WrestleMania 2000: One Legendary Ladder Match Trapped Inside an Overbooked WrestleMania

This is functional television wrestling dressed up for WrestleMania. The Godfather's presentation gets a reaction, D'Lo supplies athletic movement, and Boss Man and Buchanan provide a sturdy heel base, but nothing develops beyond the most basic tag structure. On a smaller show it would be a perfectly harmless opener. On WrestleMania, it immediately establishes the night's problem: a lot of people are being placed on the card without a compelling reason for this particular match to exist.

The 15-minute, 24/7 title-change format is pure Attitude Era mayhem. It has energy, comedy and a few clever transitions, and Crash Holly's frantic attempt to survive gives the chaos a loose center. It also becomes exhausting quickly because the match is designed around constant interruptions, weapon shots and temporary champions rather than sustained wrestling. Hardcore Holly's final pin arrives amid confusion, which is thematically appropriate but not especially satisfying.

There is enough size and athleticism here to build a compact undercard match, but the teams are defined more by their gimmicks and managers than by any urgent rivalry. Test and Albert hit with purpose, Steve Blackman is reliably crisp, and Al Snow can make almost any segment strange, yet the match never finds a reason to matter. Seven minutes feels longer because the audience is waiting for the show to move toward something with stakes.

Here the show suddenly understands exactly what excess is for. The three teams already have distinct identities: the Dudleys weaponize tables, the Hardys treat gravity as a suggestion, and Edge & Christian find opportunistic ways to survive the wreckage. The match escalates instead of merely accumulating spots. Edge spearing Jeff Hardy from a ladder, Jeff's Swanton through a table and the final ladder-and-table arrangement all feel like chapters in the same argument. The danger is real, but so is the structure. This is the match that turns three excellent teams into a generation-defining rivalry.

This is barely a wrestling match and barely wants to be one. The stipulation is built around getting one woman out of the ring while Val Venis, Mae Young and The Fabulous Moolah create distractions. The presentation treats humiliation as the payoff, and time has not been kind to any of it. The segment is short, which is its strongest structural quality.

The talent imbalance between the seriousness of the wrestlers and the looseness of the concept is almost funny. Benoit, Malenko, Saturn and Guerrero can make ordinary transitions look sharp, while Too Cool and Chyna bring the crowd-friendly personality. The match never approaches the ceiling of its participants, but it is one of the undercard's easier watches because the action is brisk and Eddie Guerrero's chemistry with Chyna already hints at a much more interesting story waiting just beyond WrestleMania.

The rules are awkward — one fall for the Intercontinental Championship and a second for the European Championship — but the wrestlers are good enough to make the mechanism interesting. Benoit and Jericho win titles while Angle loses both championships without being pinned, which is clever protection even if it divides the match's dramatic focus. The pace is sharp, the exchanges are crisp, and the audience understands that these three are operating at a different technical speed from much of the card. It does not become the classic the names suggest, but it is comfortably the second-best wrestling match on the show.

Four minutes of broad character business works better than stretching the idea to twelve. Kane and Rikishi are over, X-Pac and Road Dogg know exactly how to feed them, and the match efficiently delivers the expected finish. Then Pete Rose appears and the segment becomes a WrestleMania callback machine. It is silly, but at least it is concise and understands that its purpose is entertainment rather than competitive suspense.

The match gets better as it removes people. Big Show exits quickly, Foley's elimination gives the middle portion some shape, and once the bout narrows to Triple H and The Rock the atmosphere finally resembles the WrestleMania main event the company should have booked from the start. Both men work with intensity and the crowd is ready for The Rock's victory. Then the McMahons take over. Vince's chair shots and betrayal produce a memorable historical result, but the finish deliberately denies the audience the emotional release it came to see. As wrestling it is solid; as WrestleMania closure it is frustratingly subordinate to next month's television.