30 Days of WrestleMania: Looking back at WrestleMania 2000
Because of the WWE Network, fans can now watch every single WrestleMania from start to finish.
So, for 30 days leading up to WrestleMania XXX, we will take an extensive look back at each event from the very first, to the most recent.
Here's the WrestleManias we've covered so far:
» READ MORE: WM I
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» READ MORE: WM II
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» READ MORE: WM III
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» READ MORE: WM IV
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» READ MORE: WM V
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» READ MORE: WM VI
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» READ MORE: WM VII
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» READ MORE: WM VIII
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» READ MORE: WM IX
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» READ MORE: WM X
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» READ MORE: WM XI
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» READ MORE: WM XII
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» READ MORE: WM 13
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» READ MORE: WM XIV
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» READ MORE: WM XV
WrestleMania 2000
Date: April 2, 2000
Venue: Arrowhead Pond (Honda Center), Anaheim, Calif.
Attendance: 18,742
Match Results:
Big Boss Man & Bull Buchanan def. D-Lo Brown & The Godfather w/Ice-T
Hardcore Holly wins hardcore battle royal for Hardcore Championship
Test & Albert w/Trish Stratus def. Al Snow & Steve Blackman w/Chester McCheeserton
World Tag Team Championship Ladder Match – Edge & Christian def. The Dudleys and the Hardy Boyz
Catfight – Terri def. The Kat
Too Cool & Chyna def. The Radicalz (Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Dean Melenko)
Intercontinental & European Championship Triple Threat match – Chris Benoit won Intercontinental title, Chris Jericho won European title
Kane & Rikishi def. Road Dogg & X-Pac
Fatal Four-Way Elimination match for WWE Championship – Triple H w/Stephanie McMahon def. The Rock w/Mr. McMahon, Mick Foley w/Linda McMahon and Big Show with Shane McMahon
Observations:
- At WrestleMania XV, WWE showcased a strong main event, but an underwhelming undercard. By WrestleMania 2000, it was in the midst of beefing up the mid card to the point that it had more than 20 people make their debut on the big show. The list of people making their first WrestleMania appearance included Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, Steve Blackman, Tazz, the Dudleys, the Hard Boyz and many more. It didn't hurt to have a triangle ladder match where all six men were having their first WrestleMania match and a hardcore battle royal that featured more than dozen.
- WWE usually delivered on its main events, which sent the people home happy, but that did not necessarily occur at WrestleMania 2000. The first issue with the main event was that it shouldn't have been a fatal four-way. It should have been a one-on-one encounter between The Rock (the top babyface) and Triple H (by far the top heel). That's typically what the WrestleMania main event consists of — the top heel going against the top babyface with the babyface winning and having a feel-good moment to end the show. That didn't happen here. Instead, WWE decided to give Mankind a chance to live his dream and participate in the WrestleMania main event despite being forced to retire about month earlier. Then WWE decided to add Big Show to make it even as far as babyfaces and heels. Then WWE decided to put a McMahon in every corner and made the bulk of the story about the family dysfunction amongst the McMahons. Even worse then all of that was the fact that Triple H won. It was the first time that a bad guy won the title in the main event. The result was a lukewarm reception to the show. Having the bad guy win goes against everything WWE usually does with WrestleMania. Sure, Steve Austin won the next year, but turned into a bad guy after the match. Even still, his run as a heel that followed left a little to be desired. The Miz won at WrestleMania XXVII, but he was essentially the third wheel in that program and The Rock stood tall at the end to give the people a good visual leaving the show. All of the components were there to give this show an ever-lasting memory from the main event, but it didn't happen.
- While the main event under-delivered, the triangle ladder match more than delivered. In fact, it was the best match on the show. This was the first in a series of matches between the three teams where they raised the bar of danger and their collective pain thresholds in each and every match. A lot of the things that people saw during this match no one had ever seen on the WWE stage, especially since it involved tag teams, which added so many more variables to the match for the wrestlers to utilize.
- One of the two other memorable matches from this show was the battle royal for the Hardcore Championship. The match was given a 15-minute time limit where the title could change hands as many times as possible during the time frame. It was essentially a championship scramble. The title changed hands during the match 11 times with Tazz winning it twice. Hardcore Holly eventually walked away the champion, but wasn't supposed to. When Hardcore Holly went to cover Crash Holly in the final seconds, Crash Holly was supposed to kick out and retain the title, but didn't. Referee Tim White, knowing that Crash Holly was supposed to win, never let his hand hit the mat for the final count, but had to give Hardcore Holly the title anyway because it would have been silly to have Crash Holly win without kicking out. The snafu was rectified a short time later as the "Houdini of Hardcore" Crash Holly won the title back.
- The last memorable match on this show was the triple threat match for the Intercontinental and European championships. This was another multi-man with some confusing stipulations where the first fall was for the Intercontinental title and the second was for the European. Kurt Angle, the holder of both titles, lost both titles and was not pinned for either of them. All three men in the ring were great in-ring performers, it was just that the match stipulations were a bit of a cluster.
- The Undertaker had been the dead man his entire career in WWE until 2000 when he came back in May as a biker. Apparently, he made a public appearance as the biker before this at WrestleMania Axxess. This was only the second WrestleMania Undertaker has missed since he joined the WWE in 1990. He has not missed one since.
- Although this was her fourth WrestleMania appearance, this was Chyna's first match at the big show.
- While Chyna actually wrestled, The Kat and Terri had a catfight. I think a better word for it would have been atrocity. Sure, The Kat and Terri are good-looking women, but I didn't wait all year for the Super Bowl of wrestling to see two women have a horrible catfight. Nothing about that said WrestleMania. That was barely a good segment on Raw. Oh, and The Kat was naked earlier in the show. That, however, I did not mind.
- Another questionable match on the card was Steve Blackman and Al Snow going against Test and Albert. I'm sure two guys from that hardcore battle royal could have used this spot on the card, but instead it was used to further the strange relationship between Snow and Blackman. Even stranger was Snow bringing Chester McCheeserton, who was a man in a cheese outfit. How in the world was this supposed to be funny? What person thought this would be a riot? If WWE was catering to little kids back then, I could begin to see the reasoning behind it, but it wasn't. It was catering to adults that wanted to see action and hot women, not human blocks of cheese. Then, Snow and Blackman beat the block of cheese up. It's a rather forgettable occurrence in WrestleMania history.
- Those adults and teenagers got a big kick out of Ice-T's performance during The Godfather's entrance. Ice-T, who was a real-life pimp before his rapping days, was the perfect compliment to The Godfather, D-Lo Brown and the cavalcade of ho-, ahem, women of the night. Ice-T shouted some hilarious obscenities over the microphone and The Godfather told everyone to light up their blunts. This was so not PG.
- Another obscene gesture was Paul Bearer giving the Degeneration-X "Suck it" symbol to Pete Rose after he was choke slammed once again by Kane. Rose made his third consecutive appearance at WrestleMania and attempted to hit Kane with a baseball bat in revenge of what he had did to him the previous two years. Rose's plan quickly backfired and received the choke slam and the stink face from Rikishi for good measure.
- An interesting thing of note from this show was that the winners of WWE's WrestleMania sweepstakes were from Allentown, Pa.