Wednesday, July 4, 2018

WWF King Of The Ring 2000


You know... I never got around to doing write-ups for the last few King Of The Ring PPVs, so we may as well get those out of the way. And what better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than give people a King Of The Ring 2000 musings... and then the next couple weeks will see the last two KOTR PPVs finally checked off the list. Who knows where we'll go from there?

While 1999 might have been successful, 2000 was when the WWF product started to get really good as the stories told began to make more sense and you had more guys who were capable of wrestling more compelling matches that were longer yet enthralling.

Unfortunately, none of those positives can be found in this show, which probably explains why I held off watching these even when I had access to the VOD part of the WWE Network. Nonetheless, we move forwards onto the breach... and instantly regret it.


First off, let's get the quarterfinals out of the way.

KOTR Quarterfinals: Rikishi defeated Chris Benoit via disqualification to advance to the semifinals. Benoit smashed Rikishi with a chair, which brought about the DQ. Not particularly good.

KOTR Quarterfinals: Val Venis defeated Eddie Guerrero with a nice looking fisherman's suplex to advance to the semifinals. Perfectly acceptable fare that was entertaining enough and didn't overstay its welcome. Trish (pairing with Val) looks nice. Chyna (pairing with Eddie) looks fine too. They fight and bicker. That's nice for a lark.

KOTR Quarterfinals: Crash Holly beat Bull Buchanon with a roll-up to advance to the semifinals... waste of time.

KOTR Quarterfinals: Kurt Angle defeated Chris Jericho to advance to the semifinals. Didn't quite get into this one as much as I would've liked, if only because it was a bit short for my tastes. But don't worry; they'll get better.

Edge & Christian beat Tag-Team champs Too Cool, the Hardyz (back when they were boys and not broken), and Test & Albert (a.k.a. T&A... har har) to win the titles. This was elimination rules, so first T&A goes bye-bye (not THAT TNA, I'm afraid), then the Hardyz go broke (not broken), and finally the champs go down. It took me a while to recall that Too Cool (featuring Jerry Lawler's kid and his partner doing a goofy hip-hop thing) won the tag-team titles during this time. Possibly because I was doing my very best to not remember such details.

KOTR Semifinals: Rikishi defeats Val Venis with a belly-to-belly suplex to advance to the finals. Val then does a number of Rikishi's arm. Meh... 'tis a thing that happened and let's leave it at that.

KOTR Semifinals: Kurt Angle easily disposes of Crash Holly to advance to the finals. I mean, come on. Crash Holly? A threat to Kurt Angle? Perish the thought. Har, har!

Yeah, I know I'm not saying a whole lot, but given how short these matches are, there isn't a whole lot to say. Besides, even back in 2000, the winner was fairly obvious at this point.

Next up we have the Evening Gown match between Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson for the Hardcore title. Both men are dressed in drag and wearing wigs. There's an almost humorous nature and something about a banana is brought up. Once Brisco hits the Bronco buster, the joke dies a slow and tepid death (one could argue the joke died ages ago and one would be correct), leaving us with Crash Holly to knock Brisco out with a can and score the pin on Patterson (who was the Hardcore champion) for the title. After all, the Hardcore title is a 24/7 thing. Or something. This is a match that you'll either get a couple laughs out of or you'll just facepalm in embarrassment. But at least you'll feel something. Personally, I've sat through much worse and this got a chuckle or two before the joke eventually died.

On the flip side, I'm surprised that the idea of two dudes in an evening gown match isn't a thing in today's modern age. Diversity and all that stuff, you know.

Road Dogg and X-Pac defeated the Dudley Boyz in a dumpster match... the whole story is Bubba wanting to powerbomb Tori through a table... No, no, not THAT Torrie. The other one... the one with the skin tight outfit who was stalking Brock Lesnar's future wife... anyway, the finish comes when Tori fleas inside the dumpster and the Dudleyz follow her in, only to get dumped by the other jabronis and the lid shut.

On the bright side, Bubba got to powerbomb Tori through a table and out of the WWF, apparently. (Not really, since she would later show up as a ninja a couple times later on before really being gone for good.)

KOTR FINALS: Kurt Angle defeated Rikishi to become the 2000 King Of The Ring winner. Even back in the day, there was no doubt who was going to win this one. Angle may have been the goofball idiot at this time, but looking at his earlier work and the way he was being pushed, there were hints of greatness waiting to burst and perhaps that's why Angle eventually got the WWF title a few months down the line. The guy was pretty much the total package - sorry, Lex - and was destined for great things.

There was a six-man tag match, with the team of Rock, Undertaker, and Kane facing off against WWF World champ HHH, Vince, and Shane. The title is on the line here (meaning whoever scored the pinfall or submission would win the title) and while everyone is distracted, Vince tries for a People's Elbow on a downed Rocky, only for Rock to pop right up and hit Vince with a Rock Bottom. One pinfall and a three-count later, Rocky's the new champion while HHH looks on in shock. This ending was so great and so inventive that they'd recycle it a decade or so later with Rock vs. Cena at one of the Wrestlemanias... so that's a thing.

Other than that, though, the match was boring, drawn-out, and not all that exciting. Even back in the day, I could recall not being very excited by what was happening here.

In any event, that was the 2000 edition of the King of the Ring.

It was forgettable and bad.

Or rather, just bad.

I'm sorry I even watched this thing.

*sigh*

I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

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