor's Edge. He then climbs, but D-Von's there to slam him off, and that leaves Christian and Bubba to set up two ladders to simultaneously climb - Bubba catching him up there with a cutter back to the mat. Everyone else down, the Hardy's scale two opposing ladders, and hit a stereo dive on Bubba. Meanwhile, Christian and D-Von are climbing another ladder, so Edge joins them up there, and E&C double-suplex D-Von off. Everyone ends up climbing three ladder simultaneously, and all six go crashing down - Christian and Jeff Hardy sailing all the way to the floor. Punch-drunk, Christian stumbles back into the ring, and gets sandwiched by the Dudley's - who give Edge the Dudley Death Drop for good measure. Then, they get a little crazy: setting up two ladders at center ring, and laying a table across the top to give them a makeshift scaffold to climb for the belts. The Hardy's break it up, so the Dudley's set up two more tables beside the ladders, and Bubba powerbombs Matt through one - as D-Von misses a dive onto Jeff through the other. Jeff tries to capitalize on Bubba by running the guardrail for a spear, but Dudley throws a ladder at him to take the pep out of his step. He then finds a supersized ladder, and sets a table up beside it in the aisle way - only for Christian to charge over with the ring bell to knock Bubba onto the table, allowing Jeff to hit his iconic Swanton bomb off of it. Both guys are suitably murdered after that, but D-Von's recovered from the missed splash, and is scaling the scaffold the Dudley's set up earlier. Matt Hardy breaks it up with a cutter, though, and ends up on the 'scaffold' with Christian - but Edge follows them up, casually shoves Matt off (through a table in the process), and E&C snag their first tag titles at 22:25. This was absolutely insane watching live - if I wasn't into the show before, they definitely had my attention now. Great pacing, insane spots, and general mayhem - it became quite influential, spawning both the TLC matches and Money in the Bank. Inevitably, it gets compared to the groundbreaking Shawn Michaels/Razor Ramon ladder match from 1994, and while this one had more insane bumping - the earlier match was the better match. What that one lacked in super ladder Swanton bombs, it made up for in selling, intensity, and flow - selling a particularly notable issue with this match. This came off more as a collection of spots (a really nice collection), but nothing had the gravitas of Shawn and Razor's spots. Still, it's a hell of a show stealing spotfest - even my grandfather (who hates wrestling) getting sucked into sitting down and taking a peek when it was on live in 2000. *** ¾

Catfight: The Kat v Terri Runnels: Val Venis is the special referee here - the object to knock the other girl out of the ring for the win. Both girls try to flirt with Venis to start, of course, and then get right to properly rolling around. Venis tries to break it up by kissing both of them, so Terri starts with the hair slams - only to get speared, and dumped to the floor. Venis is distracted by Mae Young trying to flash on the apron, however, so he misses it, and Kat ends up on the outside after a cheap shot at 2:26. Test and Albert may have been out earlier, but this was the shows real T&A. Thankfully short, and to the point...s. DUD

Six-Person Tag Team Match: Chyna and Too Cool v The Radicalz: Scotty 2 Hotty starts with Eddie Guerrero, but Eddie's caught up flirting with Chyna - the basis for this match. Criss cross goes Scotty's way with a monkey flip, and he follows with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker before tagging Chyna. That sends Guerrero scurrying to tag Dean Malenko, and he has no problem smacking her around. That earns him a double-team from Too Cool, and Grandmaster Sexay backelbows him into a bodyslam. Tag back to Guerrero, and Sexay side suplexes him - but gets shoved off of the top rope by Perry Saturn. The Radicalz cut the ring in half, but he dodges Eddie long enough to tag Scotty back - who walks into a stungun. Guerrero side suplex and slingshot somersault senton leave him for dead, but a distraction from Chyna ends with Eddie getting suplexed all the way to the floor. Saturn and Malenko run in to save, but get caught in a bulldog from Scotty, and he gives them each his Worm. Meanwhile, Chyna is still after Eddie - but he manages to hide behind the referee while Saturn blasts Scotty with a superkick. Saturn with a visually impressive flying elbowdrop (he kissed the sky there), but Eddie gets crotched when trying to follow his act, and super-duperplexed off for a double knockout. Tag to Chyna, and she finally gets her hands on Eddie (after blowing both other Radicalz low), powerbombing him. Press slam, and an inverted DDT finish at 9:39. Surprisingly fun, well paced match - everyone working hard, and everyone looking good. As for Chyna, she would give in to Eddie's affections the next night on RAW - helping him to the European title in the process. ** ¼

WWF Intercontinental Title Triple Threat Match: Kurt Angle v Chris Benoit v Chris Jericho: The angle here is that Angle has both the Intercontinental and European titles, and must defend against both Benoit and Jericho simultaneously - the first fall for the Intercontinental, and then another fall for the European title. Benoit jumps Angle as he works on taking off his two title belts, but Jericho catches them coming in, and it's backelbows all around. Benoit responds with chops, and a side suplex, but Chris counters with a dropkick, putting Benoit on the outside. Springboard version for Angle, but Benoit hooks Jericho's foot from the floor, and goes after Angle himself. They end up slugging it out on the ring apron - allowing Jericho to recover - and he pop up to knock them both down like bowling pins with an unobstructed springboard dropkick. Jericho follows with a baseball slide on Benoit, but he walks into a stungun on the stairs from Angle, and Kurt drags him in for a belly-to-belly suplex for one - broken up by Benoit. That triggers a chopfest between the Canadians, which Jericho takes a break from to give Angle a butterfly backbreaker. He goes to the top to finish him, but Benoit blasts him with a forearm – sending Jericho crashing to the floor, and into the announce table. That allows Benoit a snap suplex on Angle for two, and a release side suplex gets two. Jericho breaks the suplex fun up with a dropkick, and a 2^nd rope flying version gets two on Angle - again broken up by Benoit. That leaves the Canadians chopping again, and Angle manages to sneak up with a side suplex on Benoit for two. Jericho hooks him in a camel clutch, but Angle breaks it up before he can submit, so Jericho vertical suplexes him - only for Benoit to dive on for the two count. Great sequence, as the battered Angle whips Benoit into the corner at Jericho, only for Jericho to prop himself up on the ropes to avoid the collision, and sunset flip Benoit - which in turn is cradled for two. Reversal sequence sees Angle hook Jericho in a crossface chickenwing at center ring, but Benoit baseball slides in to Kurt's head to break it up. He throws him into the first row for good measure, and finishes the still fallen Jericho with a flying headbutt at 7:56 to win the Intercontinental title. Insane pace here - just non-stop hard hitting spots, and fighting tooth-and-nail for covers from bell to bell. *** ½

WWF European Title Triple Threat Match: Kurt Angle v Chris Benoit v Chris Jericho: We segue immediately into this, with Angle struggling to make it into the ring to break up Benoit's attempt at pinning Jericho to take the European title as well. Kurt just makes it, and overhead suplexes Benoit for two, but gets crotched by Jericho as he tries a flying moonsault. Chris heads up to super-German suplex him off, but Benoit crotches him up there, and super-side suplexes him off. Meanwhile, Angle is still sitting on the turnbuckle, and recovers to try the flying moonsault - but Benoit rolls out of the way, and we have a triple knockout. Jericho recovers first with the Walls of Jericho on Angle, but Benoit breaks it up, and levels him with a kneelift. He stomps a mud hole for good measure, but Angle slams him to the other side of the ring - only to get spinkicked by Jericho. Jericho with a pair of powerbombs for two, but Benoit breaks it up with the rolling German suplexes for two. Full-nelson suplex on Angle for two, so Jericho dives with a forearm - only to take out the referee in the process. Benoit hooks him in the Crippler Crossface, but there's no referee to see Jericho tap, and the distraction allows Jericho to hook Benoit in the Walls. Meanwhile, Angle snags the title belt from the floor, and wallops Jericho with it for two - again broken up by Benoit. Slugfest goes Benoit's way with a side suplex, but the flying headbutt misses, and Jericho capitalizes by springboard moonsaulting onto the fallen Benoit for the title at 5:52. These three were like a breath of fresh air in the WWF atmosphere, and this match was a perfect example of why. More great, well executed, hard hitting, suplex heavy stuff here - everyone working hard, and all set to a rapid pace. While it's generally considered one match, I really see it as two separate bouts, separated by the falls - not like a two out of three falls match, or Iron Man match. *** ¼  

Kane and Rikishi v X-Pac and Jesse James: Big brawl to start, as DX jumps Rikishi, but James quickly gets avalanched into the corner, and caught with the Stinkface - certainly one of the stranger fads of the time period. DX decides to walk it off, but get dragged back in - quickly turning the tide and cutting the ring in half on Rikishi. X-Pac with the lightning kicks, but he walks into a cutter, and Kane is a house of arson (too soon?) - and a Tombstone finishes X-Pac at 4:16. Afterwards, the rest of Too Cool come down for a proper WrestleMania funkfest (I think the Stinkface covered that fine, but whatever) - the San Diego Chicken joining in on the fun. Kane is wary of the Chicken, of course (including some great 'thru the mask' dirty looks), so he starts choking the Chicken - only for the real Pete Rose to pop out of the crowd with a bat (you'd think security would see that coming) and get chokeslammed. Rikishi gives him a Stinkface for good measure, officially ending the running gag at three consecutive WrestleManias. Match was just background for Rose's cameo, and an excuse for Too Cool to dance. DUD

Main Event: WWF Title No Disqualification Four-Way Elimination Match: Triple H v The Rock v Mick Foley v The Big Show: The idea here is that each McMahon (Stephanie, Vince, Linda, and Shane respectively) have a dog in the fight, and the winner wins not only the title, but the much more prestigious badge of having defended McMahon honor - though the real money match here was Triple H/Rock, especially considering Triple H had 'retired' Mick Foley only the month before. In fact, Chris Jericho was originally penciled in as Linda's fighter, but management didn't consider him ready to headline WrestleMania (which he wasn't) so they stuck Foley out there again. Lots of finger pointing to start, until Foley and HHH pair off, so Rock and Show follow suit. Foley gets HHH in the corner for a running knee early on, but both get bashed by Big Show coming out of the corner, and Mick gets bodyslammed. Show dominates, throwing everyone around, and repeating the spot with Foley from the year before - where Mick rides him into a pancake. Chokeslam for HHH, but the others start ganging up on the giant, and take turns clotheslining him to take him off of his feet. The alliance ends there, however, as HHH decks Foley, and they spill to the floor to pair off again, while inside, Rock catches Show in the Rock Bottom, and he's going home at 4:50. Everyone stops to digest that/allow the McMahon's to yell at each other on the floor, and HHH is cowering at the prospect of faces Rock and Foley double-teaming him. He tries to make deals with each of them, but Rock predictably turns on him within seconds, and the Rock 'n' Sock Connection pinball the champ. To the floor, Rock grabs the ring bell, but HHH ducks the oncoming blow, and he blasts Foley. That allows Hunter to takeover, but Foley finds his favorite barbed wire wrapped 2x4 lying around (convenient!) to send him a'running. Double-arm DDT leaves HHH on his back, and it's Socko time! Mandible Claw, but Rock wants in on the fun, and gets him to let off so he can give him the People's Elbow proper. He manages to get the elbow pad half off, but Mick turns on him with the Claw - only for HHH to blow them both low to break it up. Foley recovers with a double-arm DDT on the Rock for two, and he teams up with HHH for a double-suplex. To the floor, the Sock 'n' Cock Connection whack Rocky with the steps, and lay him out on the Spanish announce table - only for Foley to badly botch a 2^nd rope Cactus Elbow onto it, smacking his head on the edge of the table in the process. HHH tries to save by diving onto the table to collapse it, and then take the legitimately injured Foley in for a Pedigree... for two. Not pleased with that result, HHH takes his head off with a chair, and Pedigree's him again for the pin at 19:40. That leaves the two guys people actually want to see headline, but before that can get properly underway, Foley decides to whack HHH with the 2x4 again (No! Sock 'n' Cock!) to give Rock a dramatic two count. Slugfest goes Rock's way, and they brawl over to the entrance area for Rock to suplex him on the floor, and ram him into the set. Brawl into the crowd ends up at ringside for various weapon shots (Stairs! Chairs!), with HHH managing to piledrive his challenger onto the steps for two. Pedigree, but Rock backdrops him over the top, to start another brawl into the crowd. Guess one of them must have lost their keys out there. Rock with a spinebuster, and they end up at the announce position for Rock to suplex him through the table. That draws Shane McMahon out to brawl with Vince, in turn completely taking the focus of both the announcers and the camera crew away from the two guys battling for the WWF Title in the main event of WrestleMania to instead follow a long slugfest between the McMahon men. It all ends with Vince getting clobbered with a chair, and carried to the locker room. Just then, Rock and Triple H magically recover, and get back to main eventing the biggest show of the year - Rocky DDT'ing him for two. Tilt-a-whirl slam gets two, but a backdrop attempt allows HHH a kneelift, and he cracks Rock with the 2x4. Pedigree, but Rock counters into a slingshot, and hits the Rock Bottom as HHH stumbles out of the corner - leaving both men down. That allows Vince to run back out to attack Shane again, and he ends up turning on the Rock altogether - bashing him with a chair. That gets HHH a dramatic two count, and the crowd is just chomping at the bit waiting for Rock's comeback now. Instead, McMahon clobbers him with another chair shot, and HHH becomes the first heel to win a WrestleMania main event at 36:24. The ring appropriately fills with trash in response, but the McMahon's don't care, Vince hugging Stephanie at center ring - until Rock takes them out, giving Stephanie a Rock Bottom (hey, I'd rock her bottom, too) for good measure. Flawed from the get go, it's not a BAD match, but a bad WrestleMania main event - both in concept, and execution. Far too much focus on the McMahon's family drama (especially at the climax) led to heaps of overbooking for everyone to work around, and they couldn't overcome it, working a match loaded with poor transitions, and weak brawling - all of which went on for too long. * ½

BUExperience: Not a well remembered WrestleMania (mostly for the main event, and the ending), but there’s some very good stuff here. There’s also some bad stuff (aside from the main event), like tons of filler – though the extra hour of show time gave them the breathing room to work in those segments without cutting the in-ring product short the way the three hour WrestleMania XI did. Overall, it comes off as an inherently flawed, but not bad show – though certainly a disappointment at the time. **