Backlash 2000
One of the highly-regarded shows the WWE/F put on during their great run in 2000. Let’s see if it holds up well seven years later.
One of the highly-regarded shows the WWE/F put on during their great run in 2000. Let’s see if it holds up well seven years later.
It’s funny that this turned out to be one of the greatest PPVs of the year, coming right off of the uber-shitty WM 2000 (16, whatever).
The main event here was what should have been the main event at Mania, instead of the clusterfuck 4 way they had instead that resolved nothing and meant nothing a month later.
In fact, they should’ve completely swapped this card and Mania’s given how awesome this PPV is, second only to Fully Loaded and Summerslam for best of year
I agree totally that Wrestlemania 16 sucked big time as there was not 1 good, normal 1 on 1 match on that whole show. My idea for the Wrestlemania 16 main event was Foley versus Hunter (Hunter and Michaels pushed for that back stage) because Foley should have gone over at Royal Rumble 2000 and Wrestlemania should have been the blow off to the feud. Rock could have won a number 1 contender match against Big Slow on the under card to set up a Backlash match and pay off his Big Slow program. Politics and money interfered as they decided that Slow had to be in there despite not being over to justify his contract, which led to the crap 4 way match.
I checked this Backlash out of the public library a couple of years ago. They had lots of WCW and WWF videos, so I checked them out for free to catch up on what had gone on. I loved this show then and it seems it still holds up. WWF was super hot all through 2000 into Wrestlemania 17 where the Attitude Era ended and heel Stone Cold / Invasion killed business.
Now for my thoughts on this show and the excellent review of it here.
1. That Scotty Too Hotty / Malenko match is the best light heavyweight (I prefer that term to cruiserweight because what are they really cruising for) match I ever saw in the WWF. I still can not believe more was not done with Malenko as he actually got something decent out of Scotty Too Hotty for the only time ever. Malenko gave value to a belt that had been held by Gillberg. By the way, I liked Too Cool, but calling them the “modern day Rock And Roll Express” is absurd (modern day Lightning Express is more accurate as they were good for a short time) since Too Cool could not work and their heat was not as sustained or impactful as the Rock And Roll Express was (once Rikishi started doing their gimmick, Too Cool became second fiddles).
2. God did I loathe those “Cluster fuck for Hardcore Title” matches as I never saw 1 of them that broke -3 stars. These matches were just needless nonsense weapons shots and spots that injured wrestlers and badly exposed the business. Really, I liked Crash Holly, but 22 Hardcore title reigns were ridiculous and did nothing for the WWF. The Hardcore title was the most over belt for a while there (incredible since it was never supposed to be held by anyone other than Foley), and then backstage politics got it killed except for brief resurgences with RVD and Raven.
3. The Big Slow comedy gimmick is a fascinating piece of business and politics. WWF was still into its “make slow lose weight” lost cause so they stuck him on the mid card with an embarrassing comedy gimmick. Then, Big Slow got the comedy gimmick over and was doing awesome at it (he was damn funny). Since that was not supposed to happen the gimmick was immediately killed and Slow disappeared to Louisville for several months.
4. I miss the Dudley Boys back then when they could work before they started sucking. Gertner should have been there with the Dudley Boys to counter Trish’s presence with his many sexual harassment tactics. Trish was hot then, but had not reached the insane level of hotness she would a couple of years later. It is my dream to get help from Trish’s ass too (I miss Trish).
5. Latino Heat ruled the universe and I miss Guerrero. Latino Heat was the best gimmick Eddie ever had and was the last decent thing Chyna did in her life. Who can forget Lita when she was killing her first career putting herself over Rios? They say you never forget your first time, unless you are Lita and have done it 10,000 times (I do not just mean killing careers by the way).
Instead of reading Scott’s rant I decided to download it. I’ll watch it next week (this week I have to watch TNA Lockdown.) It’s more fun reading the rannts when I’ve just seen the show.
Who was booking the WWE/F at this point?
I think Vince McMahon was booking most of the WWF in 2000, with Brian Gewirtz writing the television. Nipple H was starting to get her claws into booking. I think Patterson, Hayes, Brisco, and Slaughter were helping as well. I am not sure of that, so if somebody has more confirmed information I will defer to them.
I also remember reading that this was Steph’s intro into booking since she was involved in the program. Boy was that the biggest mistake ever for the creativity of the Fed. She almost made up with it during the love triangle that ended up going to shit.
Who was booking the WWE/F at this point?
I can never remember his name, but wasn’t there the guy who recently passed away who used to storyboard *everything* very meticulously months and months in advance? He’s generally credited with one of the reasons 2000 was one of the best years EVER for wrestling in general and WWE in particular.
Yeah, you’re right. McMahon was barley involved in the booking in 2000. It was Chris Kreski, I think. But yeah, everything I remember reading about him is he used to storyboard *everything* and had an encyclopedic knowledge of who was feuding with whom and why; so much so that everyone else was sorta afraid of him. It was after he was kicked out Stephanie took over and turned the WWE booking into the overly bureaucratic operation it is today.
Kreski was booking a lot too, I forgot him. Vince was still booking because he always booked the stuff he was involved with and came up with big picture ideas. Gewirtz wrote Raw almost by himself, which is what caused him and Sean Waltman to have lots of heat. Nipple H was booking a little too as I said earlier.
After Kreski was gone, Nipple H then took over booking power, but she was not the first choice of Vince to do so. Vince McMahon bought out Russo’s WCW contract and brought him in as head of creative for 3 days. Every political force in the WWF hated this and unified behind Nipple H and Triple H to stop Russo. It turned out it really was not necessary because Russo never had any intention of working for McMahon (Russo just worked McMahon to help him get out of his WCW contract so Russo could go to work for TNA, which he was already ghost writing) and Russo came into the first writing meeting armed with whacked out ideas like doing the Invasion over again that Russo knew would get him fired.
No, that’s not quite right. The WWE changed their entire booking operation after Kreski was gone. Gerwitz was struggling on his own and they turned it into it’s own department in the corporation. Stephanie headed the department and put middle management in place to report to her, and under them came the TV scripters, and under them the bookers. That No Soul guy who used to have a wrestling site wrote a phenomenal article explaining it after he was contacted to write an episode for them.
Anyway, at some point, Russo sent a copy of his book to the WWWE legal team to check it so he wouldn’t get sued after he published it (pretty common in the publishing industrt). McMahon came across it, read it, and was impressed that Russo only painted McMahon in a positive light. So, he hired Russo to work in the creative division. Russo didn’t like the new structure and after one script, asked McMahon for his release. McMahon agreed and Russo was free to go anywhere he wanted. This is all in an interview on 1wrestling.com.
BTW - Almost all the ideas Russo walked in with for the first meeting were eventually used anyway. Say what you want about McMahon, but he didn’t get to be a billionaire by getting conned by bookers.
Kreski was an influential writer. However, the booking did not change too drastically because Vince has always been the main idea guy while others came up with the details on the ideas before Brian wrote it into television (as Russo had done before him). The changes in the writing structure were planned before Kreski left and were executed as planned to give Stephanie her shot at writing. The other change to booking at that time was that Hollywood wash outs started being brought in.
From before the first TNA weekly pay per view it was rumored Russo was ghost writing the show because he was always in love with the Jarretts. Russo could not openly work for the Jarrett clan because he was still being paid by Time Warner to sit at home and not write. Russo tricked McMahon into thinking he liked him and wanted to work for him (probably by using Russo’s book), so since McMahon is always too nice a guy he bought out Russo’s WCW contract and gave Russo a second chance. Russo is the ultimate con artist, so he showed up at Titan Towers with a bunch of whacked out ideas (McMahon never used any of them) involving doing the invasion again after it flopped, signing all the old, expensive WCW guys at once, and using Bret Hart that got him fired so he was free to go and openly work for TNA as he always wanted.
I think it was Chris Kreski.
I was recent;y going through a bunch of RAWs from this same year, 2000. The only good things, in my opinion, that year was The Rock, Jericho, Edge & Christian, Kurt Angle, and the Radicals (mainly Eddie and Benoit.) Throughout 98 and 99, the match quality on RAW was not very good and I credit the WCW guys that jumped over as a big reason why the match quality was so much better in 00 vs. 98 and 99. There were so many good tv matches from that year that I have transferred from vhs to dvd, while I mostly skipped the matches in 98 and 99, and just kept big segments with Austin and Rock.
You really sandbagged Rock/HHH. ***3/4? I’m not sure about that.
It was a very well worked match with some great drama. Granted Rock-HHH had a much much better match the following month, this was a fine match especially given they had to work with heavily overbooked parameters (by my count there were seven participants physically involved in the match and 10 total directly involved in the outcome). Despite the distractions it was strong 1-on-1 action for about 13 of the 20 minutes and excellent heat otherwise. No blown spots, no real rest periods of note, nothing bad.
Only thing I didn’t like was Rock winning with the spinebuster/people’s elbow combination rather than a Rockbottom. The spinebuster/people’s elbow shouldn’t get a three count for a world championship.
I’m inclined to agree with you on your point concerning the spinebuster/People’s Elbow. He should have went over with the Rock Bottom. It gives the victory more credibility in my opinion.
I agree totally on the point regarding the People’s Elbow as a finisher. That move should never have ever been a serious finisher, it was ridiculous. The Elbow was meant to be ridiculous; it was created as a rib on Hulk Hogan when Rock was a heel. The Hogan leg drop was a more legitimate finisher as it was a 300 pound guy dropping most of his weight on a wrestler, not a 250 pound guy dropping the tip of his elbow on you.
I’ve been watching wrestling only since 1999, and 2000 is by far my favorite era of what I’ve watched “live.” You had the influx/rise of the WCW guys…Cactus Jack made one last glorious pissed off run…HHH brought the goods like no other and Rock matched him…Angle was rising to prominence…Taker was re-invented…the tag team scene was amazing not only with good teams but also great gimmicks like heel Edge and Christian and the Dudleyz actually getting over as FACES, not to mention the awesomeness of the backstage APA skits…and let’s not forget the Houdini of Hardcore, Crash Holly…
Man I love 2000.
2000 was great because of Team ECK: Edge, Christian, and Kurt. Those were my boys.
Team ECK ruled the universe. They were still great when they added Rhyno and became Team RECK. I will never forget when Edge and Christian argued if the McMahon / Helmsley era was a regime or a faction and they dubbed it the “facgime.” I thought it was hilarious and never understood why the “facgime” name never got over (I also wanted to call Head Cheese Head Games instead with them carrying around the Candy Land board game they had in 1 promo).
It’s funny to think that despite how Vince has a reputation for not pushing his own creations, the Radicalz had been around just 3 months and Benoit was IC champ, Eddie was Euro champ, Malenko was Cruiser champ, and Saturn was in Hardcore title hunt. Then by Fully Loaded (another 3 months later) Benoit was fighting for the world title and Saturn won the Euro title from Eddie. Not sure what ever happened to Malenko…did he ever have another singles match on PPV after the one with Scotty? Certainly nothing even close to 4 stars to my recollection.
Err…perhaps I meant not pushing those who weren’t his own creations. (or is that a double negative?) Oh well.
McMahon pushes those who make him money period. The internet does not want to believe it but it is true. He adds his own spin to the wrestlers, but the guys who made Vince Junior all his big money (except the Rock) all came from some place else first. Vince Junior would like to create his own wrestlers, such as Brock Lesnar and Black Lesnar, since they would have more years of drawing with him than other guys who spent years else where, but they generally flop so he goes with where the bucks are.
Well, Vince will push his non-creations to a point. The two best examples are Flair and Jericho. Both got runs with the belt (belts in Jericho’s case) but you never got the feeling that Vince was solidly behind either guy. You can’t really say it was either guy’s fault. Flair is Flair and Jericho stepped up his game and had awesome promos and matches when he had the belt. He was also really hampered by Austin and HHH.
Flair never drew as WWF champion and WWF fans really lost interest in him after it was clear Hogan / Flair was not happening. Jericho was talking about retiring years before he did and was always messing around with his band. Therefore, neither guy was a long term draw for McMahon, so he was right to not push either more than he did. As far as Flair and Jericho’s WWF pushes go, despite all the complaining the internet does, neither Jericho nor Flair has ever complained about their WWF pushes whether they were under contract to McMahon or not.