Wrestlemania X8 - Skydome, Toronto Canada, March 18th 2002

Wrestlemania X8 is, on paper, the biggest show of all time (at that point). The star power on this card is crazy and looking down, the number of matches featuring men who’d either already been WWF or WCW World Champion or would later go on to become WWE or World Champion is pretty striking. There’s points in history where every match on this card could have main evented a show of its own (ok, maybe not Goldust vs. Maven) and that is pretty cool.

I have really clear memories of staying up to watch this show live and really enjoying it. Even the musical performances! The theme songs for this event are Superstar by Saliva and Tear Away by Drowning Pool, the latter of which is specifically the theme song for the main event Undisputed Championship match. Both bands had been used by the WWF before and both continued to be used by them for years to come. I’m a fan of both and it is because at 14 years old, they were all over WWF TV. Everyone’s favourite music is what they liked as a teenager - that’s just a fact. 

The show opens with Saliva performing Superstar. The band is Canadian and they’re in Canada so that’s fitting. Josey Scott’s live performance is…not great, but I enjoyed this especially the montage of all of tonight’s competitors on the big trons behind him. Here’s the video so you can enjoy it too (or more likely, just enjoy seeing the big Wrestlemania stage). I don’t know what the lyric “get your ass up off your shoulders baby!” means and I don’t know if I want to know.

Wrestlemania has always started with America the Beautiful. The last time Wrestlemania was in Canada was in 1990 and that show opened with Oh Canada (sung by the incredible Robert Goulet) so I THINK this means that Superstar is the new Canadian national anthem? Pretty rad. 

Here’s the usual opening video package - this is a great one. I got goosebumps watching this and I am absolutely delighted that neither of the event’s theme songs have been dubbed. That’s always a big worry when I watch these old shows and a huge relief. The crowd is enormous, the arena looks great and here we go!

WWF Intercontinental Championship

William Regal © vs. Rob Van Dam

RVD and Regal have been feuding on and off since mid-January even as Regal was tying up loose ends with Edge. This is of course Van Dam’s Wrestlemania debut and even the usually calm, cool and collected RVD looks pretty taken aback by the size of this crowd. It is, by miles, the largest crowd he’d ever been in front of. 

Regal has been on quite the win streak since December thanks to his God-given ability, the Power of the Punch. JR and Michael Cole claim that he’s using illegal brass knuckles but I’ve decided I’m with King on this one - Regal just has an amazing left handed punch, given to him by the Lord above. 

Regal slips his (not) brass knuckles out of his tights right away to use them but RVD kicks them off his hand, sending them to the outside and tries to end it quickly himself but misses the Five Star Frog Splash so Regal gets the first nearfall with a stiff knee to the head.

Regal presses the advantage with more near falls off a suplex and a gorgeous looking neckbreaker . It looks like one of Rob’s famous “educated feet” caught Regal stiff and bust either his lip or his nose as there’s a little blood running down his face. 

Van Dam’s comebacks are continually cut off and the combination of Regal’s stiff looking suplexes and RVD’s tendency to sell things by landing right on his head and neck and folding up like a video game character gets a loud groan from the crowd more than once.

Regal goes out to retrieve his brass knuckles but is caught by the referee who disarms him. He has a second pair but it's his downfall as he’s far too busy trying to get his knuckles into play and RVD drops him with a jumping spin kick and follows with the Five Star Frog Splash to win his first Intercontinental title in his first Wrestlemania match. 

This is the second year in a row Wrestlemania opened with William Regal losing an Intercontinental title match and much like with Chris Jericho last year this was good but too short. I’d have loved another five minutes of this. 

Backstage, Lillian Garcia interviews Christian who puts on a big, goofy and ugly smile. Christian explains his turning on DDP on Raw. Page tried to motivate Christian to break his losing streak by being a more positive person and I guess used Page to do that before deciding that he wants his European title back. That’s fair. I love Page but Christian is by some measures the greatest European Champion of all time - length of time he held it, and how many times he successfully defended it.

WWF European Championship

Diamond Dallas Page © vs. Christian

This is the fifth and final time the European title was defended at a Wrestlemania. I love DDP and it makes me happy to see him winning titles and getting a good reaction from the WWF fans post-Invasion. I’ll talk more about Page in the next Preview as sadly he won’t be around for much longer.

When Christian comes out he gets a little cheer from his hometown crowd but like a big dirty heel Christian has Howard Finkle announce him as “now hailing from Tampa, Florida” which is great stuff.

This is Page’s first Wrestlemania match but this isn’t his first appearance - at Wrestlemania 6 in this same arena he drove the Pink Cadillac that brought the Honky Tonk Man to the ring. He wasn’t even a wrestler yet. 

Page is motivated and despite the big smile seems angry too - he dominates Christian early and takes him out of the ring to bounce him around the security wall for a bit. Christian gets his offence in after a sneaky low blow and dropping Page face first onto the top turnbuckle.

Christian was undefeated at Wrestlemania at this point as he and Edge won the WWF Tag Team titles at both Wrestlemania 2000 and Wrestlemania X7. That’s pretty interesting. 

Page blocks an attempted dive off the top rope and brings Christian down with a cool looking military press slam off the top and then follows with a gorgeous sit-down powerbomb for a near fall. This is really crisp so far and Page’s tendency to put all his matches together ahead of time is paying off. 

DDP blocks the Unprettier but his Diamond Cutter isn’t effective. Christian blocks the Diamond Cutter into a reverse DDT for a near fall.

Christian ducks a clothesline and his third attempt is successful - a Diamond Cutter and a victory for DDP in his Wrestlemania debut. This was really good as short as it was and told a nice story where you can count the beats; Page comes in angry because of the heel turn, Christian is sneaky and cheats to get the advantage, Page is the valiant babyface and kicks out of everything, they counter each other’s finishes and the Cutter comes out of nowhere. DDP was always so good at that style of match, by which I mean ones with a really clear narrative structure. A lost art.

After the match, Page gets a mic and tells Christian that him losing is not a bad thing, it’s a GOOD thing! He says he managed to keep his temper this time even though he lost in front of 67,000 fans in the Skydome and “bazillions of fans at home”. Christian then does throw a temper tantrum anyway adding to his own humiliation. Page leaves through the crowd and celebrates with the people which is a gimmick I really like. 

Jonathan Coachman (looking very dapper in his tuxedo) interviews The Rock ahead of “the biggest match of your career, the biggest match in the history of the business…” He cuts Coach off and…you know what, here’s the promo to just watch. It’s funny stuff.

WWF Hardcore Championship

Maven © vs. Goldust

I’m not sure when this match was added to the card - I assume earlier tonight on Sunday Night Heat (a show on which Scotty 2 Hotty, Rikishi and Albert defeated Test, Lance Storm and Mr. Perfect in a six man tag where Jacqueline was the referee, just by the by). 

This is obviously the biggest match of Maven’s entire career. It is nice that they tried really hard to make the winner of the first Tough Enough such a big deal. It guaranteed lots of entrants for future versions but the rest of the winners didn’t get this treatment. 

Goldust is aggressive to start with and slams Maven hard into the security wall. He gives him a neckbreaker in the ring and then retrieves his golden weapons from under the ring including a golden shovel and golden trashcans.

Goldust’s return to the WWF has been pretty strong - honestly I’m shocked considering how many times he’d come and gone that Vince was willing to not just bring him back but present him so strongly. 

The two hit each other with trash can lids and Goldust falls out of the ring. With Maven laying all alone in the ring, Spike Dudley runs down with his own referee and using the 24/7 rule, Spike Dudley wins the Hardcore title! Crash Holly runs down and chases Spike off through the crowd, followed by Goldust and Maven. That’s not the last time we’ll see the Hardcore title change hands tonight.

After the hardcore shenanigans, Drowning Pool gave us a live performance of Tear Away. This is better than Saliva’s performance at the start of the show and once again I like the video on the titantron which focuses on the main event tonight. I also think the lead singer Dave Williams looks quite a lot like Bray Wyatt. That’s fitting as just like Bray he died tragically when he was very young, passing away in August 2002 at only 30 years old. Generally speaking unless it's for entrances, live musical performances in wrestling go down like lead balloons and the crowd didn’t seem very happy with this one either. 

After the music, the hardcore battle continues backstage as Crash continues to battle Spike. Al Snow comes careening through the scene in a golf cart, missing both men and wiping out in a stack of cardboard boxes! Spike fights off Crash but before he can escape The Hurricane comes swinging in on a rope with a kick and covers him. The Hurricane wins the hardcore title! He runs off (with superhero whoosh sound effects) before Al Snow can get to him. 

Kane vs. Kurt Angle

The build for this match was straight forward enough as Kurt Angle, angry that he failed to get himself into tonight’s main event Undisputed title match, took that out on Kane and beat him senseless with chairs and all sorts of other weapons. Kane was unhappy about that. The best thing about this to me is Kurt Angle calling himself the big red, white and blue machine! My least favourite thing is Jerry Lawler continually bleating about “head trauma” to Kane.

Kurt has a quick prematch promo making fun of Canada’s olympic figure skating team. He’s talking about this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Winter_Olympics_figure_skating_scandal

Kurt Angle attacks Kane during his entrance pyro, hitting him in the head with the ringbell! 

These two had in my opinion Kane’s best ever match on Raw a couple of months ago so hopefully they can live up to that here. 

Kurt’s early advantage is undone by Kane’s strength but Kane is selling the “head trauma” and so Kurt wows everyone with some enormous suplexes on the much larger man. Kurt is the best, and slows things down with a grinding front facelock.

Kurt catches Kane with a flying clothesline off the top rope (one of Kane’s trademarks) but when he goes for a second, Kane catches him coming in with a clothesline. That’s Kane’s opening and he bounces Kurt around and takes him down with a big powerslam for two. He spikes Kurt with a chokeslam and has the match won but Kurt gets his hand onto the bottom rope to stop the count.

Kane signals for the Tombstone but Kurt stops that by grabbing Kane’s mask and plants him with an Angle slam.

Kane kicks out so he’s locked in the ankle lock quickly. Kane has only submitted once in his career and it was to Kurt Angle’s ankle lock. Kane blocks it with an enziguri kick to the head. He goes for the flying clothesline but with a sore ankle he’s slower than usual and Kurt springs to the top rope and brings Kane down with an overhead belly to belly suplex. Kane counters the Angle Slam into a chokeslam attempt. Kurt rolls through that but its very messy and being so far away from the ropes he’s forced to scramble to get his feet on the ropes to steal the pin with an ugly rollup. That’s a shame as the match was decent until that botched finish.

The new Hardcore Champion Hurricane tiptoes around backstage trying to hide and find himself in the women’s dressing room behind a paper partition. He’s holding a broom as a weapon and casts a shadow Austin Powers style which freaks out the girls. The Godfather runs in and chases him off as a disgraced pervert. Those aren’t rare in wrestling but they are rare for superheroes! 

No Disqualification match

The Undertaker vs. Ric Flair

This has been a great feud and really ratcheted up the intensity. Undertaker getting really, really personal turned out to be damn good television. Noteworthy is that one of the royalty free songs used in this video package was later repurposed as La Resistance’s theme song.

This match marks the first time that the Undertaker’s Wrestlemania streak was acknowledged on TV. JR mentions during his entrance that he is 9 - 0 at Wrestlemania. That would obviously become a much bigger deal later on, and does somewhat kill the drama in these earlier matches. It’s probably not a spoiler to tell you that Undertaker is winning this Wrestlemania match.

Flair’s last Wrestlemania appearance was 10 years ago at Wrestlemania 8 - he lost the WWF Championship to Macho Man Randy Savage that night.

Flair wastes no time with his entrance and drops the robe, running to the ring to attack.

Behind the scenes the Nature Boy was at this point in his life missing a lot of confidence - he didn’t think he could still go. He prepared for this match by having practice matches with, among others, Lance Storm and Lance has spoken very fondly about having wrestled Ric in this enormous stadium earlier on that day before the fans were let in. 

Flair wins the early exchange and tackles Undertaker up and over the announce desk and keeps him off balance with punches. He’s caught jumping off the apron and run into the ring post spine first to slow him down.

Undertaker continues to brutalise Ric - mostly with punches - inside and outside the ring. Ric shows off his classic flip up and over the ropes onto the apron but is sent flying with a big boot and another string of punches to the head busts Flair open. Flair bleeding during all of his matches is a trope of wrestling. Flair crying during all of his promos is a trope of wrestling too. 

He continues to slowly work over the co-owner of the WWF as blood flows and brings him down from the top rope with an enormous superplex! Flair’s selling of it is great as he sits up and screams in pain. Undertaker actually has the match won but lifts Ric and doesn’t let the referee count to three. Nature Boy tries his best to fight back with stinging chops but Undertaker is unphased. 

The commentary during this match is pretty infuriating as JR continually gets emotional about Flair’s plight and tries to make this a serious, dramatic affair but King continually needles him and plays his old McMahon-loving heel character.

Ric blocks the old-school arm wringer attempt and slams Undertaker from the top rope to the mat. On the outside, Ric pulls the lead pipe Undertaker has hidden inside his motorbike and uses it to crack Undertaker in the head three times. He doesn’t leave his feet and now even though Taker is also bleeding he continues to punish Flair. Ric grabs another weapon - a metal warning sign from the security barrier - and hits Taker, sending him back to the ring. Ric is finally in the fight. 

Taker grabs a chokeslam but Flair stops it with a swift kick to the balls! He locks Undertaker in the Figure Four but in a cool spot, Undertaker breaks that by reaching out and grabbing his throat.

He spikes Flair with a chokeslam but Ric kicks out! Undertaker, frustrated, knocks down the referee. As they go back and forth, Ric’s best friend, the retired Arn Anderson runs down and plants Taker with a spinebuster - his old finishing move! Undertaker kicks out of Flair’s pin attempt and a pissed off Taker busts Arn open with punches and drops him with a big boot. He pays for the distraction and as he locks Anderson in the dragon sleeper, Flair comes from behind with a series of chair shots to the back. Undertaker screams in pain but shrugs them off and a big boot, struggles to lift Flair for a Last Ride. I’m not sure who’s fault it was but they change tactics and Undertaker instead spikes Flair with a Tombstone. It looks brutal and it's enough to end the match. The Undertaker is now 10 - 0 at Wrestlemania.

This was slow in places but very good. It told a nice sensible story and both men looked strong. Undertaker continues his path of destruction. On a nicer note, I’m sure having such a good, well received match with a man he was a big fan of on such a huge stage gave Ric Flair a much needed confidence boost to get more involved in wrestling again. Whether that was a good or a bad thing long term is up for debate.

Michael Cole interviews Booker T, who is wearing a pair of reading glasses. Edge not only stole his Shampoo commercial deal but he’s called Booker stupid more than once. The glasses prove that he is not, in fact, stupid. I’m convinced. This is a good promo for Book ahead of his Wrestlemania debut.

Edge vs. Booker T

Much like Christian earlier, I’m sure this was a huge moment for Edge in his real life hometown. He was at Wrestlemania 6 in the same building wearing a “Hulk Rules” t-shirt but we won’t hold that against him.

All of King and JR’s jokes about Booker’s hair and lack of intelligence all smacks of thinly veiled racism but I’m sure that’s just the 2025 interpretation of these two Republican Southern boys talking badly about a black man. 

Booker gets the early advantage - he is still very angry about losing out on the fictional Japanese shampoo commercial - and gets the first near fall with a missile dropkick. That was nice.

Edge rallies with a spinning heel kick and quickens the pace and the two go back and forth countering each other’s big moves - a scissors kick and Edge-o-matic. They are rushing through the spots on this match so you can tell it won’t last long. 

Booker leapfrogs a Spear which looks awesome and wows us with a Wrestlemania Spinarooni!

He connects with his Scissors kick but Edge kicks out. 

Edge comes back with a Spear and Booker kicks out of that. Edge’s attempted Spinarooni is ugly as sin but it apparently gives him the momentum he needed as he hits the Impaler DDT right after and wins the match. This was too short to be good. It wasn’t bad - they were crisp and everything looked good - but it was only six minutes long. A big win for Edge and I’m sure an emotional one.

The adventures of the new Hardcore champion continue. Johnathan Coachman catches up with The Hurricane and asks if he was spying on Godfather’s ladies? He is not a hurri-perv! His sidekick Mighty Molly arrives and double crosses him, hitting him in the back of the head with a frying pan! Molly covers and Mighty Molly wins the Hardcore Championship! I thought she was his sidekick.

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall (w/Kevin Nash)

The video package for this one is good, but then I’m biased because I like seeing montages of Stone Cold whooping ass set to dramatic music.

Stone Cold main evented the last three Wrestlemania’s he was involved in so being so early in the show feels like a demotion. You might call that a negative way to look at it but that’s absolutely how Steve himself viewed this. The Rattlesnake was increasingly unhappy with the booking in the WWF in March 2002 and that’s something we’ll talk about a lot more in the next couple of months.

Seeing WCW’s nWo at Wrestlemania was mind blowing in 2002 and it still is. I mentioned it a fair bit previously but it is baffling and frustrating and probably quite sad in hindsight that the main failure of the Invasion storyline was the lack of main event talent on the WCW side and then only three months later, Hogan, Hall and Nash debuted. The nWo have been presented very strongly since their arrival last month so it’s hard to fault that, especially with so many other main eventers to juggle.

Austin attacks Hall the moment he enters the ring with the fans chanting WHAT for each punch and stomp. I think - it's hard to hear the crowd in such a huge stadium as all the noise just disappears up into the ceiling. 

Austin beats Hall from pillar to post and takes him down with the Thez press, mounted punches and his big rebound elbow, all before Scott even gets his ring jacket off. 

The fight goes to the outside so Stone Cold gets a cheap shot in on Kevin Nash for good measure and continues to just steamroll the nWo member. Hall does finally mount a comeback in the ring with a kick, clothesline and slows things down. He makes sure Nash is able to get some cheap shots in from the outside too, and he removes the turnbuckle cover to expose the steel bolt underneath. 

Austin goes into it spine-first and Hall gets a near fall with a fallaway slam.

There’s chaos at the finish as Austin hits Hall with a Stunner. Nash pulls the referee out of the ring to stop the count. The nWo pair try to double team the Rattlesnake but he fights them off and hits Hall with a second Stunner, plus one on Nash! A second referee runs down to count but Nash stops that count too with an elbow drop to the referee, flattening him. 

That brings a team of referees down to escort Kevin Nash away from the ring (which actually gets some boos from the crowd - presumably big WCW fans who loved Nash’s work there. For some reason). 

Scott Hall hits Austin with his own Stunner and that seems like the end but Stone Cold kicks out! That also gets some boos - Canada did always have a bit of a reputation for cheering the bad guys but I assume there’s a decent sized WCW and nWo fan contingent in this crowd.

Austin hits Hall with Stunner number three and, with him staggering, gives him Stunner number four too! Hall springs into the air to take a bump and that’s enough to give Stone Cold the victory at Wrestlemania and he celebrates with beers. He doesn’t look particularly happy to have won and rushes through the beer bash so he can get to the back.

Why did Austin look a bit grumpy and miserable? Well because he was, basically. I’ve hinted at his unhappiness with his recent booking which was only made worse by the return of Vince McMahon’s original favourite superstar Hulk Hogan. Austin believed that he was still THE main event draw for the WWF even in 2002 and his star power was being intentionally eroded by the booking to make him A star rather than THE star. Whether that’s fair enough is open to interpretation but for a man who single handedly made the WWF a pop culture phenomenon in 1998 and 1999, it was an insult. He still had more to give. Steve also had a combination of personal issues with his wife, his drinking getting worse and various nagging injuries continuing to make him sore and uncomfortable on a day to day basis. The Rattlesnake was burnt out and subsequently he isn’t on Raw the night after this PPV, nor is he on the following week. He went home and said he needed some time to decompress. Did it help? We’ll get to that after Backlash.

But why did he wrestle Scott Hall on this show and not, as most people wanted, the dream match against Hulk Hogan? The Rock is a megastar, no doubt but in terms of the BIGGEST ever vs. the BIGGEST ever, Hulk Hogan vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin was and is the ultimate dream match. The short answer is that Austin neither liked nor trusted Hogan. He held a grudge over the way Hogan shunted him aside when he arrived in WCW in 1994 and when Steve was in ECW cutting hilarious, angry shoot promos on his time in WCW it was usually Hogan himself who got the brunt of the abuse. He knew that Hogan was the ultimate wrestling politician and that if he agreed to face him Hogan would manipulate the booking and the fans so that Austin would end up in the Hulkster’s shadow. Win, lose or draw all anyone would talk about is how Hogan was the bigger star after all and even if Hogan lost, he’d expect to win the rematch. It wasn’t just ego or paranoia - that’s how Hogan operated for close to two decades. Was Stone Cold right to be concerned? I guess we’ll find out how The Rock fairs against him later in the show.

Here’s a look at 2002’s Fan Axxess event in the build up to Wrestlemania. Personal highlights include a fan who couldn’t stop crying when meeting The Undertaker, Booker T smashing some kid at a video game and how deeply uncomfortable Stacy Keibler looked talking about fans fondling the statue of her legs and butt. Poor Stacy.

Four Corners Elimination match for the WWF Tag Team Championships

Billy and Chuck © vs. The APA (Bradshaw and Faarooq) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Matt and Jeff Hardy) vs. The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley w/Stacy Keibler)

The Dudleyz enter first so that Saliva can give us their second live performance of the night, their new theme song. I’m not convinced this match warranted a special Wrestlemania entrance but they have CDs to sell. The highlight is Stacy’s dancing which you can see for yourself in the previous video package as I left a bit of Saliva’s performance in for you to enjoy (or not, depending on your music taste). Josey Scott made sure to cop a feel too because I assume there was a long queue for the statue at Axxess. 

The APA officially earned this match at No Way Out but ended up cashing it in on TV in the lead up so their impatience has gotten them a four team elimination match to worry about. Even better than Saliva’s live performance for the Dudleyz is Billy and Chuck’s theme song. I like their new bright yellow gear too.

Billy Gunn is one of the most prolific tag team wrestlers of all time - this is the third different long term tag team he’s won the gold with after his “brother” Bart as the Smokin’ Gunns and Roaddogg as the New Age Outlaws.

This turns into a chaotic brawl as soon as the bell rings with Bradshaw and Chuck as the initial legal men. Bradshaw holds off both champions for a while and Billy scampers to tag out to D-Von Dudley as soon as possible. I’ve totally lost track of who’s legal but it's fine because so has the referee. Bradshaw turns Billy inside out with a Clothesline from Hell but walks into a 3D and I was right that the APA would regret not saving their title match for tonight because the APA are the first team eliminated at 3:20. Bubba and D-Von set up a table on the outside and are taken out by tandem dives from The Hardyz. Billy and Chuck sit this out and leave the two familiar teams to go at it for a bit. The fans stupidly chant “we want tables” when there is literally already one set up at ringside. Pay attention, Canada. Stacy distracts Jeff Hardy with her butt and pays for it with a spank and a forced kiss. Even the babyfaces were misogynists in 2002! It breaks down to Bubba and Jeff as the legal men but again, who is even keeping track? 

After a long period of working over Jeff, he gets a hot tag to Matt. The finish comes when as D-Von climbs the ropes to prepare a Wazzup, Billy shoves him from the top rope to crash through the table the Dudleyz set up themselves!

That leaves Bubba alone with The Hardyz and after a Twist of Fate and Swanton Bomb, The Dudleyz are eliminated at 11:45. Sadly there doesn’t seem to have been a good camera on the table for D-Von’s landing as we heard it but never see it even in replays. The Hardyz use the same Twist of Fate and Swanton combo on Chuck and have the match and the titles won but Billy plants Jeff with a Fameasser. Matt and Billy fight to the outside and it looks like Chuck has it won but Jeff kicks out. Billy follows up and uses one of the Tag Team title belts as a weapon to knock out Jeff and Chuck pins him again. This time it’s enough to keep him down and Billy and Chuck retain the Tag Team titles, last eliminating The Hardyz at 13:52. This was alright but considering the multi-team Tag Team title matches at the last two Wrestlemanias (Triangle Ladder match and TLC 2 respectively) it was a let down.

Backstage, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are furious about Austin’s victory. They promise that it won’t happen twice but Hollywood Hogan asks them to stay backstage - he needs to know if he can do this on his own, he needs to face The Rock one on one with no interference. Nash and Hall smirk after he leaves and say they’ll probably interfere anyway.

New Hardcore Champion Mighty Molly runs around backstage hiding and walks right into a door being slammed in her face, knocking her out cold! Who would do such a thing to a woman? Christian, of course! He covers her and thanks to the 24/7 rule we get ANOTHER new Hardcore Champion in Christian. My boy. 

The Rock vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan

Should this match be the main event? Yes. It’s not even up for debate. That was the consensus in 2002 and it’s only gotten stronger since. This was a huge match and still is. They’ve never even approached this level of Past vs. Present since. 

Hogan comes out to the nWo theme song rather than his classic Real American (because he’s a heel, of course) or his own solo theme - in WCW, he used Jimmi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child as his theme which is an absolute banger. (we’ll get to hear that soon on WWF TV too, but I’m going to predict already that it’ll be heavily dubbed).

The crowd gives Hogan an extremely loud positive reaction when he gets to the ring - is it respect? Is it nostalgia? Is it just the shock of seeing this man back in the ring at Wrestlemania after nine years away? Is it just Canada being Canada? Who’s to say, but they boo The Rock too so this is very much a pro-Hulkster crowd either way.

The staredown is iconic - you’ll have seen the opening moments of this match many times even if you’ve never seen this specific show. Both men take some time to soak it all in as a “Hogan” chant breaks out and you start to realise that Stone Cold’s concerns about working with Hogan might have been well founded.

Hogan wins the first exchange and after shoving The Rock clean across the ring, the fans go MENTAL! Even he looks shocked by this response.

Hogan dominates with punches and a big clothesline as The Rock bounces around and sells. There’s boos for his comeback and big jumping clothesline as Hogan mugs for the camera. The two go back and forth - Hogan blocks the first Rock Bottom attempt and takes over with elbows and more strikes but the story of this match is the crowd who are red hot for everything either of these men do. It shocked me at the time and it shocks me now watching it for the first time in years, just how negative the crowd is for The Rock. It’s not a mixed crowd - these 67,000 Canadians are solidly behind the Hulkster, even as he locks in an abdominal stretch and takes cheap shots at Rock’s ribs while he does.

Hogan was 48 years old at the time which was ancient by the standards of 2002 but nowadays with wrestlers taking better care of themselves and the advancements in medical technology it’s not that shocking. AJ Styles is 48 years old in 2025 and he can still do 450 splashes! Most of the current WWE main event roster is over 40.

Hogan slowly works over The Rock and the fans go absolutely nuts once again as he throws The Rock over the top rope to the floor. 

Hogan clears the announce desk off and a frustrated Rock actually swings with a steel chair - the referee stops him from using it. They seem to have called an audible and flipped this match to The Rock working as the heel which was smart given the crowd. 

Back in the ring, a back and forth off the ropes leads to the referee accidentally getting knocked down. The Rock connects with a spinebuster and locks Hogan in the sharpshooter. There’s no referee to ring the bell even if he did tap out but Hogan crawls to the ropes anyway, only tapping out after that. 

The Rock is pretty aggressive with the referee as he tries to wake him up and then walks into a low blow. Hulk gives him a Rock Bottom and the referee revives in time to count - The Rock kicks out!

Hogan gets his weight lifter belt and whips The Rock across the back but gets a DDT and The Rock, who looks increasingly pissed off at the crowd for booing him and chanting “Rocky sucks”, takes the belt and whips Hogan in return! 

A Rock Bottom puts him down but Hogan kicks out and starts to Hulk up! The crowd loses their minds as he shakes and no-sells Rock’s punches and puts the People’s Champion down with the Big Boot and Leg Drop combo! The Rock kicks out. That is a shock - NO one kicks out of Hogan’s leg drop.

He goes for a second but The Rock moves out of the way and plants Hogan with a second Rock Bottom. He doesn’t go for a cover and instead pulls Hogan to his feet for a third and then follows with a People’s Elbow. With boos raining down on him, The Rock pins Hulk Hogan to win this epic clash.

Was this a good match? I have no idea. It was certainly exciting. You can base what is a good match on many factors but the most significant, for many, is the crowd reaction it gets. If you judge it by that metric then this might be the greatest match of all time because the fans were loud from bell to bell and white hot at that. 

The Rock celebrates as Hogan struggles to get to his feet and in a moment which is legendary and fitting but in hindsight doesn’t make a ton of sense given the build, Hogan offers Rocky a handshake. He gets it and the crowd loves it. I think the love comes from this symbolic face turn by the Hulkster.

The Rock leaves the ring first and gives Hogan his moment in the sun to take in the cheers. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash come down to the ring and question the handshake and, apparently believing their buddy has gone soft, attack Hogan! Hall and Nash beat down Hogan two on one which brings The Rock back to the ring. The Rock and Hogan fight off both nWo members and send them packing and with the crowd going nuts, The Rock insists on Hogan posing for the crowd. Hogan does as he’s asked and delights in cupping his hand to his ear and flexing for the fans who go ballistic for it. It’s funny as this is exactly the kind of stuff that, two years earlier when he was in WCW, the WWF commentators used to make fun of. Who can argue with that crowd response though? Hulk Hogan and The Rock leave together and who even remembers that The Rock won this match? That folks, is very much the point. 

I mentioned earlier that this outcome - the focus being on Hogan even in defeat - is exactly what Stone Cold was worried about and why he refused this match. The Rock won but thanks to his ability to work the crowd and no doubt some behind the scenes private conversations with Vince McMahon, Hogan had flipped it so that all the attention was on him and his babyface turn. 

Hogan spent his entire career using his friendship with management to manipulate situations. It is also true that when this match was signed, the agreement was that there would be a rematch down the road that the Hulkster would win. Whether that rematch happens we’ll have to wait and see but it's the same trick he’d pulled for years and would continue to do so - the most famous and well publicised occasion being his feud and Summerslam 2005 match with Shawn Michaels where after Hogan argued for rematches and victories, Shawn ended up just agreeing to lose so that they could end the story and he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. 

Hulk Hogan isn’t going anywhere so I’ll talk about him a great deal more in the next few Previews and PPVs and will try my best to keep things fair and in keeping with 2002 attitudes but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention - at least once - that I can’t stand Hogan for a variety of reasons. But let's keep things positive and just move on.

Look at The Rock's face above though! He knew. He knew Hogan stole all of his thunder.

Howard Finkle also announces (with thanks to the Canadian sponsor “Pizza Pizza” of course) that this event broke the Skydome attendance record with 68, 237. That number, as these things always are and have been in wrestling, is seriously inflated but the actual number was probably closer to 55,000 which is still a very impressive number.

I mentioned this during Vengeance but in the run up to this event they promoted the ability to purchase this event directly from the WWF and stream it live on WWF.com. I'm interested to see if that practice continues as they didn't offer it for either the Royal Rumble or No Way Out. It looks like it was a little cheaper to order it directly, presumably because they didn't have to share the money with a PPV company. The WWF was still very successful in March 2002 but no where near as popular as it was the previous year. It's a shame because while there has been a couple of booking missteps (the Invasion and Stone Cold's heel turn being the worst examples) there was just as much good on the shows as ever, even if it is broadly speaking it was often the same people wrestling the same people they had been for months and months.

The Big Show is live at WWF New York amongst the people with a little girl on his shoulder. He looks like he’s having a good time but when you consider that he was in the main event of Wrestlemania two years ago, it’s hard not to think of this as a fall from grace. That’s not just me being mean - that’s a little plot point for later.

WWF Women’s Championship

Jazz © vs. Trish Stratus vs. Lita

Jazz clearly has fans in the front office as she’s been given a pretty massive push since her debut, not just winning the title but absolutely demolishing and even injuring her opponents (kayfabe - she’s a very safe worker)

Lita debuts her theme song by Boy Hits Car here. I always hated this song but that’s something me and buddy Craig argue about surprisingly regularly. 

Trish has special red and white gear to celebrate being in her hometown and this feels like the night she SHOULD win the title back for a big hometown happy moment.

Is it a huge compliment to these ladies that their match is so late in the show, even going on after Hogan and Rock? No, sadly they’ve been put here so that the fans can get their breath back and rest up for the main event. It's a practice for women’s matches on these big shows that the WWF/WWE used for years but the story has a happy ending because as I write this I'm only a day removed from WWE Evolution 2025, an all women’s PPV which absolutely blew me away.

Lita and Trish start off double teaming Jazz but that breaks down and Lita comes with a flying crossbody which Trish rolls through for a close fall.

Trish follows up with her Stratusfaction bulldog but Jazz breaks up the pin and then almost steals the pin. She plants Trish with her fisherman brainbuster finisher but Lita breaks up that pin attempt. 

The girls are working hard and the action is decent but the crowd is dead after Hogan and Rock. They DO pick up a little for the stare down between Trish and Lita - easily the two most popular women in the company - and Lita wins the exchange.

A Twist of Fate on Jazz and a bodyslam on Trish sets them up for a double moonsault but Trish blocks it with her knees up and gets a close near fall.

Lita teases pulling her t-shirt off which gets a big cheer but she weirdly stops and doesn’t do it - it’s a spot she's done lots of times, I can only assume it’s either too early in the match for that, or she realised the bra she’s wearing is not TV appropriate.

Trish stops Lita from jumping off the top. Jazz knocks Trish off the apron and brings a groggy Lita down off the top rope with a brainbuster to win the match and retain the women’s championship. 

JR calls this a “car wreck” which I think is him politely calling it a bad match but I don't agree - this was alright. I am shocked Trish didn’t regain the title but given how quiet the crowd was post-Hogan she wouldn’t want to win it here and have the fans barely react in her hometown.

Backstage, the new Hardcore Champion Christian prepares to leave the arena in a cab but as he stops to admire his belt, the original champion of the evening, Maven appears in the parking lot and rolls him up! There’s a referee to count and Maven regains the Hardcore Championship! He hops in Christian’s taxi and takes off, ending the very enjoyable hardcore hijinx for the evening with five title changes.

Undisputed WWF Championship

Chris Jericho © (w/Stephanie McMahon) vs. Triple H

There’s no video package for this match (the montage of clips behind Drowning Pool’s live performance earlier is all you’re getting) but Drowning Pool get to give their second live performance of the night, singing Triple H to the ring to their own version of The Game. It’s pretty cool, but he isn’t changing his theme and will be back to Motorhead tomorrow night on Raw. 

Jericho’s ring gear is a weird mismatched green and glittery pink affair. Not a fan of that but I am a fan of Stephanie’s teal blue jumpsuit. It even has flares and a swooped collar so she looks like an evil, sexy Elvis. 

It is right that the WWF Championship ends the show - the title is the main event of every show - but it was a mistake here. Triple H pushed for his match to close the show over Hogan and Rock and it wasn’t the last time he did that. His match went on last at Wrestlemania’s 25 and 32 as well and at both of those events his match was overshadowed by a significantly more exciting match earlier in the night. The Game doesn’t learn, it seems.

Triple H outclasses Jericho in the early going, bouncing him around the ring and dropping him with clotheslines while Stephanie screeches for Jericho to “tear his leg apart”. Jericho was listening and when Triple H hobbles he goes right after the leg. 

I don’t want to be negative but the crowd does not care about this match - there’s silence for Jericho working over Triple H’s taped leg and even more silence for Triple H’s comeback with a spear. This match isn’t bad, the crowd is just done for the night after this show peaked 45 minutes ago. 

Stephanie gets up on the apron and is knocked to the outside when Triple H throws the champion into her. The Game tries to Pedigree his own wife again but Jericho stops him with a missile dropkick and refocuses his attack on the surgically repaired leg, wrapping it around the ring post. As he’s on the outside, Stephanie boots him in the leg for good measure. The fans started chanting during this spot and I thought they might finally be getting into it but they were in fact chanting “You Screwed Bret” at referee Earl Hebner. 

In an attempt to get the crowd behind him, Triple H does some of the best, most dramatic selling of his life as Jericho works over his leg, screaming and writhing in pain after every move. It’s not a bad match, it just isn’t winning the crowd over and that’s proven as there’s a brief “Hogan” chant during Triple H’s comeback. 

There’s an ugly botched spot as Jericho charges Triple H before he’s ready and has to awkwardly bump off being pushed. They repeat the spot and this time it’s a big spinebuster. Jericho just immediately regains control with a kick to the thigh.

On the outside, Jericho clears off the announce desk and tries to put Triple H in the Walls of Jericho on top of it. The table doesn’t add anything to the move, it's more symbolic of the night his quad tore in May 2001. There’s a bit of a skirmish as Triple H blocks it but he’s backdropped from one table to the other - it looked great but the fans didn’t really react to THAT spot either.

In the ring, Jericho hits the Lionsault and Triple H kicks out. Zero reaction. I don’t mean to keep pointing out the silent crowd and putting a negative spin on this but it's awkward and hard to ignore! 

There’s a bit of noise of a Pedigree attempt, and for it being reversed into the Walls of Jericho but more silence as the screaming Game crawls to the ropes. 

Jericho brings a chair into the ring but it backfires as with Steph distracting the referee, he gets DDT’d onto it. Jericho kicks out but Stephanie being in the ring works out for Triple H as finally, after weeks of teasing it, he plants his wife with a Pedigree.

 That got a big reaction and when he turns around Jericho blasts him with a stiff chairshot to the face. The crowd also cheers big for that kick out. 

Jericho jumps at Triple H from the middle rope and is caught with a boot to the gut and a Pedigree and just like that, Triple H wins the Undisputed WWF Championship.

This wasn’t a bad match but the crowd being so out of it was very distracting. JR does thankfully bring some of his classic shouty excitement at the finish screaming about Triple H being the new champion.

This was a great show - nothing on it was “bad”  and lots of it was good. I enjoyed the Intercontinental and European title matches and wished they were longer, I liked all the Hardcore championship nonsense, I liked Angle vs. Kane (until the finish) and the main event was perfectly good in-ring despite the crowd. My favourite in-ring performance of the night was definitely Undertaker vs. Flair but it's hard not to love Hogan vs. Rock with that crowd going nuts for everything. Wrestlemania X8 is a very different show to Wrestlemania X7 but is great in a whole different way. 

Here’s the standard highlight reel of the whole event. It’s set to Salva’s live performance from the start of the show rather than the CD version of the song but we can’t have everything can we?