Category: WWE PPV Musings

Why, yes… I did watch Backlash… for some reason…  Mainly for the French… crowd… yeah, that’s it.

So yeah, I was doing some stuff during the weekend and I had this in the background. And right off the bat, I’ll say this; this is the absolute best crowd I’ve seen at a WWE show in forever. They were exciting, they kept the noise level up, and they enjoyed every moment of the show. There was never a “dead” period where the crowd was bored. They kept cheering. That’s the kind of audience that helps a wrestling show elevate from a B-level PPV event to something greater than it actually is… and no better example than this show to demonstrate how much of a real difference that hot crowd made.

Anyway, let’s get it on. My notes on this show will be extremely brief.

Continue reading “WWE Backlash 2024”

The final WWF PPV of the year 2000… and it’s headlined by a six-man Hell In A Cell match concocted by then-commissioner Mick Foley to bring pain to reigning and defending WWF Champion Kurt Angle, coupled with Vince’s efforts to prevent the match from happening… even though he’s the chairman and the owner, which means he could easily overrule Mick if he wanted to, but I guess that would make too much sense.

So this return to WWF 2000 hasn’t been fantastic. No Mercy had its moments and Survivor Series only had one. My hopes aren’t high for this one, but… okay, here we go.

Continue reading “WWF Armageddon 2000”

This show is memorable for one reason and one reason only… but what about the rest of it?

Continue reading “WWF Survivor Series 2000”

So after twenty weeks or so of an ill-conceived revisit to the early days of NWA-TNA, it’s time to go back to some quality wrestling… but not today’s wrestling. To be honest, I’ve been out of the loop as of late. I know that WWE had their Survivor Series PPV recently and that was a thing. I know Tony Khan has made more “important announcements” that aren’t all that important. Impact is going back to being TNA, which hopefully means going back to that period when the show was actually good and not… everything else.

So the last time we touched WWF in the year 2000, it was the Unforgiven PPV that saw Stone Cold Steve Austin return from his near-year long sabbatical of neck fusion surgery due to being run over by a car. The culprit turned out to be Rikishi. It went over like a fart in church.

Anyway, it’s No Mercy. They named a video game after this. Steve Austin makes his return to in ring action to get revenge on the guy who tried to run him over. Kurt Angle gets another shot at the WWF Championship. Other stuff happens, I guess. Hey, there’s some stuff to look forward to here, so I can’t be too unhappy.

Onwards, my friend. Y2K beckons.

Continue reading “WWF No Mercy 2000”

So this was a thing that happened, right? The 2023 edition of Summerslam from FORD FIELD.

WWE likes to call Summerslam the biggest party of the summer or something like that. That’s the tagline for as long as I can remember. I don’t know about the biggest, but I can sure tell that this was the longest… or at least, it felt that way. And here I thought All In was going to be the most trivial thing coming up despite all the hype behind it and here comes Summerslam to sort of… well, let’s get into my thoughts on the show.

Continue reading “WWE Summerslam 2023”

I just finished watching the entirety of the Money In The Bank PPV from a couple Saturdays ago and I’ve somehow gathered some quick thoughts on the show. Don’t expect any deep dives or anything because none of this is actually that deep.

Continue reading “WWE Money In The Bank 2023”

Yeah, we’re skipping a couple PPVs here. Most notably the King Of The Ring, Fully Loaded, and Summerslam PPVs… because we’ve already touched on those years ago and there’s not much I could add there. But to bring you up to speed, Rock won the title back at KOTR, which was largely a bad show and retained at the much better Fully Loaded show as well as a pretty good Summerslam card. Even so, the quality of these shows do not compare to the excellent cards that opened the year and we’re reaching the point where the cracks are starting to show and maybe this year isn’t looking so hot.

Fortunately, we’ve got the return of Strone Cold Steve Austin to WWF television after a long hiatus due to neck surgery and also who ran him over and such.

Continue reading “WWF Unforgiven 2000”

WWF Judgment Day 2000 is the next PPV on our list of revisiting the WWF PPVs in the year 2000 and it features what I always felt was the best damned Ironman match in the history of Ironman matches. Does that opinion hold up or does it run the risk of losing its would-be crown to the MJF/Danielson match from this year’s Revolution PPV?

Continue reading “WWF Judgment Day 2000”

Well, Wrestlemania 2000 came and went. Triple H managed to become the first heel to walk out of the event as WWF Champion and the show as a whole wasn’t very good despite having some good stuff on it. We’re skipping that one because I already covered this one as part of my Ramblemania series and I’m saving the reboot for next year.

Fortunately, we have Backlash, which usually does a good job of being better than Mania if the 99 show was anything to go by. And besides, we got Rock vs. HHH for the title, with Stone Cold Steve Austin serving as a special enforcer. This will be the first time WWF audiences will get to see Stone Cold live since Survivor Series 99 – not counting the Halftime Heat appearance in made in January, which was a pre-taped interview with Jim Ross. This is, of course, following the crazy empty arena match between Rock and Mankind… and then there was no more Halftime Heat.

Anyway… enough padding. On with the show.

The 2000s were an interesting period in wrestling. It was a period that saw WWF rises to its highest profits at the time, even with their top star on the shelf. It was a period that saw WCW – once on top of the wrestling world for eighty-ish weeks – begin its steep, maddening decline. It was a period that saw the cult favorite ECW get national television exposure on a network that was clearly using them in hopes of securing a bigger promotion to run on their channel. To the common fan who lived through the period, it was a boon of wrestling material.

The year 2000 is probably my favorite year of WWF. The edge of the Attitude Era was still pretty much in full swing and still as edgy as ever, even with the architect of Attitude having long since jumped to the competition. 2000 was where WWF finally got around to fixing its wrestling problem, with the timely arrival of former disgruntled WCW wrestlers as well as the grooming of some true wrestling machines to compliment the big names that kept the crowds coming back for more. In essence, it was the total package. Great angles, great wrestling, and great talent.

So yeah, I’m all but willing to revisit these PPVs… most of them. We’ve already covered the Royal Rumble 2000 years ago and that Royal Ramble post still holds up. So we’ll be diving into the next major show, No Way Out 2000, which saw reigning WWF Champion Triple H put his title up on the line against Cactus Jack inside Hell In A Cell, and if Cactus were to lose, he’d be forced to retire. Clearly, the stakes were high in this main event, so let’s check it out.

Continue reading “WWF No Way Out 2000”