AKA WrestleMania 16: No Singles Matches Allowed.

Match 1 – D-Lo Brown & The Godfather Vs The Big Bossman & Bull Buchanan – Boy does this match just scream “WRESTLEMANIA”! To its credit though, it isn’t bad. They keep up a nice pace with the exception of Bull and his fucking bear hug (ARRGHG FUCKING BEAR HUG!!!), and I always liked Bull’s scissor kick thingy (would go on to be his finisher, but here it’s a normal move for a 2 count lol). Godfather being super over combined with HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS on the outside make this a fun opener, nothing more. I’ve definitely come across much worse matches that were even less pointless too. *3/4.

Match 2 – 15 Minute Time Limit Hardcore Battle Royal – So we get a bunch of guys fighting for the hardcore title. Match is 15 minutes long. Hardcore title is on the line, and can change hands numerous times during that limit. Whoever is the champ at the end is… well the champ. Unlike the future Scramble matches that WWE did, everyone who wins the title is the official champion. Oh and you can only pin the actual champion to win the belt. Its less confusing if someone competent explains the rules lol. I’m not that guy. This match is crazy fun. Just a ton of guys whacking each other with weapons. Tazz wins the belt about 30 seconds in, then Viscera takes it from him and holds it for quite a while with people actually avoiding the big man, except for the APA who just wanna beat up someone. Poor Crash is busted open and I’m not entirely sure he was supposed to lol. Pete Gas bleeds too. Hard to tell what are blade jobs and what are accidental because everyone is just constantly getting hit in the head with a variety of weapons. Vis eventually loses his belt when the APA slam him off the ropes and beat him up, then pile 3 or 4 guys on top of him lol, giving FUNAKI the title! Taka is pissed and decks his own partner. THAT’S HOW IMPORTANT THIS TITLE IS! Funaki gets the fuck out of there and we end up backstage… where members of the Mean Street Posse end up winning the title! MEAN STREET POSSSE HAD SOME TITLE WINS! Finish sees everyone on the outside while Tazz, Crash and Hardcore battle it out in the ring. Crash wins the title back with 30 seconds left (though looked like Tazz kicked out…). Tazz locks on the Tazzmission, then Hardcore smashes a glass jar or something over their heads and goes for a pin. 1… 2… and the ref randomly stops counting… then the clock runs out… then Hardcore is announced as the champion and even Howard Finkle doesn’t understand. Botch? Botch. Fun shit though. **3/4.

Big video package for the WM weekend/fan axxess thing… and oh hey, UNDERTAKER AS THE AMERICAN BAD ASS! Never noticed that before lol. So to everyone who said it him returning at JD looking like that was out of the blue… FUCK YOU! 🙂

Match 3 – Al Snow & Steve Blackman Vs T & A – HEAD CHEESE! TRISH’S TITS! CHESTER MCCHEESYTON! THIS IS THE GREATEST WRESTLEMANIA OF ALL TIME! But seriously though, Al and Steve were a great team, and I loved the Head Cheese stuff. Funny shit. And Trish’s tits are great of course LOL. T & A were a good team too. Surprised that they never won the belts in 2000. 2 Cool got them for a month, why not T & A? Always loved this match, still do after this watch too. Really fun sprint between two new teams trying to make their mark on the biggest show of the year, to hopefully build momentum for them as they work their way to a potential tag title shot. They throw everything they’ve got at each other until in the end its Test and Albert that pick up the win (with Al and Blackman not staying together for long after this). CHESTER THE MOLESTER. LMAO. He gets kicked by Blackman after the match. **3/4.

Match 4 – The Hardy Boys Vs The Dudley Boys Vs Edge & Christian – Tag titles are on the line, in a triangle ladder match! Like the previous match, we have tag teams trying to make their mark on the grandest stage of them all, only this match is for the tag titles and is a ladder match, which means they can make a MUCH bigger mark way easier too. Love how this triple team feud all developed. Started in 99 with Edge & Christian Vs The Hardy Boys, resulted in a tag team ladder match. The Dudley Boys showed up on the scene, and basically while E&C and the Hardys were battling each other to see who the better team was, those DAMN DUDLEYS went after the tag titles and won them at No Way Out. And of course who can forget that AWESOME tag team tables match at the RR between the Hardys and the Dudleys. So now it was time to combine the feud between the Hardys and E&C with the tag team champions, and well, from this point on it was MAGIC for nearly 2 years. Everyone holds their own here and everyone puts their body on the line in order to give the fans something special. Starts with just ladders, but of course that favours the Hardy Boys who are the more daredevil team and are smaller and lighter, therefore faster, than everyone else, so The Dudley Boys need to even things up with the TABLES. I like how this match allows them to bring in tables and not just be a case of “ladders are cool but what about tables too? Let’s use tables because… TABLES!”. Instead The Dudley Boys being the “masters” of the tables decide to bring them out in order to cause more damage to their opponents and also gain a bigger advantage, something they need since they aren’t comfortable with ladders (a pre-match promo reveals they are afraid of heights, so they need every advantage they can get). Oh and D-Von’s selling of a double suplex off the ladder is AWESOME. Guy looks like he’s having BACK SPASMS. Bubba’s powerbomb to Matt from the Spanish Announce table through a table is awesome. Always like powerbombs where people hold them above a shoulder rather than straight in the middle (with a crotch in their face). Looks more brutal imo. Whole match is just awesome, with some really memorable spots. Big Swanton off a ladder to Bubba through a table in the isle way. Bubba’s powerbomb to Matt through the table. And then the “walkway of death” with 2 ladders holding up a table to walk on, which leads to Matt being thrown off at the end and the table he goes through just fucking SHATTERS, leaving E&C to grab the belts! Holds up immensely well and is still one of my favourite ladder/tlc style matches between these 3 teams. ****1/4.

Match 5 – The Kat Vs Terri Runnels – Closest thing to a singles match here… and it’s a “Cat Fight” where you win by throwing your opponent out of the ring. Not just over the top rope like a RR/Battle Royale… but through the ropes, under the ropes… doesn’t matter. Val is the guest ref too. I’m skipping this shite. NO.

Match 6 – Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn Vs 2 Cool & Chyna – 6 matches in… and it’s already the FOURTH tag match. LOL. So Eddie wants Chyna, Chyna wants to murder Eddie (until Raw 24 hours later, then she loves him. Women. Make up your damn minds!!!). The rest are just there because I guess WWF didn’t want a man Vs women match at WM. LMAO at Lawler teaching JR “hip terminology” like “DO-RAG”. DOUBLE WORM! Eddie on his hands and knees crawling away in fear from Chyna and grabbing hold of the ref is awesome.  Referee: WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? LMAO. Then Scotty gets double teamed on the outside and whipped into the barricade… and we literally see Grand Master Sexy stood WATCHING HIS PARTNER fly past him on his way to crashing into it. LOL. Eddie grinding while Chyna’s head is between his legs is awesome. Press Slam to Eddie… while she holds his nuts! Chyna pins Eddie. At WM! LOL. Poor Eddie, he never had much luck at WM, between losing to people like Chyna or just not having good matches. Which is weird because the guy was fucking awesome. *.

Match 7 – Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit Vs Chris Jericho – Triple threat 2 fall match for the IC and European title. First fall is for the IC title, second for the European title. BOB BACKLUND is the reason this match is happening, claiming he was showing Kurt “tough love” and wanted him to prove that he could be the best ever. Kurt has yet to show us that he’s the best ever, and since he’s been going downhill for the last 5 or so years I don’t think he’ll end up anywhere near the best ever lol. So I used to really like this match. I’m genuinely confused as to why. Normally even if I stop liking a match, I can SEE why I used to like it, but usually by then my tastes have changed and it’s just not my thing anymore. This match? I’m lost. NOTHING was good. It was literally “I suplex you, I pin you, he breaks it up, he suplexes me, he pins me, you break it up, you back breaker him, you cover him, I break it up, I back breaker you, I pin you, he breaks it up, he suplexed me, he covers me, you break it up” repeated a few times, then Benoit pins Jericho to win the IC title. Then Jericho pins Benoit for the European title. Fuck this shit. 1/2*.

Match 8 – Road Dogg & X-Pac Vs Kane & Rikishi – Well, from one tag match to yet another. 5 tags in 8 matches. Yey. They’ve been doing the whole Kane Vs X-Pac angle since like… October of last year? And the big pay off match is… a random tag match with Rikishi? WHY? Heels pretty much get decimated, but in super fun fashion during this short match. STINK FACE TO TORI. Tombstone to X-Pac and this is over. Kane gets his big revenge. Sort of. Kind of. Not really. But I guess it’ll have to do. PETE ROSE! CHOKESLAM! STINK FACE! Wish we got more Pete. He could have showed up backstage during the hardcore match Kane was involved in next year. Should be a WM tradition dammit. This was short but fun. *1/2.

Match 9 – Triple H Vs Mick Foley Vs The Rock Vs The Big Show – WWF Title is on the line in a fatal four way elimination match with a McMahon in each corner! Stephanie in HHH’s, Vince in Rock’s, Shane in Show’s, and Linda in Mick’s. I’m not even going to get into the build up for this one because there is a LOT that I would have to talk about. All I’ll say is that Show won the RR but the awarded the match to The Rock anyway. Then Show beat The Rock at NWO to win his WM title shot. And then The Rock still ended up getting in the match lol. Foley was kinda random, but hey, he finally got to live his dream by wrestling in the main event of WM so I’m fine with that. Show begins to start dominating early, so everyone teams up against him for a moment until Foley decides he just wants to MAIM THE GAME instead, but gets a chair shot in on Show allowing Rock to hit the Rock Bottom… and Show is the first to be eliminated about 5 minutes into the match! See ya, Show! HHH is left alone with 2 people who absolutely hate him, so he tries to convince them to join forces with him… and gets double teamed for his troubles. Eventually they break down and Foley and Rock have no problems beating each other down as well as HHH, until HHH finally convinces Foley to join forces with him. He and Foley can take out The Rock, then Foley can have HHH all to himself. Foley likes that idea and so begins the destruction of The Rock! Woo! KILL HIM, MICK! Foley ends up injuring himself for real when he doesn’t jump far enough and crashes into the edge of the table rather than going through it and landing on The Rock. HHH tries to improvise and drive Rock through the table anyway but the damn thing just doesn’t seem to want to break lol. With Foley hurt, HHH sees his chance to get rid of him, and after 2 Pedigrees, Foley sort of retires again. And now we are left with Rock and HHH, the match everyone says should have been the main event anyway. Yeah, maybe it should have been, but then what would have happened at Backlash? I’m fine with WM being like this in order to have BACKLASH 2000 in all its awesome glory. PILEDRIVER ON THE STEEL STEPS. Love that spot regardless of who does it. Match gets a little dull now unfortunately, and drags on a little too long. McMahon then turns on The Rock and HHH becomes the first heel to leave WM as the champion (Hulk was still with WCW at this time so he couldn’t come out and challenge for the belt LOL). Match is ok. Gets dull in parts, and Show being part of it was pointless since he got eliminated fairly quickly. Swerve with Vince was fairly obvious. Oh and of course Rock still have to have the last word and ends up giving everyone a Rock Bottom and shit. He’s like Cena in that he can’t sell the affects of anything. ***1/4.

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