Alright, so I'm back to reviewing WWE pay-per-views. Though there were parts of my time reviewing TNA content that I enjoyed, I think a lot of the WWE stuff is just easier for me to watch and review, with more well-defined characters and storylines. I'm still not happy with what the actual company is doing in real life, especially taking profits away from talent who use third party platforms, that's a real dick move, but if I'm going to writing these reviews, I need to be watching the best catalog. Like it or not, that's the WWE.
When we last left off in the year 2000 at Fully Loaded, you can check out my review here, The Rock had just retained the WWF Championship against Chris Benoit, while the Kurt Angle-Stephanie McMahon-Triple H love triangle was in it's infancy. That storyline dominated WWF television in the build to SummerSlam, where the two men would challenge Rocky for the strap. Much to my surprise, the company seemed to play it completely straight, as Kurt appears to be genuinely in love, and as such, is booked like a dumb a**. More on that later, but the second high profile triple threat hyped for this event was the first Tables, Ladders and Chairs match between Edge and Christian, the Hardy Boyz and the Dudleys. It being the first of it's kind is mostly just semantics, as their ladder match at WrestleMania 2000 also heavily featured chairs and tables. Regardless of the WWE's weird branding when it comes to this kind of stuff, the match still promised to be an absolute barn-burner.
- SummerSlam 2000 comes to you from the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports(now PNC) Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, the first of three WWE pay-per-views to be hosted in the venue, also including No Mercy 2006 and Over the Limit 2012. It's another very hot crowd for a show in this year, and just in general, I've found that wrestling shows in North Carolina tend to be received very well, likely thanks to the state's history as an NWA affiliate. As always, Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler are on the call.
- There's no better choice of an act to open an Attitude Era show than Too Cool and Rikishi, as they're here to face the recently formed Right to Censor, represented by leader Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan and new heel The Goodfather. This match is mostly just shtick, as RTC don't have the wrestling prowess of former Too Cool opponents The Radicalz, and the crowd is super into all of it. The finish sees Richards catch Scotty Too Hotty during the Worm with a glancing superkick to score the win, a lame ending to an otherwise fun match.
- After reforming earlier in the year, D-Generation X is somehow already imploding, with Road Dogg taking on X-Pac. This is a very short match, as X-Pac manages to hit Dogg with a low blow and the X-Factor to win in just four and a half minutes. Afterwards, Road Dogg gets his revenge by humping X-Pac to death before hitting his pumphandle slam, which is the only thing the crowd really pops for. It's good this match was kept so short, as both men seemed completely uninterested in working with each other and the WWF had given the audience no reason to care about the D-X split.
- The Intercontinental Championship is on the line in a very different fashion to the norm, as Val Venis defends in an intergender tag team match, teaming with Trish Stratus to face Eddie Guerrero and Chyna. The crowd only really wants to see Chyna, so while Eddie and Val do decent enough work in the ring, they're greeted with near total silence. Eventually, "The Ninth Wonder of the World" gets the tag, and the whole building explodes when she tosses Trish around. Stratus goes down pretty easily to a simple Military Press Slam, which makes sense as she wasn't being treated like a legitimate in-ring competitor yet. That means Chyna has won the belt despite not pinning the champion, which is somehow the second most famous instance of that happening in 2000, behind David effing Arquette winning the WCW title back in April. Not much quality wrestling to be found in this one, but the Eddie and Chyna storyline was very over, as was Chyna herself, so that made it pretty fun to watch.
- It's been a long eight months for Tazz, who went from a high profile debut in Madison Square Garden at the Royal Rumble all the way down to feuding with commentators, as he attempted to blind JR to set up a match with Lawler. Obviously, this match is bad and the crowd just does not care about Tazz, though they do pop for Ross interfering to hit with a glass jar, allowing Lawler to roll over and get the win. Considering how much hype there was for Tazz' debut, this may be one of the biggest flops in WWE history. The company never took him seriously as an actual threat and completely failed to present him as the intimidating wrestling machine he was in ECW, despite his lack of height. I don't think there's any coming back from this one, to be honest. You really can't take Tazz seriously ever again once you see him job to a commentary team.
- Shane McMahon is definitely one of the underrated MVPs of the Attitude Era, as he helps Steve Blackman to what is most likely the best match of Blackman's career. It's a no disqualification affair for the Hardcore title, which he won from Blackman with help from his short-lived alliance with Edge and Christian. The two men have some fun with weapons, and Blackman is put over strong, finding innovative ways to kick Shane's ass, including putting a trash can over his head and torso before peppering him with shots from his Escrima sticks. Blackman also manages to fight off the interfering Test and Albert, before chasing Shane up the side of the pay-per-view set. Three shots from a Kendo stick send Shane crashing 50 feet onto some crash pads in one of the most visually impressive stunts in WWE history. Even though the bump was executed very safely in the end, there was still plenty of risk involved if something had gone awry, so full credit to Shane for being willing to do whatever it took to create a historic moment and get Blackman over. Steve then dives onto Shane, which was a mistake as it exposes just how soft of a landing Shane really had. I also thought Blackman didn't do a great job selling the aftermath of Shane's fall, the man may have just died, but he seemed to have absolutely no emotion whatsoever. Either way, this was a very fun match that did a great job getting Steve Blackman over, even if he wasn't charismatic enough to actually capitalize on his rising profile.
- The feud between Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho began at Backlash, when Jericho was disqualified for using the Intercontinental title belt as a weapon, before Benoit got another win in their submission match at Judgment Day. Y2J finally has the chance at a definitive win here, as he faces Benoit in a two out of three falls match. This is another intense, physical battle between the two, though the flow of the match was really ruined by the stipulation, as they needed to get three falls in about 13 minutes. That results in some fairly quick tapouts, with Benoit going up early with the Crossface before Jericho evens up the score with the Walls of Jericho. It looks like Jericho is finally going to get his win when he smoothly applies an inside cradle, but Benoit counters into one of his own, stealing another victory by grabbing the bottom rope for leverage. No match between these two could really be considered bad, but again, the stipulation did drag this one down slightly.
- Time for the first TLC match, as the three best tag teams in the division collide in a chaotic spotfest. Jeff and Matt have been set up to be the big hometown favorites, as they're from Cameron, North Carolina, though the crowd also loves Bubba Ray and D-Von. There are quite a few big highlights to take away from this one, including a couple big spills through stacks of tables and the Hardys stealing the show with their daredevil antics. While it's all fun to watch and I have endless respect for all six guys for what they put their bodies through, I also don't think this quite stacks up to the second TLC match at WrestleMania X-7, especially in terms of iconic spots. Honestly, the most memorable part of this match for me was the finish, as Jeff is dangling from the hook holding the tag belts, before taking a nasty spill onto the canvas, damn near breaking his leg. Edge and Christian, who always seem to end up winning these matches, are in the right spot at the right time once again, scaling the ladder to retain their titles. This is probably the match of the night, but again, it just didn't quite work as well as the second match for me.
- I might've been too soon in crowning the last bout the match of the night, because we've got a real mat classic upcoming folks, with The Kat facing Terri Runnels in a Stinkface match. Yep, this happened.
- The Undertaker and Kane have always struggled to put on entertaining matches with each other, and try it again on this night, this time with 'Taker in his "American Badass" gimmick. But just putting one man on a motorcycle isn't enough to make a match good, which is certainly a very shocking development. This is another slow, plodding affair between these two, filled with lots of strikes but at least they avoided the elongated rest holds this time. I did at least enjoy both men tossing the steel steps at each other, that's not something you see everyday. Undertaker targets Kane's mask all match long, finally succeeding at ripping it off 7 minutes in to a decent pop, as the crowd is interested in seeing Kane's face, though I can promise them from the future that it's the smug face of a politician. Kane just peaces out, and the ref calls for the bell, so Undertaker wins, I guess? Apparently, it's officially ruled as a no-contest, and I just don't have the brainpower to comprehend how on Earth that happened.
- Main event time, as The Rock defends his WWF title against Triple H and Kurt Angle. Before the champion can make his entrance, Kurt incites a brawl with "The Game" by insinuating that Stephanie is unhappy, which is very stupid on his part. The fight gets very dangerous, very quickly, as Hunter attempts to hit a Pedigree on Angle through the Spanish announce table, which has had enough of being broken constantly and immediately collapses. Kurt goes down hard, suffering a concussion, though the flow of the match doesn't get completely ruined as The Rock is already entering at this point. Both competitors do their best to put together another heated encounter, but the crowd, either bored of seeing them fight each other or legitimately concerned about Angle's health, don't seem to care much. The fans do start to get back into it when Stephanie gets involved, accidentally striking her husband with the belt, before she goes backstage to fetch Kurt. I don't really like the fact that Angle was allowed to go back out, as he was obviously still in an absolute daze and could've sustained some serious damage out there, but his involvement also made the match so much more interesting. At first, he does appear to be helping Triple H, tripping the champion from the outside, but then he quickly shows his true colors, ramming Hunter into the steps which the crowd pops big for. Stephanie slides in a sledgehammer, though it's unclear which of the two men she's attempting to assist. Angle grabs the weapon and Triple H lets a might fist fly, which Angle ducks and Stephanie eats to another big pop. The Rock, not sympathetic in the slightest to Stephanie's plight, hits Hunter with the People's Elbow, hopping over Stephanie's prone body during the move which was wonderfully dickish, retaining his title. Obviously, what happened with Angle was a truly unfortunate accident, and resulted in a very underwhelming match, as Rock and Triple H couldn't hope to win back a crowd that thought they had just witnessed a man suffer a traumatic brain injury. Ultimately, the love triangle storyline did just enough to save this one, as everything to do with Kurt and Steph was really well told and sets up a very intriguing match in the future between Angle and Triple H. I still don't agree with sending Kurt out there, but this match desperately needed his involvement.
9/10
On one hand, SummerSlam 2000 is a pretty enjoyable watch that just flew by, with a really entertaining Hardcore title match, plus some good stuff in the Benoit-Jericho match, the TLC match and the main event. On the other hand, there's a lot of crap to be found, especially from the godawful Stinkface match, which was the absolute worst of the "Diva's Era" in WWE. Also, even the best matches had some drawbacks, as Benoit-Jericho and the TLC match both had better alternatives, while the main event was definitely marred by Kurt's concussion. This show is definitely very entertaining at points, but doesn't ever feel like a must-watch for a casual fan.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: Unforgiven 2000, as Kurt Angle and Triple H face off in a no disqualification match. See you soon.
- Henry
Comments