With No Singles Matches, It's The Weirdest PPV Ever
WWE typically tries to create a strong card of variety when putting together WrestleMania each year. WrestleMania 2000 was a rare instance of WWE booking a strange card with no singles matches and lots of odd ideas in play. The unusual booking came during one of WWE’s best years with most of their PPVs hitting home runs in the year 2000, even though Steve Austin missed most months due to injury.WrestleMania was the rare instance of a show not being well-received due to how many strange things happened. The show felt like a secondary event with few matches living up to the hype of the biggest show of the year. WWE missed out on having a more well-received PPV to make the most of their popularity. WrestleMania 2000 deserves another look back for how peculiar it was with zero singles matches.
There Were Too Many Strange Matches
There were only a couple of matches that provided significance on the card of WrestleMania 2000. WWE even took away from the more anticipated matches involving the WWE Championship and the Intercontinental Championship. The triple threat for the IC Title featured Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit as arguably the three best in-ring workers at the time. However, the odd stipulation of two mid-card titles changing after two separate pin falls just made it confusing.
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WWE even overcomplicated the main event by having a McMahon relative in every corner for the WWE Championship match between Triple H, The Rock, Mick Foley and Big Show. The McMahon family being the biggest story just took away from an already shaky concept of a fatal four-way main event. WWE booked odd matches on the rest of the card that made little sense.
The Hardcore Championship was defended in a fifteen-minute sprint where the title changed hands ten times using the 24/7 rule. WWE rarely used women in a credible manner at this time, as seen with the one match featuring Terri Runnels vs The Kat in a cat fight. Popular names like Kane and Chyna were used in multi-person tag matches rather than singles feuds.
There Were Tons Of Missed Singles Match Opportunities
WWE could have put together a much better card for WrestleMania 2000 using more singles matches. The Rock and Triple H had a classic singles match for the WWE Championship one month later at Backlash 2000 with an injured Steve Austin appearing. This felt like a much better main event worthy of WrestleMania rather than a fatal four-way match based on McMahon family drama.
Kane was red hot at the time with a lot of fan support to get revenge against his former best friend X-Pac and former love interest Tori for each turning on him. WWE made it a tag match of Kane and Rikishi vs X-Pac and Road Dogg rather than the singles X-Pac vs Kane match needed to culminate that long storyline.
Chyna and Eddie Guerrero were in the early stages of their feud when Chyna teamed with the Too Cool tag team to face Eddie and The Radicalz. Once again, a singles match would have added more importance to the card and their rivalry, especially since Chyna was over big time as a singles star. Other tag matches involving lower card acts could have easily been better served in a couple of singles bouts.
WrestleMania 2000 Has A Unique Legacy
Every WrestleMania event will have a legacy for better or worse since the event is the biggest night of the year in every year for WWE. There is one massive positive from that night in the form of the three-team ladder match between the Dudley Boyz, Hardy Boyz, and Edge & Christian. All six names became far bigger stars this night in a show-stealer that is easily the peak of the event.
The Intercontinental Championship triple threat and the WWE Championship fatal four-way should have been far better, but the characters in play did have the audience involved. Unfortunately, both matches ended with finishes that took away from the stories. No one wanted to see Vince McMahon hugging Stephanie and Shane as the closing storyline to the biggest show, nor did they want an inconclusive end to the Kurt Angle vs Chris Jericho vs Chris Benoit match.
The overall legacy of WrestleMania 2000 is generally about how bizarre the card was. WWE not booking any singles matches was a risk that ultimately didn’t work out. The next set of PPVs almost all delivered more for the rest of 2000. Positive moments like the triangle ladder match get the highlights, but the show is remembered more about what could have been.
