Wrestlemania XIX - Safeco Field, Seattle Washington, March 30th 2003

Another year and another Wrestlemania. The opening video for this show is one of my all time favourites and for some reason on this version, the music has been heavily dubbed by a different song. I don’t dislike this version, but it’s not the one I remember fondly.

On the plus side, the event theme song hasn’t been dubbed and Limp Bizkit’s Crack Addict welcomes us to the event. It’s a bit of a banger, but funnily enough they avoided saying the name of the song in the build up to the event. I actually can’t find it on Spotify so maybe it being called Crack Addict caused them some issues? 

The stage for this one is pretty cool too - it looks enormous and grand in the panning shots throughout the night.

Before we get into Wrestlemania though, we need to talk about Sunday Night Heat! 

Three important things happened on Heat; a promo, a backstage segment and a match.

Smackdown’s John Cena came out onto the stage for his open challenge rap battle. He invited multiple famous rappers to come and face him at the event but, unsurprisingly, none accepted. John comes out onto the stage with cardboard cutouts of Jay-Z and Fabulous and directs insulting raps at them. It’s pretty good, as is his joke about the XFL. It doesn’t get a huge reaction from the crowd but that could be because in this stadium, it's so massive that the noise just disappears up into the roof. I did really like his white tracksuit with the Wrestlemania XIX logo on his chest.

In a backstage segment, the FBI’s Nunzio lured Nathan Jones into the locker room by stealing his wallet but it was a setup and he was attacked by Wrestlemania opponents Big Show and A-Train who leave the Colossus of Boggo Road out cold. More on that later.

World Tag Team Championships

Chief Morley and Lance Storm © (w/Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley) vs. Kane and Rob Van Dam

Why are The Dudleyz with the champions? Well they were suspended by the Bischoff regime and then forced to do Morley’s bidding to get their paying jobs back. That’s fair enough. It’s a shame this match is on Heat as it’s had a lot of build on Raw over the past month.

Kane actually has a nice dive to the outside onto the champions, but with a commercial break in the middle of the match and JR and King talking exclusively about the PPV later there isn’t much interest here. Morley and Storm isolate and work over RVD. 

Kane gets the hot tag and on a roll, hitting a flying clothesline on Storm and then a chokeslam to set him up for the Five Star Frog Splash. Morley shoves RVD off the top rope all the way to the security barrier at ringside. With everyone on the outside including the referee, The Dudleyz drill Storm with a 3D! Their dignity is worth more than their jobs it seems, but then after putting a limp RVD onto Storm for the pin, Bubba Ray drops an elbow across RVD’s back and reverses the pin. That, somehow, is enough to give Storm the victory and they retain the tag team titles as D-Von and Bubba argue. D-Von wanted to screw them over, but Bubba was the voice of reason and wanted to protect their jobs.

This was too short to be good or bad, and the finish was pretty lame. The Dudleyz tribulations with the Bischoff regime continue.

Right, with that out of the way, let's get into Wrestlemania itself! 

WWE Cruiserweight Championship

Matt Hardy © (w/Shannon Moore) vs. Rey Mysterio

Kicking off with the Cruiserweights and this is Rey Mysterio’s Wrestlemania debut, as well as being Shannon Moore’s first appearance and Matt Hardy’s first singles outing (fourth Wrestlemania overall). This is the first of something that became a tradition, with Rey wearing Marvel superhero inspired gear - he’s dressed as Daredevil. 

Matt’s Facts repeat trivia I’ve just given you. 

Rey kicks off with a dive to the outside and moves at 100mph sending Matt bouncing around the ring with headscissors and hurricanranas but when he tries a sunset flip powerbomb to the outside, Moore is there with a kick to the gut to stop him and Matt picks up the control from there.

Matt gets near falls with the side effect and other slams and tries to slow things down but this match only has five minutes so there’s no time for that and Rey quickly fights back and springboards into a crossbody for a near fall. He starts to get on a roll but Shannon trips Rey and Matt follows with a Twist of Fate. That should end it but Rey kicks out, which pops the crowd and then he reverses a top rope powerbomb attempt into a hurricanarana which ALSO should end it but Shannon Moore puts his sensei’s foot on the ropes to break it. 

Rey hits the 619 and takes aim with the West Coast Pop but Matt avoids it and then rolls Rey up into a victory roll, grabbing the ropes for leverage to steal the pin and retain his Cruiserweight Championship in a fine match which was far too short to be special.

Backstage, the “Miller Lite Cat Fight Girls” arrive in a limo. This was a big TV commercial at the time and the premise is two pretty girls arguing and fighting in a bar, which is “hot” apparently. 

Earlier tonight on Heat, as mentioned above, Nathan Jones was attacked by Big Show and A-Train, apparently taking him out of this match entirely. The reason for that is because Nathan Jones was someone the company wanted to use, but he was absolutely and totally useless in the ring - clumsy and dangerous, likely to injure his opponents accidentally and so the decision was made last minute to remove him from this match and let him train for a lot longer before putting him in the ring. 

Limp Bizkit, who are at the event to perform the Wrestlemania theme song later, also do the honours and perform Rollin’ for The Undertaker’s entrance. Tony Chimel calls them “the WWE’s favourite band in the whole world” which is pretty funny. I wonder who came up with that? I guess no one told them that he stopped using Rollin’ about a year ago, but it’s forgiven because everyone loves this song! 

Handicap match

The Undertaker vs. Big Show and A-Train

Certainly in kayfabe, this is the biggest threat the Undertaker’s Wrestlemania streak has ever faced - a handicap match against a combined weight of 850lbs. 

As they make their way to the ring, A-Train spits on Undertaker’s motorbike trying to goad him in but the distraction doesn’t work and he sees Big Show coming and plants Train with a chokeslam almost immediately! Big Show breaks up the pin of course, and then starts the match properly from there. 

Undertaker works quickly and wrestles like a cruiserweight going from move to move and fighting off both men, but it’s two on one so they’re always able to overwhelm him. Undertaker has included more and more MMA-style submission holds in his moveset lately - something I mentioned at No Way Out - and as he locks A-Train in an armbar, Big Show drops a big leg across his face and slows things down with an abdominal stretch, gamely assisted by A-Train on the apron. The fans chant “shave your back” at A-Train but, something else I mentioned on Heat, the size of this stadium means that most of the crowd noise disappears into the crowd and isn’t half as loud on TV as I’m sure it was in person.

Undertaker fights back but there’s always someone to stop him - DDT on A-Train, Show breaks it up. Chokeslam attempt on Show, A-Train breaks it up.

A big chokeslam from Big Show looks like it’ll end things but somehow, even being out of the match, Nathan Jones blows his spot being way, way too late to get to the ring to break it up. Big Show has to jump out of the ring and go to find him, getting wiped out with a big spinning kick in the entrance aisle. 

He gets to the ring and does the same to A-Train which leads to a tombstone and an Undertaker victory, going to 11 - 0 at Wrestlemania. 

Something I’ve never really talked about in much detail is my own struggles with separating the art from the artist. I try to call these shows as they come and ignore problematic people with the most obvious being Chris Benoit or even Fabulous Moolah when she popped up. In 2025, looking back at these shows it’s really hard to maintain the same respect and enjoyment for the work of people like The Undertaker, Kane and Chris Jericho among others who have made their own political beliefs so public and with which I disagree so enormously. Hulk Hogan is another good example, as is Vince McMahon and there’s also less obvious ones like Val Venis/Chief Morley who, in 2025 has burned every single bridge he has in the wrestling business and is a fully insane conspiracy theorist. He posts on X so many times per day and so often that he appears to not sleep at all. I don’t mean to name and shame people or get on my high horse about my own beliefs,  I’m just saying that as we get older and learn more about who our childhood heroes were and are, the more likely it is that you’ll discover they aren’t people you’d like or respect in real life. 

The Miller Lite Cat Fight girls continue their adventures backstage, apparently just wandering around without an escort or anyone meeting them. They run into Torrie Wilson and Stacy Kiebler and after complimenting each other, marketing genius Stacy Kiebler says she has an idea for them all. I can hardly wait. 

WWE Women’s Championship

Victoria © (w/Steven Richards) vs. Trish Stratus vs. Jazz

This is one of the best built women’s PPV matches in history at this point with stories going back over a year to when Trish injured Jazz. She returned and went on a warpath, taking out her aggression on Trish as well as focusing on women’s champion Victoria. I have praised Raw’s women’s division a lot in the past few months and a lot of that is due to Victoria. She was great as Champion.

The match moves at a frantic pace and Jazz knocks the champion out of the ring to focus on Trish with a nice camel clutch with a bridge. Victoria returns and she and Jazz fight over who gets to beat up Trish, laying her out with a double suplex before going at it themselves. Two big, powerful women and Victoria gets a nearfall with a good looking scoop slam. Trish almost steals a pin of her own with a roll up with a bridge but gets her hair pulled and face slapped by the women’s champion.

Jazz spikes her with a nice powerslam into a driver which Trish just barely kicks out of. Things break down between Jazz and Victoria and the ever-popular Trish bangs their heads together! 

Jazz takes out Victoria with a spinning heel kick and Trish gets a string of near falls with nice roll ups and then a Chick Kick. Victoria breaks that up but Trish won’t be denied and kicks Victoria out of the ring. Jazz locks in a single leg Boston crab and the crowd gets behind Trish fighting to get to the ropes, but its turned into an STF which Steven Richards is forced to break up. 

After more back and forth including Jazz flooring Trish with her elevated chicken wing slam, Victoria misses a moonsault but still manages to take out Jazz.

Steven Richards misses a chair shot to Trish and hits himself in the face and takes a Stratusfaction for his troubles! Victoria’s Widows Peak is reversed by Trish and after a Chick Kick she gets the three count to win her third Women’s Championship in what I thought was a very good women’s match, and one of the longest of this era by miles! Great stuff. 

Coach interviews The Rock who tells him that he doesn’t care about The People, because they turned on him last year and have been booing and chanting sell out at him for a year now. He says that Stone Cold has beaten him twice at Wrestlemania which consumes him and eats him alive but if Hollywood has taught him anything its that everyone remembers Act III. He says that tonight is the final chapter in the greatest rivalry in wrestling history, and he’s right. He takes his sunglasses off and gets serious, staring into the middle distance when he says “finally”. This was very good and I’ll talk a lot about the real life meaning and emotions for that match later tonight.

WWE Tag Team Championships

Team Angle (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas) © vs. Los Guerreros (Eddie & Chavo Guerrero) vs. Rhyno and Chris Benoit

A lot of the build and emotion for this match comes from the fact that both Benoit and Rhyno missed last year’s Mania due to neck injuries. Michael Cole and Tazz share a nice personal story about being in the skybox at last year’s Wrestlemania with Benoit who was very emotional about missing the show.

Rhyno and Chavo were both at Wrestlemania X7 (interfered in TLC 2, and in the skybox as part of the WCW contingent respectively) but other than Benoit and Eddie, everyone else in this match is making their Wrestlemania in-ring debuts. 

It starts out with a wild, six man brawl but when it settles down it’s Haas and Chavo as the legal men. The rules for this one are the first man to score a pinfall on anyone wins the Tag Team titles for his team.

Haas tags out to Benoit and Chavo tags out to Eddie who comes into the ring with a tope over the top rope onto his former Radical buddy. They move at a rapid pace with quick tags in and out so that everyone can have their moment in the ring.

The champions become the designated whipping boys in this match as Rhyno and Benoit isolate and brutalise Haas in their corner. Benjamin doesn’t do any better when he tags in so he smartly gets out of there and leaves Guerrero and Benoit to go back and forth, quickly breaking things up when Benoit locks in the Crossface. 

The match breaks down and Rhyno takes out Haas and then Chavo with a pair of Gores but he’s pulled out of the ring before he can follow up and out of no where, Shelton covers Chavo to steal the victory. It's hard to have much of an opinion on this match as it was a fairly standard tag team match with a finish out of nowhere. It felt like the second half was missing, but it did only last 8:48.

I’m sure, like me, were wondering what Torrie, Stacy and the Miller Lite girls were up to? Good news, the next segment deals with that. We never find out what Stacy’s “marketing genius” she mentioned earlier was and Torrie and Stacy get into an argument about whether Hulk Hogan or Mr. McMahon is more responsible for Wrestlemania’s success. They leave and then the Miller Lite girls pick the argument for them - the blonde keeps pronouncing the Hulker’s name as “Hulk Holgan” and they agree to settle their disagreement “in bed”. Whatever could they mean by that? JR says it best - let’s get back to wrestling.

Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels

This has been building since December 2002, and as legend goes both of these men wrote most of this storyline themselves, deciding this was the plan for Wrestlemania and laying out all the major story beats and moments along the way. Good job lads.

This is Jericho’s fourth Wrestlemania, and the first time it’s not been a championship match. This is Shawn Michaels’ 10th Wrestlemania and his first since Wrestlemania XIV, which is fitting as it’s the first show I covered.

During HBK’s entrance he had a series of guns that fired confetti into the crowd. Sadly all of the ones down the right hand side of the ramp were busted so only the fans on the left got showered. Or maybe they’re lucky - I bet that stuff sticks to your clothes. HBK has a lot of fun and a LOT of pyro during his entrance and danced for so long his theme song looped back to the start.

They start out with some fast paced wrestling exchanges, moving quickly in and out of headlocks and armdrags. Jericho is the first to stop that with a slap to the face, but Michaels sends him up and over the top and follows with a baseball slide. Back in the ring, his top rope crossbody is rolled through into a pin attempt but Jericho’s corner charge is blocked and then he's locked in a figure four. Jericho gets the ropes and HBK dives up and over the top onto Jericho at ringside, but is locked in the Walls of Jericho in the entrance ramp when his dropkick is blocked. Jericho runs back to the ring to break the referee's count, wanting to win this legit and not by countout. 

King breaks out all his “old lion and young lion” analogies which he also used during Hogan and Rock’s match last year. I guess it still applies. 

Back in the ring, Jericho slows the pace down, slapping at Michaels and barking that he’s better than him and focusing the attack on his surgically repaired back. 

Jericho puts down Michaels with his own trademark flying forearm and then kips up and taunts him, but he pays for it when HBK kips up himself and shows Jericho how its done, getting on a roll with an atomic drop, a back drop and a very close nearfall with a moonsault to a standing Jericho into a roll up.

After a long sequence of roll ups and reversals with many two counts, Jericho catches the Lionsault but is too slow crawling into the cover and Michaels kicks out. Jericho is getting very frustrated, but blocks an attempted hurricanrana into the Walls of Jericho, this time in the ring. HBK crawls and just barely makes it to the ropes to break the hold. 

Jericho follows with a backbreaker, a spinning back elbow off the top rope and the crowd boos as he sets up Sweet Chin Music, which he hits! Shawn Michaels kicks out. HBK gets a couple more desperation roll ups, and his most significant comeback turning Jericho’s attempted top rope suplex into a crossbody. He tries to follow it up with a top rope elbow but Jericho kicks the referee into the ropes, knocking HBK down. HBK blocks Jericho’s suplex attempt and gets the big elbow on his second attempt, bouncing back to his feet and setting up the Sweet Chin Music! 

Jericho ducks and turns it into a third Walls of Jericho but Michaels makes it to the ropes again. While he’s busy arguing with the referee, he turns right into Sweet Chin Music! Jericho is down and out but HBK is too hurt to cover and by the time he crawls into a pin, Jericho is recovered enough to kick out.

From there, they go back to the corner and Michaels is quick as a cat, countering into a roll up and getting the three count out of nowhere in an excellent wrestling match which might have just stolen the show. Fantastic stuff from both men with a really well told story throughout.

After the match, an emotional Chris Jericho sobs and the two show some respect for each other, shaking hands and hugging. It’s a lovely moment and a face turn for Chris Jericho…or it would have been if he didn’t then kick Shawn Michaels in the balls! The fans rain boos on the King of the World as he rants that he’s still the best, and JR calls him a sick, pathetic loser. 

The crooked referee from No Way Out, Sylvain Grenier, is spotted backstage going into Mr. McMahon’s office. How very suspicious.

Here, Tony Chimel announces the attendance of the show - something that nowadays they get a celebrity or one of the big stars to do - and then introduces Limp Bizkit to perform the Wrestlemania theme song, Crack Addict

Now the real main event of the show, the Miller Lite Catfight. The two girls - their names are Tanya and Kitana, because I’m confident you all need to know that, come out and are about to have a pillow fight on a big bed on the stage overseen by Jonathan Coachman (pervert) when Stacy Kiebler and then Torrie Wilson come out and insist on being included. They hit each other with pillows, remove each other’s tops and eventually get bored and just attack Coach, pulling down his pants and rolling him up into a pin, which they count themselves. I’m sure someone (other than Jerry Lawler of course) enjoyed this.

World Heavyweight Championship

Triple H © (w/Ric Flair) vs. Booker T

The video package for this match carefully sidesteps all of the implied racism during the build up to this match but the fact is, Triple H spent the build up to this match telling everyone that Booker was garbage who didn’t deserve a title shot and making it so that anything less than a victory will damage Booker, badly. He did this all the while implying that black people are beneath white people and mentioning things like nappy hair and dancing for his entertainment Basically, wrestling is like a movie and if a character is going to be an evil racist you need to script it for him to get his comeuppence. Will Triple H get his?

Jerry Lawler immediately got on my nerves here, relentlessly talking about Booker’s legal history and echoing Triple H’s claims that he is unworthy of being the champion.

They start out brawling and Triple H for some reason goes to the top rope, which is very unlike him. Booker brings him off the top rope with an armdrag and pummels the champion on the outside, and scores the first nearfall with a big clothesline back in the ring. The story in the early going is that Booker is angry and is taking out four weeks of venom on the World Champion. Triple H finally gets control by sending Booker into the ring post and stomps away at the challenger’s head and shoulders.

King spends this match relentlessly burying Booker T, calling him a second rate wrestler which, If i was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, means that King probably expected Booker T to end up as World Champion too.

Triple H keeps things slow as King exhausts his joke book of all his prison and criminal jokes at Booker’s expense which eventually got on JR’s nerves too and he had to shout at him. Booker mounts a comeback but Triple H goes right back to a sleeper hold and keeps this in the first gear - nice and slow.

Booker gets a very close near fall countering a jump off the middle rope with a superkick, but misses the Scissors Kick and is dumped to the outside where Ric Flair gets some cheap shots in, dropping Booker’s knee onto the ring steps.

Triple H capitalises back in the ring locking in an Indian death lock, a move which JR remarks he hasn’t seen in years. Triple H was very much in his “old school” era, dusting off moves and tactics that were considered old fashioned in the early 90s but he wanted to make new again in 2003. He’s a “throwback” and “a classic” and “a wrestler’s wrestler” and all the other phrases he was feeding to the commentators backstage. 

Booker’s knee being hurt becomes the story of this match as he tries for desperate roll ups but The Game kicks out and goes right back to the knee of his challenger. Booker mounts a comeback with a big jumping heel kick and the Scissors Kick but his leg is too hurt for him to make it to the cover and by the time he finally does, it’s a weak pin and Triple H kicks out at two.

Booker climbs to the top rope and after knocking Ric Flair out of the way and fighting off Triple H’s attempted superplex, comes off the top with his old WCW finishing move, a flip into a leg drop which he calls the Houston Hangover! He lands right on Triple H’s head! By the time he eventually gets into a cover, Ric Flair has recovered enough to put Triple H’s foot on the ropes.

They’re both hurt and stagger to their feet but Booker’s leg buckles from underneath him and Triple H hits the Pedigree. He falls the wrong way and it takes Triple H a very, very long time to crawl into the cover. You’d expect Booker to kick out, given how long he had to recover but bizarrely, that is enough for the three count and the crowd barely reacts, stunned by the finish.

This match was pretty dull, and I don’t think the drama and ebb and flow paid off the way they thought it would when putting it together. It’s been 22 years since this match and it remains a mystery why Booker T didn’t win. Of all of Triple H’s many burial wins, this is probably still the worst. 

I’ve hinted at the “reign of terror” and Triple H’s burials before but lets get it all out in the open - Triple H, dating Stephanie McMahon in real life and marrying her in late 2003, used his position to protect and promote himself at the expense of the company and all of his co-workers. He sat in on creative meetings and refused to lose for years and years, feuding with and defeating, in no particular order, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Kane and Booker T at the peak of their powers and cutting their legs off in the eyes of the fans by beating them and making sure no one took them seriously as main eventers without serious, months and in some cases years, long rehab by the writers. His worst stint was certainly from 2002 - 2006 but he’s done it many, many times since against Brock Lesnar, Sting and others. Even in 2025 as the public face of the company he has the commentators and workers beating us over the head with how great he and his inner circle are. He made Raw unwatchable for years and I’ll never forgive him for that. 

Weirdly, my version of the show includes a WWEShop.com commercial here. That’s not weird itself but what makes it weird is that it’s clearly from around 2006 featuring clips of wrestlers and moments that hadn’t happened yet at Wrestlemania XIX. A time travelling commercial.

Street Fight

Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon

If Hogan loses, he must retire from in-ring competition

It’s a challenge to sum up the reality of this feud, but all of the things they claimed about each other in the build are ultimately true. They even included news footage from Vince McMahon’s 1994 steroid trial.

This wasn’t Hulk Hogan’s final match, but it was his final Wrestlemania match. It’s amazing how much extra lore and importance this PPV has in hindsight. 

They get face to face and McMahon slaps Hogan in the face, showing no fear.

Hogan rocks him with a right hand and punches McMahon on the mat. He has no problem until Vince throws an elbow, catching Hogan in the head and then clotheslines him. Vince actually dominates Hogan with kicks and wins a test of strength over the Hulkster - fans from the Attitude era will always think of Vince as a non-wrestler who stands no chance against any of his WWE Superstars but in recent matches, like with Ric Flair, he’s had no problem holding his own and actually dominates Hogan for the first chunk of this match.

On the outside, Vince tries to use a steel chair but misses his swing. Hogan gets the chair and doesn’t miss his, blasting McMahon right in the head. The chairman comes up bleeding heavily - Vince loves a big, nasty blade job and is quickly soaked in thick, dark blood. 

Hogan has fun, playing up to the crowd and bringing the chair down twice across McMahon’s back but when he swings for his head, Vince ducks and he blasts Spanish commentator Hugo Savenovich, busting HIM open too! Vince gives Hogan a low blow and blasts the Hulkster with another chairshot and it's his turn to bleed.

Vince sets up a ladder of all things at ringside and starts to climb it - I wonder what his plan was? Hogan stops him and they brawl around the announce desks some more. 

In an insane spot for a man his age, never mind a non-wrestler, Vince actually sets Hogan up on the Spanish announce table and jumps with a leg drop from the ladder, driving him through the table! Both men are bleeding heavily but when Vince rolls over you can see the thick, heavy droplets falling onto what's left of the table. He is GUSHING, presumably because years of steroid abuse has left him with dangerously high blood pressure. 

Back in the ring, Vince covers Hogan and he kicks out to keep this bloody street fight going. Vince goes out to get a steel pipe from under the ring and we get a very iconic camera shot as it catches McMahon slowly raising himself up, smiling and bloody like a serial killer stalking his prey.

Hogan rocks him with a low blow and while both men are down, bloody and struggling a masked man comes through the crowd and reveals himself to be Rowdy Roddy Piper! He stalks both men and picks up Vince’s pipe but cheers turn to boos when he cracks Hogan with the pipe, leaving him having helped Vince end his old rival’s career. Hilariously, Cole and Tazz acted like they didn’t recognise him until he took his jacket off to show that he was dressed like Roddy Piper - I guess him having Roddy Piper’s head and face wasn’t enough of a clue.

Hogan kicks out of the pipe shot and when the referee tries to stop Vince from going too far, Vince beats him up and throws him out of the ring. Thats the cue for Sylvain Grenier to run down to the ring, but he’s chased by real Smackdown referee Neil Sparks. Grenier lays him out with a punch and in the ring, Vince hits Hogan with the pipe, drops the leg but Hogan kicks out again and this time, starts to Hulk up! He shakes and no-sells as Vince throws punches and looks terrified of the power of Hulkamania! Hogan rocks Vince and beats up Grenier too, throwing him out of the ring. Hogan is unstoppable and after a big boot and not one, not two but three Immortal Leg Drops, Hulk Hogan pins Vince McMahon to win a dramatic and bloody street fight. This was shockingly good considering the limitations of both men. A vicious battle with the right outcome.

At the conclusion of the match as Hogan celebrates and air guitars, Shane McMahon of all people comes down to the ring with a serious look on his face. Hogan takes off his belt assuming Shane O’Mac wants a fight but he doesn’t - he’s just there to get his dad and check on him. This is the second appearance of Shane in the past couple of months and it seems like they’re gearing up to his return and a match with Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan or both. 

From Smackdown’s battle of legends to Raw’s - the third and final Wrestlemania match between The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin and what would turn out to be the Rattlesnake’s final match. More on that in a bit.

As we head into the next match, here’s a fun thing I found. It’s from WWE’s official YouTube channel. A full video montage of every Rock moment from his initial smug, Hollywood heel via satellite promo with Hulk Hogan before No Way Out all the way up to his final appearance at Backlash 2003 before returning to Hollywood. By the next time we saw him in 2004, he was back to being a fan favourite again.

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Rock

The two biggest stars in wrestling history and they just so happened to be in their prime at the same time and in the same company. This match is the end of a lot of things and it’s a fitting farewell to the era which these two dominated

The Rock is obsessed with having wrestled Austin at Wrestlemania twice and never winning. Is the third time the charm? 

The elephant in the room - something that only Jim Ross knew at the time - is that the night before this event, Stone Cold was rushed to hospital. His heart was pounding, his legs shaking, his heart racing - he thought he was having a heart attack but as it transpired, it was a panic attack brought on by the emotion of this situation. Steve Austin didn’t tell anyone that this was his last match - The Rock has said since that he suspected, and felt the weight of that too. Earlier in their career these two men didn’t get along but by 2003 they were very close friends off camera and absolutely loved working together. 

Austin goes for a Stunner immediately but The Rock bails out of the ring. Stone Cold gives him no time and chases, attacking him on the entrance ramp and brawling him back to ringside. Stone Cold sends Rocky up and over what's left of the announce desks and beats him from pillar to post all around the ring - an entertaining brawl, exactly what these two men excel at. 

Back in the ring, Austin beats on The Rock but when he stops to argue with referee Earl Hebner, The Rock puts him down with a chop block and starts to focus on the Rattlesnake’s left leg. 

He grinds Austin down with a sharpshooter and then takes the time to go and put on Stone Cold’s waistcoat. The showboating costs him as the Rattlesnake fights back and they both go down from a hard double clothesline. 

The Thez press and big rebound elbow gets Austin a two count and he stomps away at The Rock in the corner. 

Stone Cold hits a Rock Bottom and The Rock kicks out, but Stone Cold stalks him for a Stunner which will end it. The Rock blocks it and hits a Stunner of his own but takes a long time to cover and Stone Cold kicks out. 

The Rock gets too cocky, arguing with fans and taunting Austin and pays for it with a Stone Cold Stunner! The Rock barely kicks out at two and, taking Austin’s waistcoat off at last, gets serious using a low blow. His People’s Elbow attempt is blocked but Austin puts down Austin with a spinebuster and hits it on the second attempt. Stone Cold kicks out! The final moments of this match - this final stretch of story telling - is some of my favourite in wrestling history as Austin, physically broken down and unable to fight back, keeps fighting to the last. A Rock Bottom puts Austin down but he kicks out, refusing to die. The Rock looks confused and angry and stalks Austin, giving him a second Rock Bottom.

Stone Cold tried his best to fight back but it wasn’t enough. He kicks out again! Two Rock Bottoms wasn’t enough. The Rock looks serious and focused, determined and pulling Stone Cold to his feet for a third, thunderous Rock Bottom. Stone Cold fighting, clawing to his feet, trying desperately to stay alive in this match, can’t do anything to stop it and finally a third Rock Bottom is enough. Stone Cold just didn’t have it in him to kick out one last time and just like that, The Rock FINALLY beat Stone Cold at Wrestlemania. 

At the conclusion of the match, The Rock sits in the ring and talks to Stone Cold, having to shove the referee more than once to get some privacy because, as I’ve said many times, Earl Hebner is the worst. What did The Rock say? Well Stone Cold shared it with us - he told him that he loves him, and Stone Cold said he loves The Rock too. He thanked Austin for everything because he knew in his heart that this was Austin’s final match even if he hadn’t told anyone that yet. The Rock leaves the ring and after hugging his wife, mother and grandmother in the crowd, leaves the Rattlesnake to take his moment and soak up the crowd reaction one last time. His music plays and the Texas Rattlesnake leaves, not playing up to the crowd and just relieved to have gotten through this match with a performance that didn’t embarrass him. It was a great match and a great moment but MY GOD, Earl Hebner refuses to leave Austin’s side and makes sure he’s in every single camera frame. Go AWAY Earl. 

I started doing this website because of my love of the Attitude era and that love of the Attitude era is down to Stone Cold Steve Austin. It’s not an over simplification for me to give him 100% of the credit for the fact that I still watch WWE to this day - the Texas Rattlesnake was and always will be “my man”. His legacy is that he saved the company, taking them from losing money in 1997 to making millions and even billions from 1998 onwards. A pop culture phenomenon the likes of which only Hulk Hogan himself can be compared. Even 20+ years later he remains on the top 10 list of WWE merch sellers every single month because everyone loves an Austin 3:16 t-shirt. The end of his career is quite sad really, with all the personal issues and demons plaguing him and the breakdown of his body finally catching up to him, but I am happy he got to go out in a great match against one of his closest friends and favourite opponents. 

From one sad footnote to another, I mentioned during the Preview that Kurt Angle was in a bad way - he desperately needed neck surgery, suffering from pain, numbness and other terrifyingly serious side effects of working through the pain for a long time. He really needed the same surgery that Austin, Lita, Benoit, Rhyno and Edge all had, which would mean being out for a full year or more but, Kurt Angle being Kurt Angle and him not wanting to leave the company without a major star at a time of struggling ratings and popularity, he had experimental surgery which meant he only had to miss a few months, back in the ring by July. It seemed like a miracle but really, the surgery didn’t take and Kurt spent the rest of his career in pain and struggling with pain killer addiction to get through the struggles. He left the WWE in 2006 because the company was worried he was going to die and he refused to go to rehab so they were forced to fire him. It should have been a wakeup call but instead he continued to wrestle and pop pills until finally getting clean after his retirement. One can’t help but wonder how Kurt’s career might have been different if he’d just taken the 12 months off and had the proper surgery. Heading into this match, there was genuine fear that Kurt could make his neck worse and end up paralysed but, ever the trooper, he insisted on wrestling Brock Lesnar anyway. 

WWE Championship

Kurt Angle © vs. Brock Lesnar

If Angle is disqualified, counted out or if anyone interferes on his behalf, he will lose the WWE Championship

The first ever match between two of the greatest athletes in WWE history. In truth, as impressive as Lesnar’s resume was and is, he was never considered a super-worker the way Kurt Angle always was. Regardless, there is a lot of excitement heading into this match.

Brock Lesnar main eventing Wrestlemania in his first ever appearance remains incredible to this day. He left the company between 2004 and 2012 which puts a bit of a dark mark on this first stretch of his career as all of this investment wasn’t really paid back, but his rookie year is certainly more of the better parts of his by now legendary career.

Michael Cole has lost his voice as this match begins, clearly having screamed himself hoarse during the other big matches tonight. Just like Triple H earlier, the Champion enters first for this match. Normally I don’t like that but given that they’ve done it in both World title matches tonight makes me think it’s intentional. 

The two start out with fast, intense grappling exchanges showing off their wrestling skills. Neither man comes out on top of that but Lesnar comes off worse as he’s selling his taped ribs. Kurt catches Brock with an elbow in the head as they continue to mat wrestle and is the first to land a suplex with a big German. Brock retaliates with an overhead gorilla slam and it continues to slowly ramp up in intensity. Kurt German suplexes Brock into the turnbuckle and he lands high and tight. It looked safe but Brock curls up and heavily sells his ribs which is where Angle puts his focus and assaults with elbows and kicks.

Kurt keeps things on the mat with a long, slow sleeper hold and hammers Lesnar’s ribs over and over. 

Brock finally comes back with a pair of overhead belly to belly suplexes but Kurt kicks out and fights back with german suplexes. Brock kicks out. 

Kurt takes Lesnar down into the ankle lock and when Brock gets to the ropes, Kurt pulls him back and adjusts into a single leg boston crab, sitting down on the ribs of the challenger. He makes it to the ropes again.

Kurt charges and Brock backdrops him up and over the top rope to create some distance and catch his breath. Lesnar tries to keep the pressure up but Angle turns him inside out with a German suplex where Brock goes up and over and lands on his face. That leads to an Angle slam but Brock kicks out, drawing some boos from the Kurt Angle fans in the crowd. 

Kurt goes for a second but Brock counters into a roll up, and then catches a charging Kurt with an F5! Angle kicks out, the first man to do so I believe. 

Brock goes for another F5 but Kurt picks his leg and takes him down into an ankle lock, anchoring himself with the leg grapevine so that Brock can’t go anywhere. He’s too strong and powers himself to the ropes anyway, getting more boos. It seems like the company might be pushing Brock a little too hard and the fans are starting to reject him. That always happens (Diesel, Roman Reigns, John Cena etc). 

Kurt goes to the Angle slam but that’s countered into a second F5. Brock likely has the match won but he doesn’t go for the pin and instead decides to go to the top rope and do something he’d done many times in training and prior to showing up the night after Wrestlemania last year - a shooting star press. It’s an amazing sight to see such a large man do that move but 20 minutes into this match, sweaty and exhausted and with Angle too far away, Brock misses and lands on his head. Kurt recovers quickly and pins Lesnar, who kicks out but Lesnar has knocked himself goofy with a bad concussion. He recovers enough to hit a third F5 and that is enough to give him the victory and his second WWE Championship.

The finish of this match is infamous for all the wrong reasons as Brock knocked himself out so badly he’s unable to even celebrate winning the title and as the camera focuses in on his face, even to the untrained observer he looks a million miles away and in desperate need of medical attention. Kurt Angle just looks happy to have survived the match. 

The two shake hands and hug as Wrestlemania XIX ends, the torch passed to Brock Lesnar. This also set up Kurt Angle to return as a babyface and befriend Lesnar later in the year after his neck surgery and rehab. 

And so ends my journey through the brand split era and the humble beginnings of the Ruthless Aggression era. It’s been fun but with the in-ring retirement of Stone Cold, the imminent departure of The Rock and Triple H’s reign of terror ruining Raw until about 2005, I’m happy to draw a line there and move on to a different period in wrestling history. Hopefully you’ll join me there, or you might have already read it all by the time you get to this as I’ll be posting the years in chronological order! Thanks so much for reading along with me, anyone who did.