Austin101's- WWF Armageddon 2000 Review:
"I'm not about to be beaten by an Eyebrow or a Giant Nose, A Bad Ass, a Fat ass or a Red Neck!" -Kurt Angle
-Live on PPV Sunday, December 10th, 2000 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The tagline was
"Lord, I'm Coming Home to You." The official theme song was a remake of "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
-The main feud heading into the event was between Angle the WWF Champion and the 5 other contenders. HHH and Rikishi who set up the run down on Austin were the other two heels in the match and Rock, Taker and Austin were the babyfaces in the match. The crowd was going for The Rock and Austin the most.
-The broadcasters for this PPV were Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler.
-On Sunday Night Heat before the event Scotty 2 Hotty defeated D'Lo Brown.
Now, onto the PPV......
1) The Radicalz (Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, and Eddie Guerrero) vs The Hardy Boyz (Matt and Jeff) and Lita in an Elimination match
Entertaining opener.
I always liked single elimination matches but the Dean/Lita storyline didn't need to be here. I hate truth or date storylines in the WWF but oh well.
Team Xtreme was very popular as was Terri's outfit...for me anyway.
This was fast and to the point.
The falls went like this....
* Jeff pinned Guerrero after a Swanton Bomb (2:57)
* Saturn pinned Jeff after a Death Valley Driver(3:41)
* Matt pinned Saturn after a Twist of Fate (5:08)
* Malenko pinned Matt after a Roll-up (5:34)
And in the end Malenko forced Lita to submit with the Texas Cloverleaf at 8:06 to give The Radicalz the win.
** 1/4
2) William Regal (c) vs Hardcore Holly to retain the WWF European Championship
Regal who was amazingly over as a heel here (even main evented Raw's in 2000 with Steve Austin btw) got a good heel responce.
He got on the mic and told the Alabama crowd he knew they'd cheer for Holly because he was from Alabama. Yeah, WWF...cool way of getting Holly a pop. It was the first and only time.
Good match here.
Regal pinned Holly after Raven interfered and hit the Raven Effect DDT on Holly to retain the European title at 4:59.
This was a pleasent surprise.
Good mat wrestling with solid brawling inbetween. Short but it felt longer in a good way. One of Holly's better matches as a normal "wrestler" not in a hardcore or tag team style.
** 3/4
3) Val Venis (w/Ivory) vs Chyna
Couldn't wait for this one.....end sarcasm/.
Don't know why the WWF kept putting Chyna with males over and over, Road Dogg, Holly, Jericho, Jarrett, Venis, etc.
Oh well.
Venis pinned Chyna after a Fisherman's Suplex at 5:02.
Well thankfully it was quick, but believe it or not it's not as bad as it sounds.
Val and Chyna amazingly didn't do half bad here, but that doesen't mean it was half good either.
* 1/4
4) Y2J Chris Jericho vs "The Big Red Machine" Kane in a Last Man Standing match
At least this feud didn't start because of a cup of coffee. Oh wait....
Pretty good brawling and moves back and forth, pretty hardcore in spots.
Added a bit to a rather dull feud.
Jericho won when he pushed a stack of barrels onto Kane and Kane couldn't get up to answer the 10 count at 17:16.
There styles never really mixed for me.
Boring in parts but then in others quite good. The psychology blew for the most part but there was a lot of things good in this 17 minute plus war, that was very solid to give this a bad rating.
** 3/4
5) Edge and Christian vs The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von) vs Right To Censor (Bull Buchanan and The Goodfather) (c) vs Road Dogg and K-Kwik in a Fatal Four-Way match for the WWF Tag Team Championship
Get Rowdy.
Yeah that gimmick didn't work out so well for Kwik and The Dogg.
This match was surprisngly very fun to watch.
A lot of fast action, frequent tags, no real dull moments to note like there usually can be on PPV tag team matches.
Edge pinned Bubba Ray after an Impaler by Christian to become the New WWF Tag Team Champions for the cozillianth time at 9:42. Seriously it seems like every PPV back then they'd win to become "THE NEW" Tag Team Champions. Don't get me wrong they deserve it as they were hillarious on the mic, over and great in the ring but it got a little repetitive.
This was a great tag team match here, very entertaining, very well done. I remember not liking it when I was younger but this was actually very solid on the re-watch.
***
6) "The Canadian Crippler" Chris Benoit vs "The One" Billy Gunn (c) for the WWF Intercontinental Championship
Yes, it was Gunn who came out with the title and Benoit was the challenger.
The smarks in the crowd were silently going for Benoit here after his great debut year in the WWF but the ladies and casual kid fans went for Gunn.
This was probably as over as "The One" as he ever was. He had a good run in the 01 Rumble anyway but getting over and Billy Gunn just don't mix for the most part. Remember when he won the King of The Ring? Yeah, I don't either.
This match wasn't half bad because Benoit did a nice job carrying Billy who isn't exactly terrible in his own right.
They made 10 minutes seem like about five, but the match got a little worse as it went on. Billy forgot to sell and then the offensive moves got sloppy as both guys forget when to deliver a blow.
However that small detail doesen't ruin the chemistry here which was pretty good, and nice to see Benoit win the belt even though he'd lose it in a month at The Rumble in a classic ladder match to Y2J.
Benoit forced Gunn to submit with the Crippler Crossface at 10:14 to become the NEW IC Champion.
Pretty good for sure.
** 1/2
7) Ivory (c) vs Trish Stratus vs Molly Holly in a Triangle match for the WWF Women’s Championship (
Not much to say here other then the fact I wanna put it in Trish.
This was before she became a good wrestler. She was horrid here and Ivory was just annoying as this character.
Ivory pinned Trish after Molly delivered a Sitout Powerbomb on Trish at 2:12 to retain the title.
2 minutes is not long enough to jack off to Trish so this match fails.
1/4* for The APA Return.
1/4* for Trish's hot ass.
1/2 *
8) Main Event- Kurt Angle (c) vs Stone Cold Steve Austin, vs "The Game" Triple H vs "The American Bad Ass" The Undertaker, vs Rikishi vs The Rock in the only 6 Man Hell in a Cell match for the WWF Championship
Here we go.
The first and only time there's been six men in a Hell in a Cell match going for the WWF Title.
Kurt Angle although he was the WWF Champion was still the biggest underdog in this match next to Rikishi. Angle's victory helped him huge here.
His title reign kept gaining credibility the more times he was able to walk away from a title defense, especially against 5 of the company's (well 4 for sure anyway) biggest stars.
Taker used his "Rollin" song for the first time in this match, as before he did "American Bad Ass" by Limp Bizkit. Rock and Austin got the biggest pops, while HHH and Angle got the biggest heat. Rikishi was still booed though and Taker was still cheered.
Austin began the match attacking Angle with his vest on and through him to the outside of the cell and then inside the bell rang, and the king stated, leave it to the rattlesnake to get this mayhem underway.
A lot of fun brawling in this one THAT IS FOR SURE.
The best of the brawling came when they went to the stage area and got to the cars and went on them. A lot of great moves Over The Edge 98 style with the vehicles.
Fun showing here, a lot better then I remembered.
During the match, Vince McMahon, Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson brought a pick-up truck to the ring and destroyed the cell door.
WWF Commissioner Mick Foley came out and ordered security to escort McMahon, Brisco and Patterson out of the arena. The fans popped big for Foley in 2000 as the Commish, this was shortly before Vince said "YOOOOU'RE FIIIIIRED" to him on Monday Night Raw (believe it was the week before Xmas or something)
You can say there was good and there was bad, I'll seperate the basics here.
The Good:
-A lot of action everywhere. Sometimes in Cell matches the action can be slow because of one guys big bump and the result is him laying there catching a breather. Six guys in the match made the action non-stop.
-The Taker-Rikishi bump although not very hardcore still gave the fans SOMETHING at least.
-Austin and HHH on top of the cell, the fact more then two were on top of the cell brawling, chair shots. Or the fact no one fell through.
-The Rock and Austin's stare down at the end was very good for the fans.
-Austin swinging the camera and it hitting HHH and the camera shot of it was good. Same with HHH putting Austin through the glass of the car, the brawling and sling shots onto the car were all good for the most part.
-It was original and the crowd were loud the entire time.
The Bad:
-Taker/Rikishi. Although it was good, it was a little corny for that truck to be driven out by McMahon, just so convenientaly placed right there and the bump didn't look like it hurt all that much. Still a good bump but I'll take Rikishi's splash off the cage onto Venis at Fully Loaded over that.
-The Surprise ending left everybody shocked or pissed off. It was a cool booking decision but being there live must have sucked for those fans expecting a huge title win.
-Sometimes a positive can be a negative. Above I pointed out that having six guys all go at it at once is a plus because of so much variety. However we probably missed some good spots due to the camera focusing on two guys for most of the time, leaving four out.
Angle pinned Rock after Austin hit Rock with a Stone Cold Stunner at 32:14. The retain was a huge shock.
Afterwards Austin stunned Angle so the crowd could POP before they leave the show. Sort of like how Rock gave Stephanie the people's elbow after HHH retained at Wrestlemania 2000, so the fans could leave a bit happy.
My verdict is that the good out weighed the bad here and this was a Great Cell match that had the crowd loud, and the viewers on the edge of there seat. The star power really helped, as did the violence. I would have liked more action IN THE CELL but overall it's a great match. My original thoughts were to rate this in the *** 1/2 - *** 3/4 range but I have changed my mind.
I now believe this is just barely four stars. Definately not one of the best Cell Matches but still great.
****
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Final Rating for WWF Armageddon 2000 = 7/10
This show was a lot of fun. Lets face it, it took place during the attitude era before it officially started to die so it had a lot of star power especially in the main event. The PPV was also pretty good in the mid-card as they made work of there great tag teams among other guys like Jericho-Kane, and Benoit-Gunn. The bad matches came few and far between and overall it was just a lot of fun as I feel that is the best way to describe the year 2000 edition of WWF Armageddon. Pretty good event, pick it up for the Cell match especially, but if you compare this to other PPV's in the year 2000 it can come off rather mediocre.
Feedback appreciated as always if you want to discuss.....
Up Next From Austin101: "WWE Armageddon 2002"
(There WAS NO Armageddon 2001 if anyone doesen't already know due to 9/11 there was Vengeance instead, however Vengeance 01 will be reviewed when I get to the Vengeance's.)
(stay tuned.....)
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Re: Official WWE DVD Help/Discussion/Review Thread
RVD is always good for a Rumble match. This match has really got good! Ouch, botched stunners FTL. Nothing looks worse than a botched stunner, apart from maybe Ashley going by this forum. Final three and Perfect is doing great, Austin starts beating on Perfect and Angle makes the save. Start of an Austin/Perfect feud? Could have been, would have been better than Austin/Hall though. Austin is a tad miffed by this point laying everyone out. The final two showdown was excellent, Angle would have been the better winner and eventual better match at Mania but HHH had the momentum going in and won. Good ending, good rumble match but not as good as my favourite two 2001 and 2005.