WWF

The Mania of March- The Spotlight On Wrestlemania 3

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wrestlemania 3:

This was the first Wrestlemania I was alive for but I’ll admit that I never saw the full show until I rented the tape from a wrestling store here in Queens in the late 90s. That said, I probably have seen Hogan and Andre as well as Steamboat and Savage so many times I can’t even remember.  These two matches are the perfect example of how two matches can be so different but both still be so memorable in entirely different ways.  I feel like depending on the type of fan that you are, you either remember Wrestlemania 3 for Savage-Steamboat or Hogan-Andre.  If you’re more into the classic moments, it’s Hogan and Andre, whereas if you’re more into the classic matches, then its Steamboat-Savage.  There are so many of today’s wrestlers from Chris Jericho to the Hardys that have credited that Savage and Steamboat match as being an inspiration.

Aside from those two great matches, Wrestlemania 3 cannot be mentioned without talking about the 93,000 + plus fans that were in attendance.  I remember specifically that if you watched the home video they showed the fans as they were running to the arena or filing in after a long tailgate, which sadly isn’t on the network).   It really made Wrestlemania feel like a massive event.  Then of course when they brought you into the arena you were immediately him with that great screenshot of the crowd that just looked incredible.  I can’t imagine how amazing it must have been to be in that arena.  When I went to WrestleMania back in 2011 in Atlanta, I remember sitting way up in the nosebleeds and looking out going, “wow it’s amazing to see a wrestling show in such a large venue.  Well there were at least 20,000 more fans live for WrestleMania 3 and with the show taking places in the middle of the day, you could probably look out and see everyone, it had to be incredible.

From here I loved how the show started with Vince McMahon in the middle of the ring, welcoming the crowd to WrestleMania 3.  If you remember the risk that Vince took with the first WrestleMania, just two years earlier, it was nice to see him being able to soak in the massive success that the event had become.  I always thought it would be cool for Vince to kick off every show like but obviously that would have been hard to do as he became the villainous Mr. McMahon.  I remember that at some point a few years back WWE put out a history of WrestleMania DVD and a pop u video like version of WrestleMania 3.  Hearing Vince on those sets get choked up when talking about how he was thinking about his dad when he was welcoming the crowd to WrestleMania and how he knew his dad would be proud   This makes it mean that much more and is definitely something I can relate to.

Lastly, I also really get nostalgic for the motorized carts that brought the superstars to the ring because the aisle way at the Silverdome was so massive.   This just made the superstars look larger than life.  I also love the idea of Greg Valentine leaving Brutus Beefcake off the cart while the announcers ponder how he would get to the back, was walking not an option?  In any event,  I wish they would bring those carts back for like an old school Raw some time.

Well that’s going to do it for me but be sure to come on back tomorrow where we will take a look at WrestleMania 4!

All Photo Credit: WWE

The Mania of March- The Spotlight On Wrestlemania 1

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well it’s that time of the year again isn’t it. It’s that time after the superbowl and just a few months away from baseball season. For some sports fans, they consider this the lull of the sports year but for us wrestling fans we consider this the pinnacle of sports entertainment. That is because from the end of January until the beginning of April, the WWE takes us on the road to Wrestlemania. Hello everyone and thank you for joining me on this journey through the Mania of March. Get set for 31 days and 31 Wrestlemanias through the perspective of a lifelong fan. Every day I will present another Wrestlemania going over some of the biggest moments and the biggest matches that you can follow along with if you’re watching an old coliseum video or going back through the archives of the WWE Network. Even more than that I’m going to tie in personal stories & reflections about wrestling that happened for me as a fan each year. I’ll include pictures (and some videos) of some autograph signings and events I went to as well as memories of what it was like being a fan back during that period of time. This should be a really be a fun ordeal (Especially once we get to the Wrestlemanias that I was alive for) and I would love for it to be interactive. You can always join us on twitter @Daily_Spotlight or join me personally @TommyOnTheSpot. You can also reach us by email at thedailyspotlight2@gmail.com or leave a comment in the comment section below as I’d love to hear some of your feedback as we go through the month of March here.

It’s probably important that we start with the beginning of when I became a wrestling fan. Few people probably know the exact moment that they became a fan of something but I do here. See when I was born, my mother would go to work on the weekends, at least after maternity leave, and so my father watched me. Before the days of Raw & Smackdown, wrestling was on TV on the weekends, usually in the mornings. My dad was a big fan at the time and so while I was in my carriage I’d sit next to my dad as he watched six hours of wrestling every weekend. I really believe that at this time, I was destined to be a big fan. I’ve been a fan my entire life and I’m 29 now. Amongst wrestling fans these days, the lapsed fan podcast has become a big hit (hell I’ve basically stolen this idea from them but that’s a great show I’ve talked about many times so hopefully they won’t mind), well I can say that for better or worse I have never been lapsed. I have followed the WWE from those days with my father in that carriage thru today. Any time I have some down time at work or in my personal life I always like to mention that I’m a big wrestling fan. On the first day of school every year, I would wear my favorite WWF T Shirt as this was my way of making friends. Today I’m a coordinator for human resources and spend my time editing resumes for people all of the time. This didn’t stop me from proudly displaying my volunteer work at Wrestlemania 29 on my resume for every future employer to see. I’ve always been a big defender of all things wrestling. It’s always irked me to hear people scoff and say that wrestling is fake or question why anyone would watch it. For me I’m as passionate about wrestling, if not moreso, than I am about professional sports.

As for Wrestlemania, as I go through each of the different shows, you’ll see this changes but when I first started watching Wrestlemania, I didn’t realize it was such a big deal. This was because, as a kid, I loved gimmick matches. Thus, I’d go back and rewatch the Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble over and over and rarely would Wrestlemania until I got older. To me the Rumble was the biggest show of the year followed by the Series, Mania and Summerslam. Don’t worry though, sooner than later I was able to figure out what the true grand daddy of them all truly was… Wrestlemania! These days, my girlfriend and I attend every wrestlemania since we’ve been together (since the middle of 2012). We’ve been able to turn Wrestlemania into one of our annual vacations, for my girlfriend’s birthday no less. Thus, the further along we go through these wrestlemanias, they in many ways change as I have changed in my 29 years of life. I’ll go from reminiscing a lot about my family and in particular my father, who tragically passed away just a few months ago. We’ll go from the likes of attending fan fest with my dad during Wrestlemania 10 weekend to what it was like to be there the night Brock Lesnar ended the Undertaker’s streak and everything in between. Without any further ado let’s start at the top, with the very first Wrestlemania.


Wrestlemania 1: 

Photo Credit: USA Today

I wasn’t born yet for the first two manias. But I think I could sum my feelings of that first Wrestlemania by recalling a conversation I had with my girlfriends dad last week. There was a commercial that aired in the middle of the Knicks game (why I still support that terrible team I couldnt tell you) in which the MSG network was promoting a documentary they were airing on the original Wrestlemania. He said “The first Wrestlemania was the best, you had everyone on that show from Cyndi Lauper to Mr T to the Rockettes, even Muhammad Ali! That’s when wrestling was at its best!”. Now if you’d notice there, my girlfriend’s father didn’t mention one wrestler in that bunch and I can’t say I blame him. Other than Hull Hogan, on that first mania it was really more about the celebrities. The matches weren’t given too much time and for the most part don’t really hold up today. I mean on the first few matches alone they contained the likes of Special Delivery Jones, David Sammartino and the Executioner, not exactly first ballad WWE Hall of Famers. That being said, if you do go back and watch the celebrity involvement from the first Wrestlemania, whether it be Liberace dancing with the Rockettes, Pat Patterson doing everything he could to hold back Muhammad Ali or Mr. T teaming with Hulk Hogan, these are moments that stand the test of time and can be looked at fondly today.

Of course when looking at the first Wrestlemania you would be remised to mention the major financial risk that Vince McMahon took with Wrestlemania. This was really the first Wrestling event that was being pushed as a live pay per view event broadcast live through closed circuit telvision. Thus, the production for such an event was very expensive as was having so many A List celebrities as a part of the show. But through unbelievable promotion such as an appearance on Saturday Night Live for Hulk Hogan & Mr. T as well the rock and wrestling partnership with MTV, Wrestlemania was a smashing success. Not only did Wrestlemania sell out Madison Square Garden but it also raised over 1 million dollars on closed circuit television. If you’re unfamiliar with closed circuit, by the way,I really like the idea that the first Wrestlemania was mostly seen primarily through closed circuit, this was when fans would gather in arenas or theaters to watch Wrestlemania together because it was before the days of pay per view. I have always thought this would still work today. I think it would be really cool to go down to the Garden to watch Wrestlemania live on the big screens with a bunch of screaming WWE fans or even in the local AMC movie theater.

The One Match You Should See:

As far matches go with the first Wrestlemania, if you’re looking for that Shawn Michaels- Undertaker Wrestlemania 25 level match, you’re just not going to find it here. That said, the main event between Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff was a lot of fun with all of the celebrity involvement as well as Jimmy Snuka and Cowboy Bob Orton. I also really enjoyed the Andre The giant/ Big John Studd match if for nothing else than Andre The Giant getting the babyface spotlight. He’s just adored by that Garden crowd.

Well, that’s going to do it today but I’ll be back tomorrow as we’ll look at Wrestlemania 2!

Traveling Insanity, Conor McGregor & Wrestlemania March- The Daily Spotlight for 2/25

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello everyone and a very happy Thursday to each and every one of you.  It’s a very happy Thursday for me as I’m working just a few blocks away from where I live.  There is, to me, nothing better aside from being off altogether than working so close to home.  I get to sleep for, I kid you not, anywhere from an hour to 2 hours more when I work in Queens then when I work in Brooklyn.  Thus, I circle the day on my calendar and look forward to a day like today more than any other.  Even with heading to the city later this afternoon I can’t complain whatsoever.  Heading to the city is delightful for me as I hop on the LIRR and away I go, no I don’t care if the LIRR is relatively boushey.  Anyway, let’s get into the spotlight.

– One thing that has really zapped me throughout the week (and one of the reasons why I was in desperate need for a queens day) has been my lack of recovery from my vacation this week.  That’s right it is officially vacation season for me and this kicked off for me in a big way.  I was able to go visit some family on Valentines Day weekend (relax slappy I took the lovely lady out on Saturday and she came with me for the weekend) over in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  I then returned to work for two days in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Wednesday and then Wednesday night we took off for Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Now I’m the type of guy who hates taking off work for an illness or just to recover from a trip because my agency doesn’t offer specific sick time.  Thus, we spent Wednesday night to Monday night at 10:30 when we arrived back in New York.  My girlfriend was able to take off until Tuesday but I was up at 5AM, worked two jobs and then hit the gym until the gym closed at midnight.  At 22 years old I would have been just dandy but I was beat up and struggling through all of Wednesday.  I was running on straight coffee just to get through the day and crashed hard a little after midnight last night (I rarely hit the hey before 2).  Thus, it was really good to get a few extra z’s last night.  One great thing about going away by the way was how I was able to pick up a lot of great video content for the site that you can expect to see in the coming weeks.

– I consider myself to be a pretty big baseball fan.  Aside from football and wrestling, baseball is my favorite sport and the only other sport in which I follow the league inside and out.  That said, I am not the same about baseball that I am about football in that when baseball ends, I’m good until about a month before baseball before I feel like I need to get fully invested.  I don’t care about when pitchers and catchers report and if I watch more than 1 spring training game, it’s probably more than usual.  The 175 games that emcompass the baseball season are good enough for me.  This isn’t to say that I’m not invested, I’m a nats fan and one of the reasons I subscribe to Sirius XM is to make sure I can listen to all of the games while in the car and I purchase the mlb package so I can watch all of the Nats games (and I love a good west coast game that starts at 10:35PM our time).  That said, it just isn’t baseball for me until football is long and gone. With football now gone, however, it is in fact time to get into baseball.  I’ve been going through all of the different rosters and have to be honest, it could be a very tough year coming up for my Nats.  I’m not sold on any other team in our division but the middle of our infield is really weak defensively and while I’m happy we went out and got Ben Revere (and more to the point dropped Drew Storen and actually got a return!), I can’t believe that the Nationals did very little to improve our rotation.  While, Bronson Arroyo is a gamer and a winner, he’s in his late thirties now and coming off Tommy John surgery.  That means we’re depending on Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark and Joe Ross which scares me.  Maybe instead of trying to stick it to the New York Mets (and more or less failing) this offseason, we should have been worrying about improving our rotation.  Could be a long season, hope I’m wrong.

– I’m pretty bummed that Rafael Dos Anjos got hurt and won’t be facing Conor Mcgregor on March 5th, but honestly I feel like Nate Diaz is a great replacement.  The press conference yesterday was a lot of fun and I think that you have the two perfect guys to prepare for a fight like this on such short notice.  Conor is an absolute must see attraction whenever he fights but it will be interesting to see if Diaz and Mcgregor will be the main event now since it won’t be a title fight and Tate-Holm will be.  Even though everyone assumes this will be a sure fire win for McGregor, I wouldn’t be too shocked to see Diaz put up a really good fight.  Diaz is a gritty fighter who has a big time reach advantage on McGregor and Mcgregor is going up in weight class so much and fighting at 170 so I wouldn’t put the house on Conor in this one.

– Last piece of business to take care of.  As many of you know WrestleMania is under six weeks away.  In the past I’ve been reminiscing on different Survivor Series events and Royal Rumble events of years past.  Well in the month of March, I’m going to take things to the next level and bring you a WrestleMania a day.   I’ll break down a different WrestleMania from my perspective as a fan.  It works out perfectly with 31 days of March and 31 Wrestlemanias.  I’ll break them down each event from my experiences (the biggest moments, the best matches) as a fan and then I’ll parallel each WrestleMania with what I remember most from each year of being a fan of WWE.  I’ll include everything from pictures to videos, if I have them, to everything in between.  I want to really intertwine this idea with the youtube channel and get that off the ground as well.  This will all lead you right up ro WrestleMania weekend in which I will be on hand live to get you the most comprehensive coverage that someone who attends the event with his girlfriend, for her birthday, can possibly give you.  It’s bound to be a lot of fun and I’m excited for it.

The Spotlight On The History Of The Royal Rumble-2008

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Whereas Royal Rumble 2000 ended with the disappoint of not being able to attend the event live, I was hoping for a different outcome come 2008 when the Royal Rumble returned to Madison Square Garden in 2008. In the years leading up to 2008 I had became pretty good friends with my biggest wrestling friend growing up who i had drifted apart from during my early college years. In 2006, I noticed that he and his girlfriend had become really big wrestling fans and were attending conventions and shows almost weekly. We ended up going to a smackdown taping together in 2006 and I remember we had an absolute blast booing Tatanka during his ill fated return. We ended up becoming good friends again from this moment and literally started attending local wrestling shows regularly. Whether it was Ring of honor, Dragon Gate USA, WWE, TNA or even local independents on the tip of New Jersey to see Hardcore Holly, we were finding ways and reasons to attend wrestling events live. I had to give my buddy credit too because we often had good seats to WWE events which weren’t always easy to get as a three pack. When Royal Rumble 2008 rolled around, it seemed we had really met our match as tickets for that event sold out instantly.
Something that was really cool back then, was that the WWE was doing a tour of their Axxess fan festival events in the surrounding areas of the live events leading up to Wrestlemania. In New York that year there were a series of Axxess festivals running out of South Street Seaport. The events were hosted by HillBilly Jim and had appearances by WWE superstars as well as different types of contests, games and WWE memorabilia. My friends weren’t working at the time and so they attended every Axxess event prior to the Rumble that weekend as these festivals were also free. I went to work on Thursday and Friday that week and was unbelievably jealous as my friend texted me photos with Matt Striker and the like. I attended Axxess with them on Royal Rumble Sunday. My buddy’s girlfriend and I had pretty much accepted that we were not going to be attending the Rumble as the cheapest seats on the secondary market were $500 each. My buddy on the other hand was hell bent on going to the show and wouldn’t accept no for an answer.

Also at Axxess that day Ric Flair was signing autographs from 12-2 which was huge not only because it was Ric Flair but this was during the last leg of Flairs active wrestling career for WWE. Unfortunately with the line so long for Ric ( people were lined up outside since 6am) we didn’t make it anywhere close to see the Nature Boy. Thus, at 2pm, while we were on the line,Ric was replaced with The Highlanders. Though this could be viewed as about as bit of a downgrade, as you could imagine, the highlanders were some of the nicest superstars I could remember. They asked us if we were ready for the Rumble that night and if we were going. I said “I’m afraid not, we can’t get any tickets”. I remember Rory specifically encouraging us and saying don’t give up you can make it and telling us to go to the venue and sometimes tickets were released prior to the show.

Before we got to that point, there was a wrestler impression contest where five people were picked from the crowd to do impressions and the winner got two tickets to the Rumble while second place got the new Steve Austin DVD. (This reminded me of a similar contest that the WWF did for Wrestlemania 13 but that’s a story for my Mania retrospectives) In any event I was chosen to participate in the contest and after three people were awful, I got up and did my very best Jim Ross. The crowd loved it and ate it up. My friends were going bananas mouthing ” Holy Shit you’re going to win”! Then the final contestant went up and did a picture perfect Joey Styles that he couldn’t even finish his impression without people going absolutely nuts for him. He won the contest and I got the Austin DVD for my troubles.

Upon the completion of Axxess, in which HillBilly Jim refused to take a photo with me and only took one with my buddy’s girlfriend. It was off to the races as we raced to Madison Square Garden to hope for the best in getting tickets for the Rumble.
It was absolute torture waiting on that line, as we waited for about three hours with tickets getting released little by little up to the show. To add insult to circumstance, we all noticed one of our friends at the show passing us by who had stopped watching wwe years earlier. Finally tickets were released, for $156 a pop. My friends were excited but I knew I couldn’t pay for it. I had left my debit card at home and didn’t have enough cash.

Dejected, I made my way back to the train and called my parents to order the show. I waited on the train about five minutes feeling like I wasted the whole day and all I got was a highlanders autograph. Just then my phone rang and it was my friend, he explained that while he didn’t have the money to cover my ticket, his girlfriend did and couldn’t let me watch from home. I couldn’t believe it, it was truly one of the nicest things someone had done for me and so I ran off the train and all the way back to the arena. I was so excited I forgot to tell my family to cancel the event order on ppv. I was finally going to the Royal Rumble!

What a Rumble this was too, I remember the great Rumble commercial and poster that took place in a New York City subway. The big story other than the Rumble that night was Jeff Hardy challenging for the world title against Randy Orton. I loved the story going into this match as Jeff was finally getting a shot at the big title. Unfortunately, Jeff lost that night and I honestly thought he could have been given a run with the title. He was had a ton of momentum going into this match and I think a moment on this show at MSG would have been great for him. It sadly was not to be and to add insult, this was the night Mike Adamle called him “Jeff Harvey”.
As for the Rumble, this was probably my favorite Royal Rumble match. The talk before the match amongst my friends were we had no clue who was going to win the Rumble because John Cena was injured at the time. As for surprises that year, this Rumble had some of the best ones ever when you consider the MSG connection. You first had Mick Foley who grew up going to shows at the Garden. From there you had back to back surprise entrants as SuperFly Jimmy Snuka came out followed by Rowdy Roddy Piper who were on opposite sides of the first Wrestlemania which took place at MSG and then came time for Number 30.

The big rumor of the night was that the Big Show was returning after an 18 month absence. We were so prepared for Shows return that we were prepared to do the big chokeslam hand as we counted down with the countdown. When the clock struck zero it was huge pause and then a familiar rattle. It was John Cena! Now typically, the MSG crowd was pretty hard on Cena booing him time and time again during his run on top. Well, on this night it became clear that everyone forgot they were supposed to hate John. This was by far the biggest pop of the night and the biggest I’ve heard in my history of attending shows at MSG. The crowd went nuts as it was a huge return as Cena was supposed to be out of action another nine months. Cena went on to win the rumble to celebrations from the crowd that included grown men hugging each other. Such a great live experience.

After the show, we went to the area where the superstars were leaving and it was a who’s who of people we saw. Anyone from John McEnroe to Darryl Strawberry to Mean Street Posse’s Pete Gas to R Truth who didn’t re debut for WWE until later that year. Then as Ric Flair exited the building, a small child ran under the barricade right at the Nature Boy. Flair put his hand out to stop the youngster and said “control your child” while walking passed the kid no selling the kid entirely. The crowd began to boo Ric until he let out a signature “Whoo” and got a huge pop. Only in wrestling!

Well that’s gonna do it for now but next up I’ll be traveling live to Atlanta, Georgia for the Royal Rumble 2010.

The Spotlight On The History Of The Royal Rumble- 2000

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , ,

January of 2000 was a very interesting time for the WWF. We were now entering the last full year of the WCW and WWF was in firm control as the Attitude era was at it’s peak. That said, the WWF was also without it’s top star as Stone Cold Steve Austin was out due to an injury. Thus, WWE was left with a really fun group of main eventers who were all competing to become the next top guy and the result was one of the most successful years in WWE history. To me, this was also the best royal rumble card in the history of the WWE, maybe not the best Royal Rumble match itself but as far as the card goes this is as good as it gets to me.
However, before I break down my memories of the Royal Rumble 2000, I’ll give you a bit of a personal back story. I did not attend Royal Rumble 2000, despite it being right here in New York City. That being said, I was really close and just about every single friend I had who was interested in professional wrestling did attend the Royal Rumble that year. Here’s the story, so I was 13 years old and all I wanted to do was attend the Rumble that year. Of course, the Rumble was an instant sell-out and this was before the days of ebay or stubhub where literally no ticket is unattainable. Thus, I realized I didn’t have much choice and I’d be watching the Rumble at home with my family and hear all of the stories from my friends who witnessed the show live the next day. This was until, Sunday afternoon the weekend before the Rumble when my uncle came home with a surprise. My Uncle told me (13) , my sister (10 years old) and my cousin, his son, (7) years old that there was a fax coming in for us. We answered the fax and it said “Hey guys I saw your Uncle Tony today and guess what you’re all going to the Royal Rumble!- your pal the Rock”. I figured the rock really wasn’t sending us a private fax but omg the party that commenced was unbelievable. For about five days I went through every single possible scenario about being there live. Would Edge bump into me while coming through the crowd? Would Jeff Hardy attempt a Swanton Bomb for our private suite into the ring? Would Stone Cold Steve Austin return in the rumble match? This was unbelievable, my first Royal Rumble live!

We spent that weekend getting excited for the rumble, watching Rumbles of years past and getting ready to count each royal rumble entrance down live in person! I also remember listening each night to WWF Radio. WWF Radio was something that only took place on occasion and that weekend WWF took over a station in New York each night leading up to the rumble. I remember it was basically superstar interviews hyping the matches and I also remember hearing the taz beats as the hosts wondered who he was and reminded us he would be debuting at the Rumble.

Then on Sunday morning, my Uncle showed us the tickets. Just like he said, we had a private suite live at Madison Square Garden to witness the WWF live…for Raw on February 28th! I felt my heart sink as everyone celebrated with glee because I knew my Uncle was mistaken, “The rock” hooked him up with tickets to Raw the following month and it turned out, we weren’t going to the rumble after all. Everyone ended up being pretty disappointed so my parents and uncle took us all to WWF New York (My first trip there) for lunch the day of the Rumble to make up for it. For those who don’t know, WWF New York was basically the WWF’s answer the the Hard Rock Café, it was a WWF themed restaurant filled with all things WWF! I’ll tell you this much for a 13 year old wrestling fan, this place was about as good as it got. Every TV had WWF programming on it, the store sold every piece of memorabilia you can think of, there was also a WWF museum set up and that day there was a private room for signings (only for people who had VIP tickets however). I couldn’t even tell you what I ordered that day or if I ate it because my family and I just continued to look around at everything (I’ll admit it, I’m still bummed the place didn’t work out). The only thing that was a let down for me that day was that it felt like every person there was also going to the rumble. Everyone had t shirts and signs, I even saw friends of mine attending the show asking me where my seats were. While it was tough to head home that night to watch the show, I was happy and thanked my family for making the best out of the situation.

As for the Rumble event itself that year? It was probably the greatest Royal Rumble event in history, at least in my opinion, this is the one show where I can go back and watch the entire show start to finish whereas in most other cases I just watch the rumble. On this show alone you had a great debut for Tazz, an unbelievably fun tag team tables match between the Hardys and Dudleys (I still love the visual of the Jeff Hardy Swanton Bomb off the entrance with the New York City taxi) a fun miss diva swimsuit competition with hot divas and Mae Young ripping off her top (c’mon it was good for a laugh!) , an amazing Triple H- Cactus Jack Street Fight for the world title that stands the test of time, and the Royal Rumble which featured surprises and everyone being featured pretty well with the Rock at his peak!

All in all just a really fun show and as you can see here a fun time to be a WWF fan. Sure, I was a little bummed that I’d have to wait another 8 years to attend my first Royal Rumble event live, but, at the end of the day I had a great experience. Oh, and that live Raw I attended on February 28th, 2000? That was the raw where Mae Young gave birth to a hand live, so who am I to complain when I was there live for such a great moment!
That does it for the Royal Rumble 2000, next up we’ll return to the Garden for the Royal Rumble 2008!