The SmarK Retro Repost – King Of The Ring 2000

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The Nameless Rant for King of the Ring 2000

– Live from Boston, MA

– Your hosts are JR & The King

– Opening match: Rikishi v. Chris Benoit. Odd choice for the opener. Rikishi hits a samoan drop and they brawl outside. Back in, Benoit get a german suplex on the first try, but a second try gets it. Into an armbar and some CANADIAN VIOLENCE. Benoit gets the crossface, but Rikishi makes the ropes, so Benoit grabs a chair and gets DQ’d at a brisk 3:22. Christ, their Smackdown match was longer and better than that. *1/2 Benoit destroys Rikishi, battering him with the crossface and a diving headbutt and some chairshots.

– Eddy Guerrero v. Val Venis. The mullet GONE? Oh, man, David Bixenspan ain’t gonna be happy. Val overpowers Eddy early. Eddy comes back with a dropkick to the face. Val executes some Canadian Violence (a rarity for him) and they brawl outside. Back in, Val goes up but gets superplexed. It gets two. Eddy goes all lucha and hits the surfboard, and a bow-and-arrow follows. Crowd thinks that’s pretty cool. Eddy works the back and backslides Val for two. Val comes back with a pair of elbows for two. Backbreaker, which Val holds. Eddy gets a rana and a backdrop suplex, but goes up top and gets knocked off. Val tries the Money Shot, but hits nothing but knee and gets rolled up for two. Russian legsweep gets two. Flair pin gets two. Eddy comes back and crotches Val on top, hitting the rana. Chyna & Trish fight, and Val goes for Chyna, gets popped, and Eddy rolls him up for two. Suplex reversal sequence leads to the Seaman’s suplex from Val for the pin at 8:06. A darn good match hurt by a lack of heat. Keep the finish in mind, by the way, I’m going to refer to it a bit later. ***1/4

– Pat Patterson has trouble picking out a dress. Honestly, is there ANYONE who finds this stuff funny (and doesn’t work for the WWF PR department?)

– Crash Holly v. Bull Buchanan. This match has only two plausible outcomes: Bull squashes Crash, or Bull squashes Crash and gets upset on a fluke pin. Neither one holds any real appeal for me. As it turns out, it’s option #2, as a really boring squash leads to Crash cradling him off a missed scissor kick for the upset pin at 4:00. As IF anybody in the arena gives either guy a fighting chance against the winner of Angle-Jericho. ½*

– Chris Jericho v. Kurt Angle. Slugfest, won by Angle. Jericho walks into a suplex for two. He comes back with the Canadian Forearm and some CANADIAN VIOLENCE. Missile dropkick gets two. Lionsault gets two as Angle gets his foot on the ropes. Angle bails and gets dropkicked. Brawl outside, Jericho eats stairs. Back in, a vertical suplex gets two and Angle hits the chinlock. Jericho escapes and hits the double-arm backbreaker for two. Angle slingshots Jericho for two. Running forearm gets two. Slugfest, and Angle gets a german suplex for two. Jericho throws some chops, but Angle eludes him and goes aerial, but gets dropkicked off and rana’d down. Y2J mounts the comeback and a heel kick gets two. Jericho reverses the Right Angle to the Liontamer, but Stephanie runs in to ruin a perfectly good match with a screwy ending. Ref gets bumped for good measure. Steph nails Angle by mistake, and Jericho plants a kiss on her. Angle sneaks up from behind and hits the Right Angle for the pin at 9:50, thus guaranteeing his victory for the Kingship with the decimated talent level in the rest of the field. Match was okay, but I’ve seen better from them. *** I still don’t understand why this wasn’t the finals, given that everyone in the arena had to know it was either going to be Jericho, Benoit or Angle winning the whole thing.

– WWF tag team title match: Too Cool v. Edge & Christian v. T & A v. The Hardy Boyz. Thankfully, this is elimination. Jeff & Albert start, and Jeff bumps around as usual. Hardyz double-team him for two. Test comes in and stinks up the joint. I’m ashamed to admit he’s a fellow countryman at this point. He definitely is NOT a student of Canadian Violence. Real Canadians don’t stomp their feet when they hit a guy. Lita & Trish brawl, in an EXACT repeat of the finish of the Val-Eddy match from earlier. And indeed, Jeff hits the swanton on Test to pin him and eliminate T & A. Someone is asleep at the switch tonight. Scotty & Jeff go next, then Christian goes with Matt. Dull sequence, as the Rightful Champs work on Matt. Lita revs up the crowd by hitting a rana on Edge, giving Matt a two count. Matt escapes the Impaler and hits the Twist of Fate for two. Edge stops the swanton from Jeff, and Christian successfully hits the Impaler again for the pin on Matt. Grandmaster Sexay comes in with a missile dropkick on Edge. Too Cool then invents ANOTHER idiotic move – a body pop clothesline. Don’t even ask. Scotty takes a cheapshot and plays Ricky Morton. The Rightful Champs hit their normal double-team stuff. Hot tag to Sexay, who catapults Edge into Christian and it gets two. Edge & Christian take out Sexay and imitate the Worm, but that just annoys Scotty, who nails both from behind and hits the real version. At this point we all suddenly got a vibe that said “Grandmaster is going to turn on Scotty and cost them the titles”, but it didn’t happen. But it’s gonna be soon – I can feel it. They do the Vegomatic on Edge, but Christian nails Sexay with their finisher – the belt to the head – and The Rightful Champs are once just the Champs at 14:11. And all is right with the world. But why not just do Too Cool v. Edge & Christian if that’s what they wanted? **1/2

– Rikishi v. Val Venis. For this we lost Benoit v. Guerrero? Better be good. Slugfest, and Rikishi hits a superkick that sends them to the floor. Weak brawl follows. Back in, Val gets a single-arm DDT on the bad arm. He works it. Val comes off the top, and gets belly-to-belly suplexed for the pin at 3:13. Oh my god, THAT’S the big blowoff? * Val gets nuts on Rikishi, further injuring the arm. Rikishi is finalist #1.

– Kurt Angle v. Crash Holly. They’re not fooling anyone this time. Uneventful squash for Angle after some jobber offense by Crash sees him finish with the Right Angle at 3:53. Yawn. *1/4 for some good action at the beginning. Angle is finalist #2. Like there was a doubt.

– Hardcore title match: Pat Patterson v. Gerald Brisco. I don’t even wanna touch on this one. We do an alleged “comedy” match (with nothing remotely funny going on, including non-hilarious maxi-pad jokes) before Crash Holly mercifully kills everyone with a trash can and pins Patterson to win his 11th Hardcore title at about 2:00. The crowd completely turned on the match, with good reason. Much like Mae & Moolah, the joke ceased being funny LONG ago. -****1/2

– X-Pac & Road Dogg & Tori v. The Dudley Boyz. They do their usual match to start, although I don’t think ANYONE expects the finish to come from this. Nothing of note happens until Buh Buh gets the hot tag and they hit the diving headbutt to all three members of D-X. D-Von lingers uh quite a while on Tori. Then we go brawling. D-X rams them into the dumpsters and put them in, but the ref is distracted by Tori’s injury and can’t see it. Oh, good lord, is Russo booking this? Dudleys escape, find chairs, and lay out D-X. Two tables get stacked outside, Road Dogg goes through them. Crowd likes that. X-Pac gets D-Von on a table (which is kinda dumb, considering that tables don’t figure into D-X’s winning conditions) but Duds quickly come back and superplex him through it, leaving only Tori to put through a table. She hides in the dumpster, and like IDIOTS, the Dudleyz follow her,and of course get dumped in there by D-X and the lid is closed to give them YET ANOTHER win over the Dudleyz at 9:40. In-house loyalty is one thing, but ENOUGH ALREADY with Road Dogg & X-Pac, who are not over now and don’t look to be in that area anytime soon. The Duds of course FINALLY put Tori through that table, but after two months of build, it’s pretty unspectacular. ** for some decent work and the table spots.

– King of the Ring: Kurt Angle v. Rikishi. Is there ANY doubt? Brawl outside to start. Back in, Kurt blocks the Stinkface and takes over. Slugfest goes nowhere. Rikishi gets the samoan drop and a Rikishi Cutter for two. Now the Stinkface works. Angle hits the Right Angle for two. Rikishi blocks a sunset flip with his ass for two. He goes up, gets crotched, and superplexed off for the pin at 4:59, and Kurt Angle is your King of the Ring. Why even BOTHER having the semis and finals when it was painfully obvious that the winner of Jericho-Angle was taking it all? The match here sucked, with the arm injury they’d been building THE WHOLE SHOW not even factoring into the finish. And who benefits from this? Angle? He’s already beaten the other mid-carders. So he beats another one, who cares? He needs to start going over some main eventers, pronto, to give that illusion of main-event talent until he no longer needs the illusion and is just a Main Eventer. And how does making Rikishi work three 3-minute matches help him? He’s already I-C champ. Why not put Benoit or Eddy in there, who as a bonus can carry three guys to ***+ matches, instead of what this one gets: ½* This whole tournament is just a pathetic display of wasted potential and “wait and watch” mentality that never results in anything because the established stars are so busy holding onto their spots on top like their lives depended on it. I mean, for a guy who gave a famous speech about there not being any “good guys” or “bad guys” anymore, this tournament sure featured a lot of unrealistic booking designed to make sure it was all “good guy” v. “bad guy”. And speaking of those main eventers

– WWF title match: HHH, Shane & Vince v. Rock, Kane & Undertaker. Kane pounds on Shane to start. A lot. Rock comes in and gets nailed by HHH for a bit. Ut tries and kills Shane. Chokeslam gets two, Rock saves. UT & HHH go, nothing interesting develops. Crowd is pretty dead for this. DDT gets two, Kane saves. Oh, man, this is gonna get SO tiresome, for the same reasons I don’t like three-way matches. Rock comes in and gets stampeded by the heel team, and a brawl erupts. About time. Rock & HHH are left alone in the ring, where HHH Pedigrees Rock, and UT misses his cue and forgets to save him, despite being about three inches away. What a pro. HHH is left alone with the faces. Rock won’t tag out. Quick rant: The only two established possible finishes are by pinfall, so why bother with the formalities of a tag match if everyone already knows it won’t be a DQ or countout? The same question has always bothered me with ECW tag matches. Rock gets beaten on by the McMahons for a while. Yawn. Big brawl again, Kane turns on UT. Back in, Rock goes for the People’s Elbow on HHH, but Kane catches him and chokeslams him. The crowd is NOT liking these stips. HHH assumes Kane is on his side, but of course gets punked out and tombstoned by him. UT saves the pinfall. He pastes Kane with a chair as Shane goes upstairs to attack and then chokeslams Shane off that top rope, through the Spanish announce table! Shane O Mac, BUMP MACHINE! That kinda ruled. Vince tries the Corporate Elbow on Rock back in the ring, but Rock pops up, Rock Bottom, goodbye at 18:55. Great, so Rock is not only a 5-time champ, but he won it by pinning VINCE FREAKIN MCMAHON. Why does he even NEED the title again so soon? This makes no sense. Any of it. Where’s the big shakeup everyone was talking about? We certainly need one at this point. And PLEASE don’t let it be another McMahon turning face for the 195948th time, because that angle is PLAYED. Anyway, not a good match by any standards. *1/2

The Bottom Line: The WWF’s awesome PPV streak ends with a thud at 5. King of the Ring is a decided disappointment, although in my Smackdown rants on RS.com I was expressing serious worry about the quality of this show and the potentially idiotic booking choices weeks ago. Sadly, my suspicions were confirmed. Vince is cocky, lazy and arrogant, and he grows ever closer to creative suicide, much like WCW did in 1998. If Fully Loaded doesn’t create new main eventers before Summerslam, there could be even bigger trouble on the horizon than either ECW or WCW could possibly create, because history has shown that only one man has ever been truly able to vanquish Vince McMahon, and that’s Vince McMahon. And boy, were there some BIG ass-kickings in that war. We shall see.

Thumbs down.