Random Review: Fully Loaded 2000

The event opens with a cool hype video. The tagline is “The Crap Shoot”. I understand the gambling link but that’s an awful tagline. The video focuses on four men: Rock, ‘Taker, HHH, Angle, Jericho and Benoit. I thought it was some six-way challenge bout. Instead the titan-tron hypes up a “Triple Main Event” and one of them is a Last Man Standing too. Sounds good.

 

We open with the Hardy Boys and Lita versus Trish Stratus, Test and Albert in a six-person inter-gender bout. The video package beforehand focuses on divas, which is odd. But considering the crowd are chanting for Lita the entire match, it’s the right call.  The Hardy’s are the epitome of tag team wrestling and hit their usual tag combos. There’s some cool spots from Lita too, who picks up the win with the Moonsault. Excellent opener, you couldn’t have asked for a better match to warm the crowd up. Trish attacks Lita post match and whips her (not like that).

Backstage, Edge tells Commissioner Mick Foley that his tag partner, Christian is too ill to compete. Foley doesn’t believe Edge. Interesting, wonder where they’re going with this. Also happening backstage, the Undertaker arrives on his motorbike (in his awesome American Badass gimmick). He spots Angle and chases him down the corridor on the bike. Angle then manages to evade him. Damn cool segment.

Next up is Tazz versus Al Snow. It’s a surprisingly good match. Surprising to Jerry Lawler on commentary too, who runs down Snow as a nobody. There’s some innovative moves and moves you don’t usually see in this short contest. Snow even busts out a moonsault or should that be a snowsault? Tazz gets the win and looks good in the process, shame this push wouldn’t last.
 

Backstage again with E&C. Foley comes in while Christian is puking. Is Edge going to have a replacement partner? Triple H and Stephanie are watching the screen from their room. There’s loads of flowers but they’re not from HHH. The note inside the flowers says “it’s true, it’s damn true,” but I have a feeling it’s not from Angle.
 

It’s time for “Latino Heat” and the European Championship match. Eddie is up against the odd looking Perry Saturn. His selling matches his look. Odd. Chyna is out with Eddie while Terri came out with Perry but got scared by Chyna and ran away. Eddie keeps hitting hurricanrana’s, why does he keep hitting them? Chyna gets involved and late in the match Saturn hits her with a clothesline and she falls through the Spanish Announce table. This allows Terri to run out and hit the low blow for the win. New Champ!

Backstage again for the latest in the series of segments with Edge, Christian and Mick Foley. The Commissioner find out Christian has been lying and orders them to defend the belts tonight. Meanwhile, The Undertaker is interviewed by Michael Cole but gets distracted when he sees Angle riding his bike. ‘Taker then gives chase. I don’t want to link this up to modern day but the way ‘Taker is perceived here is how Roman Reigns should be. Says what he needs to say, gets the business done and looks like a total badass.

Edge and Christian are now out to defend the Tag Team titles. They get cheap heat by running down the crowd before the Acolytes come down. Bradshaw defends the homecrowd, it’s strange to think this guy would go onto become a World Champion and then a great commentator. Bradshaw and Faarooq brawl with E&C before the champions use heel tactics to take control. Those simple promos at the start have made the fans care about this match. Sadly it ends in an intentional DQ from Edge and Christian, the two teams brawl to the back, I assume this feud will continue.

More segments. 1) There’s a strange Big Boss Man promo where he checks someone’s ID in Times Square. Oh, and he’s dressed as a member of the Shield. 2) Triple H is backstage with Stephanie. The Game decides he is going after Kurt for sending all these flowers to his wife. 3) The Undertaker gives chase to Kurt but the Olympic Gold Medalist outsmarts him with an attack with a wrench from behind. Angle focuses on the injured knee of ‘Taker.

There’s been a steel cage hanging above the ring all night. I assumed it was for one of the three main event matches. But it’s for the Intercontinental title match between Rikishi and champion Val Venis. Teddy Long is out referee playa, better watch he doesn’t make this a tag match. I forget that Venis was so high up the card in these days. I don’t know what gimmick he has here. He comes out with Trish. They do the usual, I-throw-you-into-the-cage spot before ’Kishi sells a clothesline like a cruiserweight. Impressive. Val gets busted open and ‘Kishi begins to leave but Trish smashes the door in his face! Lita then comes running out to another huge pop, he starts whipping Trish to the back. Teddy Long then takes a bump as ‘Kishi begins to leave over the top. But he gets to the top and decides he wants to dive instead. Kishi nerviously moves to the middle of the cage, looks the camera dead in the eye then hits a huge splash from the top of the cage. SUPERFLY KISHI! I did not expect that. Both men stay down until 'Kishi begins to exit through the door. But Tazz appears and hits ‘Kishi with a camera allowing Val to exit and retain. Surprisingly good cage match.
 
Backstage we get shown footage of Kurt attacking the Undertaker again. Then live footage of ‘Taker wiping off a 30 days without accident sign, ha. Then we cut to Triple H who finds who has been sending flowers. He enters a room and there are some sounds before Chris Jericho emerges and HHH is left on the floor. Simple stuff but all these short segments add extra heat to the feuds.

Shane O’Mac is out in wrestling gear but he’s not wrestling, damn. He has the Rock’s “Just Bring It” shirt on. It's about time we see a promo hyping up the title match, everything else has been built up. He calls out “The People’s Champion” who soon appears. The Rock says it’s a set-up, says Benoit is hiding and jokes that he is up Shane’s candy ass. Benoit appears on the screen backstage, cuts a short promo and rips up rocks clothes. Oh, this feud just got personal.

Onto the first of the triple main events, we are shown an Angle versus ‘Taker hype video. Angle looks great in this. At first he didn't want to fight ‘Taker. He even tried making up for damaging ‘Taker’s bike by buying him a scooter. Angle is so scared that 'Taker will get payback that he is frightened by his own pyro. Lawler comments it’s the “American Badass versus the great American hero.”

Onto the match, ‘Taker interrupts Angle’s entrance and gets the match going early. There’s a brief fight in crowd before the match officially begins. The Undertaker is in full control, even breaking up his own pin counts. On the outside, Angle turns the tide by using the wrench on the injured knee. Kurt gets “The Deadman” back in the ring and focuses on knee with submissions. ‘Taker fights back and hits a Chokeslam followed by a Last Ride. For the pretty easy win.

Backstage, The Rock is back in his locker room looking at his ripped clothing. Nobody messes with the Rock’s silk shirts dammit!

 

Next up is our second main event, hopefully it’s better than the last one. Triple H faces Chris Jericho in a Last Man Standing match. It’s only the second LMS match in WWE history. Loving the old school music. “Yo Jimmy, hit me with that Triple H.” (I now have to resist the urge not to dig out my old Playstation and play old Smackdown games). HHH controls the match and I’m immediately thinking this is going to be one-sided like the last bout. There’s a referee bump and Stephanie gets in the ring but takes the Walls of Jericho. Triple H gets busted open bad from a chairshot, as if someone poured a red paint tub over his head which allows Jericho to get in offence and look good. Someone needs to tell the referee the rules of a Last Man Standing bout, he really doesn't know what he's doing. They fight to the outside where they both nearly KO each other with the announce table monitors. Y2J tries to put HHH through the table. But “The Game” fights back and hits a back body drop off the time-keepers table through the announce table. The referee begins the count and it looks like it will be a double count out but Triple H gets to his feet on 10 then falls. Referee awards the match to Triple H. Damn good match, maybe not as good as a Last Man Standing match should be, but maybe that’s me comparing it to today’s standards.

And into the third and final main event, here we go. The Rock versus Chris Benoit hype video is shown, there’s an awkward statement by JR about how ruthless Benoit is but I think there’s one of them in any of his matches. I think this might be my first Benoit match I’ve watched since he died. Because of how heated this match is (they keep attacking each other with chairs), Foley made a stip that if The Rock loses by DQ he will lose the belt. Why didn’t he just make this the Last Man Standing bout? That would have made more sense.

Onto the match, Benoit wears a ripped Rock shirt and has Shane O’Mac at ringside. The crowd loves The Rock, he gets the biggest pop of the night and that continues into the match as Rocky goes right on the offence. There’s lots of Shane interference and distractions but he’s sloppy early on. It’s like Rock and Benoit are waiting for him. After one Shane interference, Rock ends up being clotheslined into the crowd. The Rock fights back using a fans drink to hit the challenger. But Benoit begins to control working over Rocky until the champ comes back with a Powerbomb but instead up dumping him back down he lifts him over into a kind of powerbomb/hotshot. Odd, dunno if that was a botch or just a very odd move. Rock hits the People’s Elbow but Shane delays the pin allowing the Benoit to recover in time to kick out. Shane continues to get involved, hitting Hebner with a chair from behind. The referee then sees Rock with the chair as he dumps it out of the ring. Rocky locks in the Crossface and the referee rings the bell. Wait. The referee thinks the Rock hit him with the chair so as per the stipulation, Benoit wins the title on DQ!

Shane hits The Rock with a jumping chair shot that leaves the former champ blooded. Shane and Benoit celebrate up the ramp, this can’t end like this! Here comes Mick Foley who is super over with the crowd. He helps his old Rock-n-Sock buddy by restarting the match since neither he or the audience saw a DQ. Rocky stumbles to his feet with blood dripping off his nose and motions to Just Bring It. Such an awesome visual. Benoit comes marching down to the ring and locks in the Crippler Crossface on The Rock. He looks like he might tap, then he looks like he might pass out. But he manages to get out of it and hit the Rock Bottom outta nowhere to retain.

 

Verdict: Overall, it’s a very good show. There’s not a single bad match on the entire card which is rare sight. I loved the segments throughout the night. They made me care about the tag title match and the main events. The only let down was Undertaker versus Angle as it lacked that “Main Event“ feel. One reason for this is because they wasn’t given enough time but it was WWF's fault building it up as one of the 'Triple Main Events'. In conclusion, it's definitely a card to take time out to watch. Even though there are a few big names missing (Big Show, Kane and the literal poster-boy Stone Cold), this show really typifies the era.