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Heading into WrestleMania X8, the WWE hoped to reclaim some of the WCW luck the company once had with the NWO. They had bought the fledgling company a year ago, and couldn’t seem to make anything from it work, with the sole exception of Booker T, and some DDP, but not much else at the time. As they arrived at the Sky Dome in Toronto for WrestleMania X8, that remained the hope as Hulk Hogan was taking on The Rock.
It was new school versus old school. It was Young Lion vs Old Lion, and the hope remained that it would be the Ultimate Good Guy the Rock vs The Ultimate Bad Guy Hulk Hogan. What they got however was the exact opposite, and it was pure magic as the Toronto fans cheered Hogan like it was 1990 all over again and he was about to defend his title against The Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI.
The Sky Dome roof blew off the place as Hogan strutted down to the ring with Jimmy Hendrix Voodo Child blaring. As Hogan performed every dirty heel tactic possible the crowd kept cheering him. As the announcers referenced him running into Rock’s ambulance with a semi-truck. The fans kept cheering him. As he whipped The Rock with his weight belt, they screamed even louder.
In the end, The Rock would rally back for the win and all was right with the world. But not until Hogan walked back into the hearts of the wrestling fans forever. The match itself was not a mat classic, it wasn’t even the best WrestleMania match The Rock or Hulk Hogan ever had, but it was pretty damn close! In fact, the praise for Hogan was so strong, that Vince McMahon didn’t even wait 30 days until placing the world title on him at the next PPV.
Speaking of that Unified WWE World Championship, the current holder coming into Mania was Chris Jericho. Fresh into his first major run as a heel with the WWE, he was set to defend the strap against the returning HHH, who was fresh into his first major singles run at the top as a babyface following years of being the top heel in the company.
The storyline revolving around the match was tailor made for the main event. Chris Jericho had torn HHH’s quad in the Walls of Jericho back in May of 2001, and now HHH was back, but this time with full fan support. It was a total of 180 from that last time they clashed and the biggest reason was because HHH’s wife Stephanie McMahon was in the corner of Jericho this time.
It was the capper of a storyline that saw Stephanie fake a pregnancy just to hold onto to HHH. In the end, even the evil Stephanie McMahon being in the corner couldn’t get this match over with the crowd. They were simply exhausted from Rock vs Hogan and no matter how great the “feel good” moment was with HHH winning, the fans had their minds on Hogan vs Rock and nothing else.
The rest of the card seemed to suffer as well, as nothing came even remotely close to WrestleMania X7 the year before or the Hulk Hogan vs The Rock match that night. The normally rowdy Canadian crowd sat on their hands for matches such as RVD vs William Regal for the IC strap as RVD won. The Christian vs DDP match for the European Championship that saw DDP retain, also drew a lukewarm reaction.
You could hear a pin drop during the Three-way Women’s Championship match that saw Trish Stratus and Lita unsuccessfully challenge Jazz for the belt. That was a big moment as it was an ECW woman defeating the two biggest female stars the WWF had at that point. The reason that match fell flat was its position directly following Rock vs Hogan.
They did that earlier in the night too, when the upstart Billy & Chuck hung on to their titles in an upset with a big win over The Hardy Boyz, Dudley Boyz and APA. That was perhaps the biggest upset of the night and not what the fans wanted to see.
There were 4 matches in the middle of the card that were actually pretty damn good. Those being Kurt Angle vs Kane, Ric Flair vs The Undertaker, Scott Hall vs Stone Cold Steve Austin and Booker T vs Edge. The reason for each was simple.
It was clear at this point that Kurt Angle was the best pound for pound wrestler in the world and could have a five star classic with anyone he shared a ring with. Kane is perhaps one of the top 5 greatest big men of all time, and it was to no surprise their match did well. Angle won with a rollup, and would begin one of the biggest stretches of his career shortly after, despite getting his head shaved by Edge head along the way.
Speaking of Edge, he was another feel-good story that night as he went from a teenage kid in the crowd at WrestleMania VI, to a solid mid carder that night versus Booker T. The storyline had them fighting over the fact that Edge took a Japanese Shampoo commercial gig from Booker T. Silly, I know, but any reason to get these two in the ring together was a good one.
This truly was the beginning of Edge’s first major run as a singles star. Sadly, for Edge, it was cut short later that same year when he broke his neck after teaming with Hulk Hogan at one point over the summer. He would remain injury prone throughout his entire career which speaks volumes considering how great his career turned out to be!
Stone Cold Steve Austin was known for having the biggest match on the card at WrestleMania’s 13, 14,15 & 17. Here he was, in the middle of the card in a match with Scott Hall and he was pissed about it. While the match was actually really good and Hall was able to keep it together long enough to put Austin over, the problem was Steve Austin the person, felt really disrespected and you could just tell something was a bit off because of it. Austin was so heated up about not being near the top of the card, he would eventually leave the company over this and several other grievances.
The second best match on the card, was easily Ric Flair challenging The Undertakers streak. This was the first mention of The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak on air as he was going for 10 in a row. It was a deeply personal feud as Taker had recently attacked Flairs son David and was out for blood. That is exactly what both men would get as it turned out with both men getting busted wide open.
Arn Anderson would run down to help Flair at one point by slamming The Undertaker, but it was not enough as The Undertaker Tombstoned his way to victory. Anderson was nearly 5 years into retirement at this point, but looked like he could still go and drew a great pop from the crowd.
This was in the heart of his Biker Badass run, and perhaps the coolest inception of that as the recently heel turned taker was known as “Big Evil”. He was a heel, but fans were still cheering him because he was cool. In fact, he would eventually take the belt off Hogan just two months later and then turn full babyface by midsummer.
For Flair, it would be his last meaningful match for nearly 6 years. The next time he would step into the ring at WrestleMania as a singles competitor was WrestleMania 24 when Shawn Michaels and himself, stole the show and put the final touches on the amazing career of The Nature Boy.
At this time for Flair however, this was the beginning of him taking over as a front office personality behind a desk, that would begin to take further shape the next night on RAW.
