by Every few years, WrestleMania is due for a clunker, and sadly fails to meet expectations. Coming into WrestleMania 2000, the WWE had a stacked roster but were still missing two key figures in The Undertaker and Stone-Cold Steve Austin who were both out due to injury.
Despite that however, they still had nearly a year long storyline that saw The Rock chasing down HHH’s World Championship. Also, it featured Mick Foley’s last match along with emerging stars in Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Eddie Guerrero and several others that should have made it a stellar card.
It would not happen as strange booking and decision making simply made this night feel off for the majority of it. For instance, it was almost as if they tried squeezing everyone in possible with some odd matches for big time titles. On a card that had 10 total matches, only one of them was a singles bout and that was an utterly pointless match between Terri Runnells vs The Kat.
The World Championship match was a four-way between HHH, The Rock, The Big Show and Mick Foley. The IC and European Title matches were three ways with Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle in both. The Tag Championship match was a three-way with The Hardy Boys, The Dudley Boys and Edge & Christian. The Hardcore Championship was defended in a 13-man, 15-minute gauntlet match with the bottom half of the roster and Taz.
While some of those matches were pretty decent, and we can get to those in a bit, the non-title matches were every bit as forced together and simply weren’t any good. It was loaded with one time only tag teams of The Godfather & D’Lo Brown vs Bull Buchanan & The Big Bossman. Also, Kane teaming up with Rikishi to take on The Road Dogg & XPAC. Again, neither match was memorable and led to nothing in the future either. Neither however, were as bad as Al Snow teaming with Steve Blackman to take on Test and Albert.
In fact, the only non-title match that stood out had everything to do with strange booking and even a wardrobe malfunction. Chyna teamed with Too Cool to take on WCW Radicals, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit. One would think it would have been a blowout win for the WCW newcomers, but the duke was booked to the team of Chyna and Too Cool. Mr. McMahon and the WWE brass hate putting over anyone big from a rival company on their first WrestleMania. As was seen years later with AJ Styles losing at WrestleMania 32 just months after debuting from Impact Wrestling.
The biggest winner in that match turned out to be Joanie Laurer (Chyna) who used a wardrobe malfunction that took her pants down and showed her thong, into a Playboy centerfold. The crowd reaction of her exposed ass was so strong that Playboy took noticed and made her an instant cover girl and centerfold within months.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of the night was the Four Way battle for the World Championship. The Rock had been chasing HHH on and off for 7 months, and all signs pointed to WrestleMania being the blow off of the angle, and the Rock walking away with the gold.
It should have been a simple concept after The Rock won the Royal Rumble. Sadly, things got muddled up pretty badly after both Mick Foley and The Big Show were added to the match.
Despite the extra entrants, the match still came down to HHH vs The Rock as the final two men in the ring left standing. By this point however, the match was so watered down that this final climax had very little drama. Making matter worse, a predictable heel turn by Mr. McMahon on The Rock cost him the match and no one got the happy ending they wanted.
The only two matches on the card that are more than worthy of rewatching countless times over, are the Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho vs Kurt Angle match for the European and Intercontinental Championships.
Also worth another few looks was the sensational three-way ladder match for the WWF Tag Championships between The Dudley Boyz, The Hardys and Edge 7 Christian. That match alone, is one of the best in WrestleMania history. The rematches of the classic were forever dubbed “Tables, Ladders and Chairs” matches.
This WrestleMania had one of the best wrestling video games of all time though! which also sparked “The Puka Era”