Skip to main content

October Countdown: WWF No Mercy 2000

The SK Rant for WWF No Mercy 2000

(The PPV that inspired the game!) 

- Live from Albany, NY

- Your hosts are JR & The King

- Opening match, Dudley Tables Invitational: Too Cool v. Lo-Down.

I guess this is two teams at a time. Too Cool look like Public Enemy-cito coming to the ring with a table to dance music. Both teams do some basic brawling, and D-Lo accidentally frogsplashes a table to give Too Cool the win.

- Too Cool v. Raven & Tazz.

Too Cool jump Raven and put him on a table, but Tazz chokes Scotty out. Raven bulldogs Sexay. They try to suplex Sexay through a table on the floor, but Sexay flips over and tries his sunset flip to the floor…as his feet shatter the table in the process. Sure, don’t expose the business TOO much there, Brian. A suplex through the table finishes Too Cool shortly after.

- Tazz & Raven v. The Dudley Boyz.

Quick wazzup drop and they set up the tables. D-Von legdrops Tazz through one of them to end it fast.

- The Dudley Boyz v. Goodfather & Bull Buchanan.

What a final. Bull lariats the ref early on, and you might as well put a big sign broadcasting the finish in the ring. And indeed Buh Buh puts Bull through the table, but the ref is unconscious. What, the timekeeper couldn’t make a judgment call there? Goodfather moves Bull out of the way and the ref wakes up to see Buh Buh in the wreckage, giving the RTC the win. BUT WAIT! Another ref comes out to restart this very important match, and a 3D for Goodfather through the table finishes for real at 14:40. Wow, a DOUBLE Dusty finish in the opening match to protect the RTC! I feel like I’m truly watching something special here. ½* for the whole mess.

- Meanwhile, Rikishi spends some quality time with his sledgehammer. Does HHH know that his sledgehammer is cheating on him, too? Man, can it get any worse for the guy?  (Well, he could always tear a quad…) 

- Test & Albert & Trish Stratus v. Lita & The Acolytes.

No, wait, the APA is injured or something because T&A has launched a successful attack on them in the back, leaving Lita to fight by herself. A 3-on-1 beating results for a minute before The Hardy Boyz make the save. No match.  (What was THAT about?) 

- Meanwhile, Edge & Christian discuss their nuts with Lillian Garcia.

- Cage match: X-Pac v. Chris Jericho.

Jericho does a choice job of running down X-Pac’s stale act, so the Seanster responds by wearing NEW TIGHTS! It’s black and silver now instead of green, thank god. They fight on the floor to start, and X-Pac tosses him into the cage. He goes for the climb and gets dropkicked off. Jericho tosses him into the cage. Bulldog, and now he goes for the climb, and they fight by the door. X-Pac rams him into the cage a few times, but tries a charge and gets backdropped into the cage. He comes back with a broncobuster and climbs to the top, but Jericho powerbombs him off the top in an awesome spot. X-Pac crawls for the door again gets stopped. X-Pac grabs a chair from the floor and KO’s Jericho. He climbs to the top, but gets crotched. Jericho joins him on top of the cage and puts him in the Liontamer in an odd spot. X-Pac pushes off and sends Jericho crashing to the mat. X-Pac climbs out, but showboats by standing on the open door, which allows Jericho to dropkick the door and get the crotchshot of the year on X-Pac, who falls unprotected onto the door, and Jericho walks out for the win at 10:39. Match was okay, but cage matches are pretty passé these days. **1/2  (Should have been another star for Sean Waltman landing nut-first on the steel door.  The Vince McMahon rule generally applies for X-Pac matches, where the more times he gets kicked in the junk, the higher the rating.) 

- Mr. Gass & Chyna v. Val Venis & Steven Richards.

Gunn gets a kneedrop on Val and a cross-corner whip. Chyna does some damage, and Richards comes in and gets press-slammed by Gunn. Chyna beats him up, too. Good plan – have the crippled guy get bumped around by the clumsy girl. Gunn comes in and gets armbarred to death. The rest of the RTC makes their presence known to distract the ref while Eddy hits Chyna with the LOADED FLOWERS OF DOOM for the Val pin at 7:18. Whatever. Billy Gunn still sucks, not surprisingly. ¼*  (I think Right To Censor might have been one of the worst stables of all-time, right up there with Paul Jones’ Army.) 

- Meanwhile, HHH & Steph have a spat.

- Rikishi comes out, announces Austin is chicken, and wants Foley to declare him the winner. And of course, here comes Austin in his big truck…

- Rikishi v. Steve Austin.

Big brawl to start. Usual stuff, intensely done as they brawl into the crowd before a bell actually rings. They chairshot each other and Rikishi bleeds pretty good. Rikishi ends up in the back of the truck and Austin drives him into the back, dumps him out, and tries to run him over, only to be thwarted by a well-timed police car. Austin is arrested and dragged off. No match, I guess, which solves that burning question about how they’d get one man to job here: They’d didn’t.  (Hey hey!  Maybe that’s how they’ll weasel out of the Punk-Ryback match!  Have them brawl all over the fucking place and break stuff, but NEVER ENTER THE CAGE.) 

- European title: William Regal v. Naked Mideon.

Lame wrestling sequence to start, as Mideon teases nudity. Regal sends him into the post and works on the neck for a while. Mideon bails, and a massive boring chant breaks out when he returns. Mideon then gets ENTIRELY the wrong idea in his head for drawing heat, and rips off the tearaway pants to reveal that he’s only wearing his fanny pack tonight. FAR too many shots of his testicles are seen for my liking and/or mental health. GIVE THIS MAN SOME PANTS, FOR GOD’S SAKE! Regal finishes him with the neckbreaker at 6:09. ½*  (To clarify, Mideon wore flesh-colored tights under his pants, but still, YUCK.) 

- Earlier tonight on Heat, Kurt Angle conducts a Weird Al style interview with the Rock, cleverly splicing together bits of old interviews to make him “confess” to being behind the Austin rundown.

- WWF tag titles: The Hardy Boyz v. Los Conquistadors.

The Conquistadors run away for a bit. Hardyz double-team Uno, and that goes on for a while. Los Conquistadors comes back, but miss a double-plancha. Jeff plays Gump-in-peril. Uno slingshots Jeff into Dos by mistake, but they retain control. Uno misses a weird-looking top rope senton, and Jeff makes the hot tag to Matt. Matt’s a house of fire! Highspots follow in rapid succession outside the ring. Dos returns to the ring and takes a swanton bomb for two. Twist of Fate, but Matt chooses to go for the mask, and that proves to be his undoing. Another mask is beneath the first one, and Uno (Dos?) hits the Unprettier for the pin and the titles at 10:53. Dull match that picked up at the end. **1/2 Apparently the new champs will defend against Edge & Christian on Monday.  (The payoff for this was legitimately brilliant, by the way.  Whoever booked this thing deserves major props.) 

- For the benefit of Los Conquistadors’ fans, I now present the last match en Espanol, courtesy the Babelfish…

- títulos de la etiqueta de WWF: El Boyz robusto v. Los Conquistadors. El Conquistadors se ejecuta lejos para un dígito binario. El doble-equipo Uno de Hardyz, y ése continúa por un rato. Los Conquistadors se vuelve, pero falta un doble-plancha. Jeff juega Gump-en-peligro. Los slingshots Jeff de Uno en el DOS por error, pero ellos conservan control. Uno falta un senton superior extraño-weird-looking de la cuerda, y Jeff hace la etiqueta caliente a mate. Mate una casa del fuego! Highspots sigue en la sucesión rápida fuera del anillo. El DOS vuelve al anillo y toma una bomba del swanton para dos. La torcedura del sino, pero mate elige ir para la máscara, y de ése demuestra ser el su deshacer. Otra máscara está debajo primera, y de Uno (el DOS?) golpea el Unprettier para el contacto y los títulos en 10:53. Emparejamiento opaco que recogió en el extremo. ** el 1/2 que los nuevos champs defenderán al parecer contra el borde y el cristiano el lunes.

(And now, courtesy of Google Translator, a much better version…)

WWF Tag títulos: Los Hardy Boyz v Los conquistadores.

Los conquistadores escapar por un rato. Hardyz doble marca Uno, y que se prolonga durante un tiempo. Los conquistadores se vuelve, pero olvida una doble plancha. Jeff juega Gump en peligro. Uno hondas Jeff en Dos por error, pero conservan el control. Uno echa de menos un senton de aspecto extraño tercera cuerda, y Jeff hace el relevo a Matt. Matt es un castillo de fuego! Highspots siguen en rápida sucesión fuera del ring. Dos devuelve al anillo y lleva una bomba swanton para dos. Twist of Fate, pero Matt decide ir por la máscara, y que resulta ser su perdición. Otra máscara está por debajo de la primera, y Uno (Dos?) Disparo al Unprettier para el pasador y los títulos a las 10:53. Dull partido que recogió al final. ** 1/2 Al parecer, los nuevos campeones defenderán contra Edge & Christian en lunes. (2012 Scott dice: La recompensa de esto fue legítimamente brillante, por cierto Quien reservado este asunto merece apoyos importantes.).

- HHH v. Chris Benoit.

Big “HHH” chant from the crowd. HHH goes for the knee quickly and pounds on it, bigtime. Vicious stuff. PSYCHOLOGY~!, gotta love it. He even pulls out a Muta bridging deathlock. They head out and Benoit introduces him to the stairs. Back in, for some CANADIAN VIOLENCE! Single-arm DDT hurts HHH’s shoulder, and Benoit goes to work. He pulls out a hammerlock backdrop suplex, which is pretty insane. Northern Lights suplex gets two. Back outside, Benoit hotshots him onto the table. Snap suplex gets two. He tries the cross-armbreaker for a bit, then hits another hammerlock suplex and drives the diving headbutt into HHH’s shoulder. HHH comes back with a small package and an inverted suplex (called properly by LAWLER of all people!) . Slugfest, and HHH’s neckbreaker gets two. HHH superplex, but Benoit comes back with the rolling germans and a pair of bad-looking dragon suplexes for two. Benoit hits the crossface, but HHH powers out. Benoit beats him like a dog and slaps it on again, and HHH powers out again…and turns it into a DVD! (Death valley driver, not a digital video disc. Although speaking of which, it’s kind of a shame this one will never get a release anywhere.)  Whoa, nellie! Stephanie bounces out (Bras reek of heinosity!) and slaps Benoit, allowing HHH to try the Pedigree. Benoit powers out and goes to the crossface, but HHH powers out of that and goes to the Pedigree, but Benoit powers out of that and goes to the crossface, but HHH powers of THAT, hits a lowblow, and the Pedigree finishes at 18:55. A clean finish in a HHH match? Wow. ****1/4 for some AWESOME psychology and a hard-fought finish. (That finish was something else.)  Both guys’ hot streak continue. I dunno what they’re supposed to do with Benoit now, though.  (Not much once his neck gave out again.) 

- WWF title: The Rock v. Kurt Angle.

Slugfest, and Angle gets a chairshot on the floor. Back in for some choking. Rock hits a samoan drop and Angle bails. They fight to the back and Angle gets tossed through the backdrop. Angle whips him into the tech area and back to the ring we go. Rock goes punchy-kicky, and works on the knee. Dragon-screw into the Sharpshooter, but Steph distracts the ref so he can’t see the tapout. Angle hits a belly to belly off Rock’s chase of Stephanie (Run, Steph, run! Free them melons!) and gets a flying forearm for two. (On another superficial note, Steph’s implants really don’t suit her anymore, especially with HHH convincing her to live out his muscle fetish for him.)  We HIT THE CHINLOCK, and Rock comes back and dumps Angle for more brawling outside. The EVIAN SPEW OF DOOM cues the comeback, but Angle grabs the title belt as Steph distracts the ref. It’s a no-DQ match, just hit him! Angle KO’s Rock for two. Angle goes upstairs and gets crotched and superplexed for two. A sweet german suplex by Angle sets up the ARM-BREAKING MOONSAULT OF DEATH, which misses. Lucky for Rock. Rocky comes back with the Hurricane DDT for two. Belly to belly sets up the spinebuster, and Stephanie tries to interfere, but gets Rock Bottomed for her troubles. Angle sneaks off and HHH runs in to beat on him, then stops to Pedigree the Rock for hitting his woman. Kurt crawls back in and covers for two. Crowd thought that was it. Another DDT gets two for the Rock. Angle bails, and now Rikishi waddles in for some more interference. Angle lowblow, but Rock gets the Rock Bottom. Rikishi comes in, but avalanches Rocky by mistake, then superkicks him by mistake. Angle gives both guys the Olympic Slam, and we have a NEW WWF champion at 21:33! Nice to see someone at least get the title off a pinfall for once. **** Great drama and pacing, despite the interference.  (The rematch would of course be even better.) 

The Bottom Line:

Once again, the last two matches save the PPV, as with Fully Loaded. Most of the first part of the show was junk (most notably the Austin-Rikishi non-match that I’d feel ripped off about had I purchased the show on the promise of seeing it) and didn’t serve much of a purpose at all. Hopefully Benoit won’t get shunted back to the midcard, but I don’t see a spot for him in the main event tier at this point.  (Quite the opposite in fact.) 

Thumbs up, but it’s a close call.

Comments

  1. I really enjoyed Benoit/HHH, I wish some of their later matches (excluding the Triple Threats) would've had the same chemistry, but injuries suck. They had good matches, just not quite up to the level of NM2000.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I liked Right to Censor. Also, there are so many stables worse than RTC.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I guess this is two teams at a time."
    As opposed to one team at a time? Er, am I missing something here or was the expectation that one team would come out, mill around for a while and then someone would fall through a table bringing out the next ream?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pretty sure he was meaning that not all the teams were out there at the same time...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, you dealin' wit da X-Factor!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This was the first of several mini-match tag gauntlets where we had to endure a thousand(it seemed) one to four minute matches, where before, like Wrestlemania 2000, it would be one big battle with all tag teams at once.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The ironman match on RAW wasn't that bad, but HHH didn't have a lot of opponents you could say he always had great matches with. Even he and Shawn's matches would swing from great(Summerslam 2002, December RAW 2004) to god-awful(their Hell in the Cell) match.

    ReplyDelete
  8. They only existed as a bird-flip from Vince to the PTC, and never really accomplished anything but ruining two solid midcard comedy acts in Godfather and Val Venis, and somehow making Bull Buchanan even more irrelavent.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh man, that Angle "interview" with The Rock is one of my favourite segments of all the times...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0piyaanzrZo

    "You cruel sad man!"

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's kind of a pity I never really got the PPVs around this time (the friend who hosted everything had moved away, as had a few other friends), and thus I missed out on the entire era as far as PPV matches went. It's especially sad because this is when the workrate actually picked up from the standard "Main Event Arena Brawl" style.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Surely it was No Mercy '99 which inspired the game, which was only released a few weeks after this PPV?

    ReplyDelete
  12. "I got everything I ever wanted and I ain't gonna give it back..."

    ReplyDelete
  13. DO YOU SEE?!?!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nope. The game's roster has everybody from this show in it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I was pissed Angle got the belt instead of Benoit.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I enjoyed that Ironman match quite a bit at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Edge & Christian were just killing it in 2000.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Not exactly. I remember having to alter the Godfather to put him in RTC. So it wasn't super up to date. I don't even remember Steven Richards being in the game.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I believe the Raw match you're referring to between HHH and Shawn was the 12/29/2003 Raw.

    ReplyDelete
  20. You're right. Hmm, I thought it was after the Benoit-Orton-HHH summer of switches, but I guess it was before.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Pretty sure CitizenSnips was right. Don't doubt him.

    ReplyDelete
  22. It was fun. They should have put them in more comedy bits.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I too enjoyed Steph's big floppies at the time. Hated the implants.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Steven Richards is MOS DEF in the game as he replaces Big Show in the storyline mode and The Goodfather was Godfather's second costume.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Like Los Boricuas, The Truth Commision, X-Factor, the Alliance, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I felt Val was ruined when he cut his hair off and started with the whole white tights after he started teaming with Trish.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I fail to see the inspiration: if it did spawn No Mercy 64, then all the results you see here would've been randomly deleted by now.

    ReplyDelete
  28. "I know you hate X-Factor..."


    This always bugged me. Why would their theme song openly admit they sucked and people did not want to watch them wrestle?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hit C-Right when selecting Godfather, they preprogramed his alternate attire to be the Goodfather

    ReplyDelete
  30. Also the theme song for the show would have been "Dig diggety dig diggety dog... SOCKO!"

    ReplyDelete
  31. It was inspired by No Mercy 99 I think. The box art and everything came from the 99 year of that show.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I thought it was "I know you hate that fact but...".

    ReplyDelete
  33. What did everyone think of the ending to the Austin vs. Rikishi match?

    ReplyDelete
  34. Why are people arguing over which No Mercy inspired the game? Wasn't Scott just being facetious or funny? No one PPV inspired the game, per se. The just took the name of one of their PPVs and slapped it on the game.


    Oh, and by the way, No Mercy 98 inspired the game. It was the original granddaddy of them all.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Scott - this show was released on VHS only. I tracked it down on eBay and converted it to DVD during my "get every PPV I attended live on DVD" phase. The same VHS tape is still available too, for 12 bucks.


    http://www.ebay.com/itm/WWF-No-Mercy-2000-VHS-2000-WWE-Austin-Angle-Rock-Jericho-WCW-/230867969973?pt=VHS&hash=item35c0cda7b5

    ReplyDelete
  36. Nope. The game box art has Edge/Christian and The Hardyz on it in the '99 ladder match.


    The No Mercy game is basically up to date to Summerslam 2000 - as it didn't feature the re-tooled gimmicks that Rikishi and Billy Gunn were using by the time of NM 2000.

    ReplyDelete
  37. One of the reasons I love this era so much is because of all the active tag teams. I love tag team wrestling in general and, even when they rushed it with gauntlets like this, there was a lot to choose from. Imagine anytime, even nowadays when tag teams seem to be back in vogue, where they could do an entire tag team gauntlet plus two different matches involving tag teams? It's hard to imagine.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Personally I feel they should've tried pushing Val as a top heel while IN the RTC stable.
    I mean lets be honest. Val's IC Title run in 2000 drew bubkus, as far as heat goes. So he could only go up from there RIGHT?

    ReplyDelete
  39. No it wasn't, and don't call me Shirley.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Pre-injury HHH had a lot more chemistry and a sense of urgency in his matches. Some of the 2004 matches were good, but I wasn't as into them.

    ReplyDelete
  41. I never know what off-the-cuff comment I make is gonna set off the blog these days. For the record, I have no idea when the exact release date of the game was, I was just making a silly remark.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I think it was because Vince rarely pushes the acts he throws out to make fun of, or insult someone or something in real life. The Goon, Abe "Knuckleball" Shwartz, the scab referee who blew a match on RAW recently, all things Vince put out to make some vague point only he gets. I'm sure there are others I've missed, but I feel like Kelly Bundy on the Sports trivia show episode of Married with Children. My brain is so loaded with decades of wretling history and trivia, everytime a "fact" pops up on RAW, it pushes some other fact out of my head for space.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I wish it had been this show. I would have loved a Los Conquistadors story in the Tag team Tree. Especially since I hate that game now as much as I love it for only ever getting to 99% on the World Title mode, despite it looking like I had every possible line completed. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't this show since the follow up was the not quite as great but still good Wrestlemania 2000 game.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Wrestlemania 2000 came out before No Mercy, not after.

    ReplyDelete
  45. The sad thing is, if Tensai used that theme today he would actually get over.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Yeah, once they killed the "guaranteed to get the crowd popping" opening acts by putting them in RTC, I feel like the WWF should have stolen Norman Smiley away from WCW just for the hell of it. He definitely would have been a great fit as the "opening match to pop the crowd" guy.

    Essa Rios was a great fit for that role too considering that he got louder crowd pops than nearly every current WWE mid-carder can get today but for whatever reason they never used him well at all. On the plus side, he did have a really good match with a young Samoa Joe at least.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Rios got the Mero-ed out of any real push by having a valet who got the louder pops. When Lita started doing the moonsault to his opponents, and in some cases a better one than he did, his value plummeted. That and he was just a few years ahead of the curve, as had he come in during the Smackdown Cruiserwieght glory months, he may have been something more.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Oh, guess i bought them in reverse order. I didn't have a N64 until a few years after it came out and I was tired of being the only one not playing Goldeneye.

    ReplyDelete
  49. He did have that great cage match with Rikishi, though. Plus his music was awesome. Oh, and I assume you're the same Mar Solo I know from IGN and RBR fandom, right? Because I LOVE seeing names I recognize online. It's like running into an old friend, and not in the Ned... Ryerson! kind of way,

    ReplyDelete
  50. Yep, it's me!


    And I agree, Val did have awesome music at the time, as well as that great cage match.

    ReplyDelete
  51. It is in the actual song, but I thought they dubbed it over to say X-factor. Maybe not, I'm getting old.

    ReplyDelete
  52. It was fine for where it was on the card, and was good to get Austin back into the groove with a brawl rather than a full rasslin' match.

    ReplyDelete
  53. I was at this show, and the crowd during the title match was great... pretty much a baby face pop for Angle winning the title, which I don't think anyone expected that quickly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment