2000 was significant for me in on a personal level. I was a freshmen in high school, I got my first job in the summer, and my grandmother died late in the year. It was a time of transition and change.
It was also the first year that I became something of a hardcore wrestling fan. I had enjoyed wrestling for a few years up to that point. My jumping in point was the WCW/nWo: World Tour video game for the Nintendo 64. I might be embarassed to say that this game introduced me to Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Rey Mysterio Jr. It also got me interested in wrestling on more than a channel surfing level. I missed most of the good stuff during the Monday Night Wars because I did not have cable. I would instead watch Shotgun Saturday Night on my local ABC affiliate. By the time I finally got cable, in January 2000, WCW was in shambles but the World Wrestling Federation was still red hot. I hadn't kept up with WWF happenings for a few months, so when I started watching again my initial thoughts included:
-Whoa, Triple H is the World champion? Didn't see that coming! That's not sarcasm either, I honestly didn't think he was World championship material. Keep in mind, he mainly stuck out in my mind as one of many DX members during that era. He was the guy who couldn't win a match without Chyna butting in. Furthermore, sweet little Stephanie McMahon had turned heel and was now ruling the show as HHH's wife! And speaking of Chyna...
-Chyna now had her own mini-me! She was on her own and had The Kat shadowing her. Even stranger, The Kat was the Women's Champion, but get this, she legitimately could not wrestle. I don't think I saw her wrestle a single match other than to drop the title to Jacquelyn. During this time, The Kat was the real-life girlfriend of Jerry "The King" Lawler and he would drool all over her (as he did with divas in general) on commentary. Nothing was creepier than Lawler, who was already in his later forties by this point, admiring "Ms. Kitty."
-Chris Jericho had jumped to the WWF and was on a roll. By April, he was my favorite wrestler in the company and I was eagerly hoping he'd get elevated to main event status. At the time, I thought he could rival The Rock in popularity, and there were times in 2000 when that actually was the case. Chris Jericho was also the wrestler who made me appreciate actual work-rate of matches. His series against Kurt Angle, and then Chris Benoit absolutely captivated me. This was a time when I thought Big Show and Rock lumbering through a punch-fest at No Way Out was exciting. Then at Backlash, Jericho and Benoit tore the house down and I realized that their high-speed, technically sound matches were far more enjoyable to me. I can probably thank Jericho and Benoit for being the hooks that kept me into wrestling longer than just a high school phase.
-This guy I had never heard of, some Olympic gold medal winner, you know him as Kurt Angle, had arrived on the scene. He was gloriously obnoxious. He carried around his gold medals and flaunted them at every chance. He lectured us on his moral superiority, and preached his "three I's" of "integrity, intelligence, and intensity." Angle made himself out to be a complete and utter boy scout of Ned Flanders proportions, but at the same time he was a cowardly heel and a sore loser. This is the Kurt Angle that I remember the most fondly as he was incredibly entertaining.
-Edge and Christian had broken off from Gangrel. They were building steam in a great series of matches against hot opponents like the Hardy Boys and the Dudley Boys. Gangrel had fallen off the radar, along with out Attitude Era staples like Val Venis, D'Lo Brown, and The Godfather. Venis would get a short-lived push later in the year with Trish Stratus as his valet, but would then get lost in the shuffle as a member of Right to Censor. D'Lo Brown and Godfather were cruising along as a makeshift tag team but Godfather would also head to RTC while Brown would wind up in a go-nowhere tag team with Chaz.
-Mick Foley made the transformation from Mankind into Cactus Jack to really elevate his WWF title feud against Triple H. Their Hell in a Cell match at No Way Out was heart-wrenching for me, as Foley was my favorite wrestler at the time. I could not believe when Foley was forced to retire after that match but it was also the first time that I really took Triple H seriously as a champion. I ate up the entire build to Wrestlemania 16 and really enjoyed the way the scheduled main event kept changing. After No Way Out, it was going to be Triple H vs. Big Show, to which The Rock accurately said would suck. The Rock got himself back in the match and later Linda McMahon would put the freshly retired Mick Foley into it as well. It might not have been a great Wrestlemania event, but I loved the build and the follow up heading into the Backlash pay-per-view.
-Shortly after the Royal Rumble, the Radicalz jumped ship from WCW. I'll never forget the excitement of Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko showing up in the front row. Shortly after, they attacked members of DX who had gotten into their faces. I loved the way that Raw and Smackdown always ended with a great cliff-hanger during this time. On Smackdown, the Radicalz all lost matches that had contracts on the line. I would then spend the entire weekend anticipating Raw because I didn't want them to leave. Then Raw would air and not only would the Radicalz get their contracts, but they would backstab Mick Foley in the process. Now I wanted to see them get their collective asses kicked. It was a great time to be a fan.
