2000 year in review | Retro Restling Reviews

2000 - The Year in Review

Change. It’s a word I’ve used a lot when discussing the Attitude era. In my 1998 review I pointed out how drastically different the company was at the start and end of the year. It was true in 1999 and it was just as true in 2000.

The beauty of this period, and ultimately the reason it lasted for such a short time, was that change. The constant, endless fluctuations. The WWF was packing a month’s worth of storylines into a week and sometimes into a single episode of Raw or Smackdown. They continued their hot streak of giving us PPV matches and even Wrestlemania main events on free TV every single week. It worked - every show is can’t miss and that was just as true in 2000 as it was in 1998 and 1999 - but it also meant that they were burning through everything and by the end of 2000 it started to show.

2000 is a lot of people’s favourite year of this period. It was a lot less “The Stone Cold show” and felt a lot more ensemble. The roster had its biggest star - The Rock - but it had an entire foundation of super popular acts. By 2000, the legend of the Attitude era where everyone and every match was getting a mega reaction was true. The quality improved too. The rise of the Tag division led by Edge, Christian, The Hardyz and The Dudleyz meant great matches every week. The debut of The Radicals and the rise of Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle meant that the midcard was strongly supported and there was a crop of fresh faces for the main eventers to wrestle. The match quality of 2000 is certainly higher than 1998 and 1999.

The downside to all of this is that the WWF was running out of fresh matches. Edge and Christian, The Hardyz and The Dudleyz must have wrestled each other in every combination on TV and PPV dozens of times. The Rock had wrestled everyone. Triple H had wrestled everyone. Undertaker had wrestled everyone. There were fresh opponents in Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit but those feuds were paid off and blown through in a matter of months. By December we’d seen all those matches to death too. By mid-2001, that would be a serious problem. But we’ll get to that in due course.

The problematic nature of the Attitude era was toned down in 2000 - the loss of Vince Russo as head writer at the end of 1999 made that so - but it was still very much an issue. The women’s division was put on TV more which sadly just gave people like Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler more opportunities to be gross about them. Stephanie McMahon taking over as head writer should have negated some of that but sadly, it didn’t. She booked the way her dad wanted her too and that meant that the babyface girls had to act like sluts, and the heel women had to act like prudes. Women reduced to their lowest common denominator and only on TV for the men's benefit. The fans were gross about the women because ultimately, the company teaches the fans how to treat its talent.

But I don’t want to end on a negative note - the year 2000 gave us some of the best PPVs and matches in history. Insanely popular superstars having exciting matches loaded with meaning on TV every week may be short sighted but that was a problem for later. At the moment, it was awesome.

Here’s a list of some (but not all) of the best matches from 2000 (in my opinion, of course)