The show begins with the WWE Tag Team Champions, Edge and Christian, defending the gold against Road Dogg and X-Pac, who had re-formed as DegenerationX and were now heels. Edge and Christian were also heels, but because they were entertaining, they had more crowd support in this match. The right team gets the W after about 10 minutes in a middling match. This is around the time when the term "X-Pac heat" was beginning to come into fashion as X-Pac, despite being arguably the best and most consistent worker in DX, had also been so overexposed that nothing he did was interesting. Partnering up with Road Dogg didn't help matters as all as the D-o-double-g was a horrendous worker. Looking back, X-Pac needed to freshen up his act but it never happened. Not a terrible match or anything, just nothing work seeking out. (2.5/5)
The WWE Light Heavyweight Championship is on the line next as Dean Malenko defends against Scotty 2 Hotty. Scotty 2 Hotty's gimmick is one of my least favorite of all time, but I can't deny that he had sound fundamentals. Dean Malenko, meanwhile, is notorious for being an iceman in the ring who could never get his actual personality into his in-ring character. This match comes across as Hotty wanting to prove he could hang with a wrestler's wrestler like Malenko, but it just feels slightly "off" in the WWE setting where light heavyweight wrestling had never caught on and the Attitude Era had made actual wrestling matches something of a rarity. To their credit, Malenko and Hotty (god I hate that name) do get the crowd invested by the end and there are some terrific spots, including an insane finish that sees Malenko get the clean W with a DDT counter to a superplex. In the Observer, Meltzer gave this 4 stars and while I wouldn't go that far, it was still an above-average match that might've gone a hair too long for me. (3.5/5)
After two matches highlighting some of the WWE's best and freshest talents in Edge and Christian and Malenko, it was time for a piss break match pitting Big Bossman and Bull Buchanan against The APA. As JR notes on commentary, this match was not going to be your classic "wrestling contest" like what we saw in the previous bout but rather an all-out brawl. Unfortunately, it doesn't really deliver at that level. Buchanan was noticeably green and, like the opener, it is a bit odd to see two teams that are ostensibly heels working against each other and even more surprising that the crowd cares about it. This was the magic of the WWE from roughly 98' through 2001 as nearly everybody on the card was over beyond the level they had any right to be. Forgettable match but at least it doesn't run too long. (1.5/5)
Next up - a six-pack challenge for the WWE Hardcore Championship as Crash Holly defends against Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Tazz, Hardcore Holly, and Perry Saturn. The WWE had not yet mastered multi-man matches the way they would with the Money in the Bank Ladder match a few years later, but this is still good, hardcore fun that plays to the strengths of the Hardy brothers especially but also the rest of these dudes, many of whom were no stranger to weapon-based wrestling. A madcap match that is wrestled with the unique stipulation that the only way the match could end was if Crash Holly was pinned or did the pinning. Its an interesting twist on what is usually a match built around everyone scrambling to pin anyone they can and there are moments that capitalize on that unique element - the Hardys arguing over who is going to get the pin and the clever finishing sequence most noticeably. This match isn't any sort of masterpiece but it makes any and every of the 24/7 Championship matches/segments of current times look like the steaming piles of shit that they are. (3/5)
The Big Show had debuted in the WWE in 99' after being one of WCW's biggest stars from 95' on, but had become a comedy wrestler by this point, impersonating various other wrestling stars. On this show, Big Show does his most famous impersonation, coming out as "The Showster" to the tune of "Real American" and wearing all of his real-life buddy Hulk Hogan's gear. I'm guessing that Hogan didn't take any offense to Big Show's imitation, but that's probably because Hogan benefited from having his name chanted by 20,000+ fans more than Big Show benefited from getting the cheap pop. Big Show's opponent is Kurt Angle, a guy that Show would work with again and again over the next half-decade. Here, Angle is working as the pinballing heel for the most part, selling for his much larger opponent and not even attemping the Angle Slam (a spot that he would pull off in future years as Angle became a more "serious" wrestler). Despite Big Show's career being a literal joke at this point, the right man wins as Angle was so entertaining that it didn't matter if he took an L to a legit monster. This is not a good "match," but it is one of the more well-known moments in Big Show's early WWE run and the crowd was hella into it. A hard match to rate but, in terms of entertainment value, its no worse than average. (2.5/5)
The next bout and the storyline that brought it to pass is not one that has aged particularly well -The Dudley Boys vs. Test and Albert (with Trish Stratus). The build-up for this match was all about Bubba Ray's infatuation with Stratus and his creepy desire to "get wood" around her by putting her through a table. Bubba's bizarre fetish was played to the hilt with both JR and Jerry Lawler inserting every possible innuendo possible to make it clear to the audience that this was some pseudo (or not so pseudo?) sexual thing. The Dudleys were known for working stiff and Test and Albert could dish it out as well as they could take it, but in what would become a recurring theme with the Dudleys, their matches were built entirely around table spots so, after a few minutes of good action, that seems like all the fans want to see. In the end, Test and Albert get the W, but its really just a bit of a misdirect as Bubba ends up hitting a neckbreaker on Test and then doing what everyone wanted to see - powerbombing Trish Stratus through a table and going into an orgasmic trance. It had only been a few years since the Owen Hart tragedy but Vince had no qualms having his commentators go into super-serious mode on commentary to play up Trish Stratus being potentially paralyzed by the bump she took. It is a very respectable and nasty looking powerbomb so kudos to everyone involved, but again, there's just something cringe-inducing about this entire storyline when you watch it 20 years later, the kind of thing that if you had this on your tablet screen on the gym while you were on a treadmill, you might fast forward through so that the people nearby didn't see what you were watching. The match itself was fine but not necessarily my style of action. The post-match got over huge with the live crowd, but again, isn't my sort of thing and wasn't even my sort of thing at the time when I was 16. (2/5)
Essa Rios (with Lita) challenges Eddie Guerrero (with Chyna) for the European Championship next. Essa Rios is an interesting figure in WWE history to me because I totally forgot that he was around for as long as he was, debuting in 1997 and making it all the way to 2001 (though I'm guessing he wrestled less than a 30 televised matches in those 3-4 years). Like the Malenko/Hotty match, there's just something slightly weird about seeing a WCW-like cruiserweight match on a WWE show even if the work itself is strong throughout. Rios is the least over performer in this match and its no surprise Lita would end up teamed with the Hardys sooner rather than later (with Rios disappearing off TV not long after this match). Guerrero and Chyna are the star act, though, even if Guerrero hadn't completely found his footing in WWE either, wrestling in tuxedo pants and trying out a new finisher in an airplane spin/neckbreaker combo that looked cool but could never be used against anybody other than a cruiser like Rios. Another good, above-average match on a show that had a number of them. (3/5)
Chris Benoit defended his Intercontinental Championship against Chris Jericho in the next match. Jericho cut a pre-match promo all about taking out politicians that sounded like it was written word-for-word by Vince McMahon. Rewatching Chris Benoit is not always easy, not just because of how his life ended but because Benoit, for years and years prior to his death, represented technical perfection and now, in 2021, that reputation of excellence might hold up in a vacuum but his matches do often suffer from not fully engaging the audience or telling the emotional story that a guy like Daniel Bryan is able to do while arguably performing at an even higher level in terms of wrestling acumen. Hell, having now re-watched a ton of Bret Hart's best work, I'm not sure Benoit ever really topped the Hitman or if he is that far ahead of a guy like Christian, who has proven to be his generation's Arn Anderson in some ways. While some of Benoit's matches no longer click with me the way they once did, this one absolutely delivered. Hard-hitting with some unreal spots and exchanges - including a crazy dive from Benoit onto the floor - and a finish that was all about building to their next match rather than delivering a definitive ending on a show that already had quite a few of those. I'm not sure this gets to "must see" level, but its close and, even without a strong ending, accomplished what it needed to in making both guys come across tough as hell. (3.5/5)
Main event time - The Rock challenging Triple H for the WWE Championship. Over on ProWrestlingForums, a reviewer called this The Rock's version of the famous Austin vs. Foley match from Over the Edge 1998. Its a bold comparison as that match was famously overbooked but also, in some ways, the best overbooked match of all time as Austin was up against every potential obstacle and still walked away with the belt. Here, The Rock has to deal with not only trying to beat long-time rival Triple H, but also Shane McMahon as the referee, Vince McMahon and Stephanie at ringside, and the all-night-cliffhanger of whether or not Steve Austin would be showing up to help (or, as JR notes on commentary, potentially cost The Rock the title as Rock and Austin had their own history to play off of). The audience is a bit cold at the start, noticeably chanting "We Want Austin" in the opening moments. I wrote about this phenomenon when I reviewed the Royal Rumble in 2002; Austin, even after the heel turn at WrestleMania XVII and The Rock's ascension, was enormously popular and almost untouchable in terms of live reactions. The Rock and Triple H work hard to get the crowd into their work, but nobody forgets that Austin is supposed to be involved and that we won't see a real finish until he shows up, which takes this match down a peg to me. The best spot is when The Rock delivers an uncanny Rock Bottom on both Triple H and Shane on a table on the outside, but I also love the late cameo by Patterson and Brisco. The roof blows off when Austin does show up, chair in hand, and decimates everyone except The Rock. In a nice moment that only further establishes Austin as the biggest star in a ring full of stars, the Rattlesnake isn't around for the actual finish, which sees Linda McMahon show up with Earl Hebner in tow. Linda slaps the taste out of Stephanie's mouth to a huge cheer and The Rock wins the title in a crowd-pleasing moment, celebrating in the ring until Austin shows up and tosses him a beer, both babyfaces enjoying that they've one-upped the McMahon-Helmsley regime. I'm not sure is this as "must see" as the Over the Limit match, partially because it is essentially a retread of that very match, but its still highly entertaining stuff even if does not cross the threshold of being an all-time great match. (3.5/5)
Widely considered one of the best WWE pay-per-views of its era, Backlash 2000 is a mostly strong show that offers plenty of variety even if some of the matches - the opener and APA tag match particularly - that don't quite work. Big Show/Angle and the Hardcore Championship match are fun in completely different ways, Benoit/Jericho is hard-hitting, the European and Light Heavyweight Championship matches seem out of place in a WWE ring but they're undeniably solid matches, and the main event caps off the show with tremendous star power and a memorable finish. With a Kwang Score of 2.77-out-of-5, this show gets...
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
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