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WrestleMania 16/17


C-Rock

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I don't often post new topics on here but I was thinking recently the difference between WrestleMania 16 and 17 is amazing, it seemed that in a year WWE really took a massive step up in regards to how they put together WrestleMania 17, bigger arena, bigger set design and just an overall bigger more expensive feel.

 

Does anybody know what happened within that year in order for WrestleMania 17 to be much bigger than in previous years. And what other WrestleMania's changed for the bigger better in a year (if that makes sense)

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No idea, but i often wonder why they took a break from "stadium" Wrestlemania's in 2005/06 and they returned to them again for 23 in 2007.

 

For me, Wrestlemania can lose a bit of atmosphere in stadium's, although for odd matches like Hogan/Rock, Cena/Rock, Taker/HBK & Taker/Trips it can look and sound fantastic.

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Even though 1997 & 1998 are the long-time fans favourite years when the turnaround began and WWE reclaimed the #1 spot from WCW, wasn't 1999 the year that revenue started to skyrocket?

 

Knowing how they book WrestleMania venues a year in advance, I think after a good 1998 going into 1999 they booked the Annaheim Pond for WM2000 but then as 1999 became a huge year for them they probably realised they could sell out a big stadium.

 

So during the WM2000 live ppv, they cut from Terri Runnels bare arse to this video:

 

I remember watching open mouthed as they mentioned the record 93,000 crowd who attended WrestleMania III before stating "Records don't bend ... THEY BREAK!"

 

I couldn't believe it. 100,000+ attendance at the WWF's biggest show of all time?! I must be there.

 

So I went to my first WrestleMania and the attendance was 67,925. That was disappointing.

 

But it being one of the best weekends of my life and the best WrestleMania of all-time took the sting out of it. :thumbsup:

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Whoever thought that having a Wrestlemania without a single one on one match, needs fucking shooting.

Absolutely. In fact, the whole card was pretty poor. Quite a few consider 2000 to be the best year for WWE, yet their big show was a bit shit. So much god awful and pointless filler that you haven't seen since the early Manias. Let's look at the event, shall we?

 

-Bossman & Bull Buchanan VS D'Lo & Godfather. Why. Just, why. Why was Buchanan on the card, why was D'Lo now a pimp (pretty sure it was a one-night thing), why was Ice T suddenly deemed to be relavant?

-Hardcore battle royal. This was quite fun to be fair. However, this should've been the end of the 24/7 rule. I think in the build-up Crash said something along the lines of he was sick of having to watch his back all the time, so he would have this battle royal to sort it out once and for all. The 24/7 rule did have it's positives over the next couple of years, but in the main it was crap. Certainly towards the end after Shawn Stasiak's millionth reign.

-T&A VS Head Cheese. Bloody hell, Head Cheese? It's this kind of thing that makes me glad we aren't in the Attitude era anymore! T&A were bland and shit, barely salvaged by Trish. I had a soft spot for Blackman but Al Snow was an eternal jobber in my eyes. Sunday Night Heat match, at best

-Triangle Ladder Match. Fair enough, this set the tone for the future TLC matches. Well worthy of it's place on the card. No argument here.

-Terri Runnells VS The Kat. I don't even remember this match. Probably for the best.

-Too Cool & Chyna VS The Radicalz. Everything had to end in a 'Z' around this time, didn't it? I think this along with the Rikishi/Kane VS DX match was too much of a throw-together (in terms of the teams assembled) and would be best placed on Raw or Smackdown. Wouldn't it have made sense for Rikishi and Too Cool to team? I think they could've broken these two matches up and started from scratch and come up with something better.

-Rikishi & Kane VS DX. See above. Good to have Run DMC there, though.

-Triple threat. Yeah this was decent, certainly worth having on the card. Didn't like the IC title being defended first, made the Euro title seem bigger (which it wasn't), but I guess they wanted to end the match with Jericho celebrating.

-Fatal four-way. Urgh, rotten. Hated this. Too much McMahon family, Foley's 'last' match wasted, it was a rubbish match, the heel walked out of Mania as champion (never happened before). On the plus side, it cemented Triple H further as the man.

 

We could have a field day fantasy booking this to be a much better card.

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Whoever thought that having a Wrestlemania without a single one on one match, needs fucking shooting.

Absolutely. In fact, the whole card was pretty poor. Quite a few consider 2000 to be the best year for WWE, yet their big show was a bit shit. So much god awful and pointless filler that you haven't seen since the early Manias. Let's look at the event, shall we?

 

-Bossman & Bull Buchanan VS D'Lo & Godfather. Why. Just, why. Why was Buchanan on the card, why was D'Lo now a pimp (pretty sure it was a one-night thing), why was Ice T suddenly deemed to be relavant?

-Hardcore battle royal. This was quite fun to be fair. However, this should've been the end of the 24/7 rule. I think in the build-up Crash said something along the lines of he was sick of having to watch his back all the time, so he would have this battle royal to sort it out once and for all. The 24/7 rule did have it's positives over the next couple of years, but in the main it was crap. Certainly towards the end after Shawn Stasiak's millionth reign.

-T&A VS Head Cheese. Bloody hell, Head Cheese? It's this kind of thing that makes me glad we aren't in the Attitude era anymore! T&A were bland and shit, barely salvaged by Trish. I had a soft spot for Blackman but Al Snow was an eternal jobber in my eyes. Sunday Night Heat match, at best

-Triangle Ladder Match. Fair enough, this set the tone for the future TLC matches. Well worthy of it's place on the card. No argument here.

-Terri Runnells VS The Kat. I don't even remember this match. Probably for the best.

-Too Cool & Chyna VS The Radicalz. Everything had to end in a 'Z' around this time, didn't it? I think this along with the Rikishi/Kane VS DX match was too much of a throw-together (in terms of the teams assembled) and would be best placed on Raw or Smackdown. Wouldn't it have made sense for Rikishi and Too Cool to team? I think they could've broken these two matches up and started from scratch and come up with something better.

-Rikishi & Kane VS DX. See above. Good to have Run DMC there, though.

-Triple threat. Yeah this was decent, certainly worth having on the card. Didn't like the IC title being defended first, made the Euro title seem bigger (which it wasn't), but I guess they wanted to end the match with Jericho celebrating.

-Fatal four-way. Urgh, rotten. Hated this. Too much McMahon family, Foley's 'last' match wasted, it was a rubbish match, the heel walked out of Mania as champion (never happened before). On the plus side, it cemented Triple H further as the man.

 

We could have a field day fantasy booking this to be a much better card.

 

Well, apart from adding the ladder match, I'd say Backlash's card wouldn't have looked out of place for a Wrestlemania.

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Too Cool & Chyna VS The Radicalz. Everything had to end in a 'Z' around this time, didn't it? I think this along with the Rikishi/Kane VS DX match was too much of a throw-together (in terms of the teams assembled) and would be best placed on Raw or Smackdown. Wouldn't it have made sense for Rikishi and Too Cool to team? I think they could've broken these two matches up and started from scratch and come up with something better.

 

There were playing about with a Chyna and Eddie bit, which went on and off as a rivalry and partnership through the year, and had to find something for the others to do.

 

They had themselves a in a bit of a fluster with the Radicalz after Eddie fucked up them coming in as well didn't they?

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In hindsight, how would people rebook WrestleMania 2000? The decision to not do Rock vs Triple H singles there was a masterstroke as it saved that for Backlash (which did tremendously well on PPV) and Judgment Day. I'd probably keep the four-way, or failing that, the triple threat that it was originally announced as. That match happened on Raw a few weeks earlier and was alright, wasn't it?

 

The ladder match, and the Benoit/Angle/Jericho triple threat were both worthy of their place, too. The hardcore invitational probably works best as it is, too.

 

Beyond that, I don't know off the top of my head what changes would be worth making that wouldn't just be a parallel move at best. Kane vs X-Pac in a big singles gimmick match maybe, but that had been going on about six months by then. Chyna vs Eddie as a singles match would probably have been better than the three on three.

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In hindsight, how would people rebook WrestleMania 2000? The decision to not do Rock vs Triple H singles there was a masterstroke as it saved that for Backlash (which did tremendously well on PPV) and Judgment Day. I'd probably keep the four-way, or failing that, the triple threat that it was originally announced as. That match happened on Raw a few weeks earlier and was alright, wasn't it?

 

The ladder match, and the Benoit/Angle/Jericho triple threat were both worthy of their place, too. The hardcore invitational probably works best as it is, too.

 

Beyond that, I don't know off the top of my head what changes would be worth making that wouldn't just be a parallel move at best. Kane vs X-Pac in a big singles gimmick match maybe, but that had been going on about six months by then. Chyna vs Eddie as a singles match would probably have been better than the three on three.

 

Have asked the same question several times & nobody has been able to answer it properly.

Apart from the 4 title matches there's not a lot different u could do with the card.

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Why was Buchanan on the card, why was D'Lo now a pimp (pretty sure it was a one-night thing)

 

No. D'Lo had first donned the pimp threads at Survivors, and by the time Mania came around it was a regular occurrence.

 

Here are the pair wrestling E&C prior to the Rumble - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRqCXHTw8pw

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In hindsight, how would people rebook WrestleMania 2000? The decision to not do Rock vs Triple H singles there was a masterstroke as it saved that for Backlash (which did tremendously well on PPV) and Judgment Day. I'd probably keep the four-way, or failing that, the triple threat that it was originally announced as. That match happened on Raw a few weeks earlier and was alright, wasn't it?

 

The ladder match, and the Benoit/Angle/Jericho triple threat were both worthy of their place, too. The hardcore invitational probably works best as it is, too.

 

Beyond that, I don't know off the top of my head what changes would be worth making that wouldn't just be a parallel move at best. Kane vs X-Pac in a big singles gimmick match maybe, but that had been going on about six months by then. Chyna vs Eddie as a singles match would probably have been better than the three on three.

Good point.

 

I would have gone with Triple H vs. The Rock one on one and had Trips leave with the title due to a screwy finish leading to Backlash. The other two guys didn't add anything.

 

As for the rest, you're right it's difficult without Undertaker and Austin. I'd completely remove the Headcheese tag match and the opener, they were useless. Tweak the Radicalz match to include Rikishi and have the Kane/X-Pac match Pity mentioned.

 

Opener - Hardcore Battle Royal

Too Cool & Rikishi vs. The Radicalz

Dudleys vs. Hardyz vs. E&C - Triangle Ladder Match

Terri Runnells vs. The Kat

Kane vs. X-Pac

IC/Euro Titles - Jericho vs. Angle vs. Benoit vs. Taz

WWF Title - Triple H vs. The Rock

 

Leaves nothing for The Big Show, which is apt given how his first year in the company went.

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I would have gone with Triple H vs. The Rock one on one and had Trips leave with the title due to a screwy finish leading to Backlash. The other two guys didn't add anything.

I don't think that's true -- they enabled the "McMahon in every corner" gimmick, which we can see as meaningless, but I'd be surprised if that didn't add to the buyrate. The McMahon family were far from done back then. And it got Foley back for a WrestleMania main event, which damaged his stock and credibility long-term, but I'd be surprised if that didn't add loads of buys too because Mick Foley was a hotter property in early 2000 than pretty much anyone besides Hogan/Rock/Austin/Cena has ever been. And it protected a Rock-HHH singles to be a big draw the next month.

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A Big Show/Austin main event was the long term plan for Mania 16, I understand. Not sure at which point they realised Austin wouldn't be around but I doubt they'd have made it to April without switching to something else. Probably would've ended up with the Austin/Rock rematch a year earlier or had Austin challenging Triple H one on one.

 

Mania 16 was my first WrestleMania and I loved the 4-way main event. Must've watched it 30 times or more over the following year. Might throw it on tonight and see how it holds up. Did Michael Clarke Duncan have a barney with Shane McMahon at one point, aye?

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