August 2000

HHH is waiting on Stephanie and confers with both X-Pac and Road Dogg about it. Angle arrives and cuts a promo furthering the feud with HHH. Angle kind of stumbles over himself a few times here but the highpoints are still there. HHH comes out and says what he will do to Kurt tonight will be criminal and more of a concussion if he doesn’t tell him where his wife is. Again, HHH is playing this role great as a disgruntled husband that is positioned as a face by default but still not exactly a face in practice. Angle hypothesizes that maybe Stephanie hasn’t contacted HHH because she is scared of him. HHH shoves Angle through the ropes and outside of the ring. We get a quick …

Rock conducts his usual clichéd but funny promo with Kevin Kelly. I was expecting nothing from the match but it was spirited and heated. This may be the best Kane has looked in an extended point. The feud with Taker feels personal even if it still doesn’t make a ton of sense. Kane gets some big moments in this match and has Rock reeling until Taker comes out. Even after a Taker chokeslam, Kane kicks out. Rock follows that up with the Rock Bottom to win another good Raw main event. Rock is making a case for top 25-30 workers worldwide for the year which on the surface may not sound that impressive but I am not sure he would have cracked the top 100 in 1999. *** (6)

Zandig calls Yamakawa a Elvis Pressley punk. BJW….. FUCKKKKKKKKK YOU. FUCK WINGER. Always eloquent when Zandig takes the mic. The garbage matches of all matches. 28 minutes long and using a variety of stuff. Some of it was interesting but it was way too long and I progressively lose hope that we are getting much interesting stuff from Zandig throughout the decade. The best spots here involved the teases to the big light tube board and the powerbomb onto the barbed wire that stuck to Yamakawa’s skin and Zandig’s hair. Yamakawa is not going to be the megastar of BJW and I say that as someone that likes him more than most it seems. **

Somehow I really like Rayo de Jalisco Jr and never tire of his feud with Caras. This had a lot of fun moments. Caras' reaction to Porky bumping and grinding was priceless. Alfonso Morales was interviewing Caras and Rayo when a fan got involved. I don't know what Caras said to him but I think it was something along the lines of: "these are the kind of fans Rayo has." Atlantis and Dante wrestled a bit too, which you can go for months without seeing in CMLL. Nice dives too. Just a fun package overall.

What a lame ass promo from O’Haire saying someone had lost his or her children. Stevie is pretty hilarious on commentary making fun of them. Konnan has a nice line about that the only suckers he sees is Jindrak and O’Haire. These two teams together are awesome with the Animals bumping like crazy. Juvy getting elevated from the floor to inside the ring looked awesome and Juvy/Rey flash offense was also well done. Just a bunch of fun overall and the Animals have went from insufferable to really cool overnight turning face. The Animals pick up the win evening the series here. Bring on more. **1/2

Interesting matchup on paper and where I thought they may mail it in, they did anything but. Opening is good mat work that continually progresses throughout the fall with tempers flaring a bit and both men opening up. Scorpio hits his finishing sequence so cleanly to the appreciation of the audience and that wins him the first fall. Next two falls lack the same oomph that the first one did and was more of a touring indie variety with Psicosis winning two straight. Both men put over each other at the end. I wish this would have just been a single fall as it went from impressing me to overall slotting in around what I expected. *** (6.2)

Tazz has another promo making fun of JR and Lawler. Jericho refutes the promo with an insulting promo at Tazz. Jericho has a pretty cool Y2J hockey jersey around this time. Jericho’s Tazz impersonation is pretty good. Jericho fires away and looks for the Walls within the first 20 seconds. I liked Lawler at least admitting on commentary he hasn’t been a big Jericho fan but he is happy he is shutting the bully up. On the outside, Tazz takes a shot at Lawler and Jerry responds. Jericho gets in a baseball slide as the crowd chants Jerry. Jericho gets a low blow and lionsault to pick up the quick victory. ¾*

Really good promo that keeps the angle developing. I have no issue whatsoever with the HHH/Angle stuff and kind of thought it would decline after SummerSlam. Angle talks about what happened Monday and Chyna comes out to refute. Angle has some video evidence of Chyna checking on HHH instead of Eddy. Chyna makes her way to the ring and Angle says he doesn’t want to put his hand on a woman like HHH. Angle says his hand was forced as he gives Chyna an Angle Slam. After that we get a series of backstage segments with HHH blowing a gasket when he arrives seeing Kurt in the dressing room with Stephanie. Stephanie slaps HHH for hugging and talking to Chyna. HHH then apologizes af…

E&C do have the Hardys beat quite a bit in the promo department even though them going to the little person well as an insult feels way overdone. Jackie is the tag partner here for E&C which feels really shoe horned in. Jacqueline does give a brutal sidewalk slam to Lita. The Hardys get a measure of revenge winning here in convincing fashion. Match was brief but used to keep Matt/Jeff in the tag title scene and to get a nice hometown pop. *

They are given an extra minute from their Raw match and again these two have good chemistry with Benoit attacking the leg and Taker looking better the past couple of weeks since he has returned. The finish here sets up Unforgiven with Kane running in causing the DQ. I liked how Benoit didn’t just accept that and he goes after Kane pissed that he lost his opportunity. Rock gets involved as well and we have our four participants going against each other. *1/2