Grilling JR - King of the Ring 2000 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

King of the Ring 2000

King of the Ring 2000 took place on June 25th, at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts. It drew 15,388 fans in the building, which was 14,464 paying $865,778. It did a 1.19 buy rate for around $6.12 million.

This is the 8th King of the Ring pay per view, and we're coming off of the Judgement Day pay per view, where Triple H regained the World Title by defeating the Rock in an ironman match, with Shawn Michaels as the ref. We also saw the return of The Undertaker, who interfered in the match

That led to a 6 man match here at the King of the Ring for the World Title, Triple H teaming with Vince & Shane McMahon to take on The Rock, Undertaker and Kane and if HHH, Vince or Shane was pinned, then HHH would lose the World Title

We're also going to see the traditional King of the Ring tournament. This tournament had the most ever wrestlers in it, 32 and there was never another King of the Ring after it that had more wrestlers in it

What was your thoughts on a tournament during a pay per view? Did you enjoy calling King of the Ring pay per views?

Let's get to some company news heading into King of the Ring

Torches stopped being posted for 2000 in May before the Judgement Day ppv

Meltzer reported - Todd Pettingill, on his New York radio show last week, said he would be returning to the WWF to host Livewire. Pettingill replaced the older Gene Okerlund as a WWF interviewer in the mid-90s to give the broadcasts what were considered a more youthful appearance, but eventually he drew a lot of 

resentment because he was a successful DJ outside of wrestling and was able to command a high salary during a time period when the company was losing money and it wasn't like now where they can afford to throw money around with no consequence 

Do you recall talks of bringing Todd back during this time?

What's your thoughts on him? Just like you, he came to the WWF in 1993 and stayed until 1997

Livewire was a WWF show that aired on the USA Network from 1996 to 2001

Meltzer reported - Daily Variety on 6/1 reported that Dwayne Johnson is in serious negotiations to star in two major films at a price of nearly $5 million per film.

The story reported that Johnson (The Rock) was negotiating to star in an untitled big budget sci-fi film for Joe Roth, to be directed by Glen Morgan and James Wong ("The Final Destination"). He is also in negotiations to play the Scorpion King in a movie as a prequel to "Mummy 2," where he'll play the same role. Johnson only has a limited amount of screen time in the latter movie, but apparently Universal Studios was so impressed with his performance that they wanted to build up the character and himself in a starring role for a film produced by the same team as "Mummy" of Jim Jacks, Sean Daniel and Stephen Sommers. Vince and Linda McMahon would also be involved in producing capacities in any movie starring Johnson. The movie for Roth is scheduled for distribution in the summer of 2001.

What a successful career in the movies would mean as far as his wrestling future is uncertain. Johnson, who just signed a new renegotiated contract with WWFE, will in the same ballpark doing either movie than he would in a full year of being the biggest star in pro wrestling (Johnson's is believed to earn approximately $4.5 million per year at this stage of the game although he'll probably top that figure for 2000 with the unexpectedly high buy rates of shows he's headlined and revenue from his book that topped the best sellers charts). 

There is no question that consistent losses of Johnson from the active WWF tour for significant periods of time will impact business, even though as a movie star, it could and probably would up his marketability within the wrestling world and make him stand out of the pack even more than he does already.

This was significant at the time, because as we mentioned earlier, Rock was in the main event at the King of the Ring challenging for the World Title

Meltzer reported - NCAA heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar of Minnesota has not signed, but there have been verbal agreements to many points of a deal. Lesnar was recruited by WWF, WCW and New Japan. If signed, it is believed Lesnar would start his career with Ohio Valley Wrestling. 

When Brock signed, that made him the 3rd NCAA Heavyweight Champion that was signed to WWF at the time. The other two were Kurt Angle & Sylvester Terkey

The next week, he reported - NCAA heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar signed on Thursday a developmental deal and will start with Ohio Valley Wrestling during the latter part of the summer. He's currently training with Brad Rheingans in Minnesota and had commitments to doing wrestling camps in the early summer 

Meltzer reported - The plan right now is for Paul Bearer to be repackaged and kept out of the Undertaker/Kane storyline, perhaps returning in an old-time manager role under his previous name of Percy Pringle or another name but taking a similar Pringle-like character 

Meltzer reported - Stuart Snyder was named President and Chief Operating Officer of WWFE on 6/7. Technically, Vince McMahon is the Chairman of the Board and Linda McMahon, who was President and COO, is now Chief Executive Officer. Snyder, who has recent experience heading a division at the USA Network as well as running the Ringling Brothers road tours, is being brought in to lighten the load on Linda McMahon as it regards running the day-to-day marketing and public relations as well as the business end. Linda McMahon will be spending more time working as the company liaison to the Wall Street world and working as it pertains to stockholder relations. Snyder's role will be running the day-to-day business decisions and report directly to Vince and Linda 

Meltzer reported - Jim Ross sent all the wrestlers a memo saying they can't do anymore media appearances or interviews without office approval. There is the feeling from some in the company that they feel doing media work constitutes competition for their own web site. There had been times in the past where the WWF was far more controlling of their talent when it came to media appearances than they are now 

Curt Hennig's WCW contract expired around this time. He was 42 at the time. Do you recall if there was consideration into bringing him in? While he wouldn't return in 2000, he would return to WWF in 2002

Meltzer reported - Multi Channel News wrote about Kid Rock getting the f-word past the censors a few weeks back on Raw. It was funny because Jayson Bernstein, the WWF spokesperson, claimed that the WWF didn't get one angry phone call from parents (you know what cracks me up on those ones is nine times out of ten when they make statements about never getting even one angry call or letter, I've gotten any letters as a cc that was sent to them) and that they edited the replay of the show so the word didn't get through on the West Coast. Of course, that wasn't true either.

Any memories/fallout from Kid Rock's appearance on Raw?

Meltzer reported - The trial to determine the television landscape of American wrestling continued this past week, with most of the news reports seemingly favoring the WWF and Viacom.

With the trial just about complete and closing arguments set for just after press time, Judge William Chandler late in the week suggested that Viacom, WWF and the USA Network come to a settlement because one side probably wouldn't like his ultimate decision.

The basic issue of the case, which somewhat irrelevant issues have muddled, were if the clause in WWF's contract with USA Network giving the network the right to match any competing bid for WWF programming could be interpreted as matching a bid for the entire package of WWF programming or simply matching the bid for the specific individual television shows in question, Raw on Monday, Live Wire on Saturday and Superstars and Heat on Sunday.

USA Network's case was that they only had to match the bids for the individual television shows, and not the complete package Viacom offered which included additional television specials, producing a new drama and possible television series' produced by the WWF as well as synergistic product advertising on radio stations and theme parks and a book publishing deal through Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster. What hurt their case was testimony from USA Network chief counsel Richard Lynn that USA did a detailed financial analysis in March of matching the entire Viacom-CBS bid, showing that they themselves at least at that point presumably felt they needed to match it to maintain the programming.

After running the numbers, USA Network figured if it matched the bid for all the programming (there were aspects of the bid, such as the book publishing deal, that USA Network couldn't match as they don't own a publishing house), it would lose $6.79 million next season, $6.6 million over the second season and $4.96 million over the third season of the deal, which would run from September 2000 through August of 2005. After running the numbers, USA didn't match the bid. Lynn tried to downplay this study saying he never paid any attention to the analysis claiming they matched what he thought they needed to match.

USA Network agreed to Viacom's offer of $26 million per year, an increase from $5.2 million, for the Raw, Live Wire, Superstars and Heat show. Viacom's offers, which USA didn't match, also included $3.5 million for several TV specials, a $600,000 production fee for a WWF drama series to air on UPN, a $500,000 script development fund for new ideas for WWF produced television shows and an $8 million marketing budget to promote the shift of the Raw, Live Wire and Superstars shows to TNN and of the Heat show to MTV. Under any circumstances due to the nature of what the fee is earmarked for, USA shouldn't have to match the $8 million marketing fee to inform the public of the station switch if there is no station shift, while matching the other figures is the heart of the entire case. There is also serious talk of fairly regular WWF TV specials airing on CBS.

Vince McMahon testified that the USA Network did virtually nothing for the WWF, complained that USA greatly underpaid for the programming (Viacom's offer of five times the amount for the same programming backed up his claim). He also complained about USA Network pre-empting the show every year for the U.S. Open tennis and for the Westminster Dog Show, claiming it was stupid and archaic and that nobody watches those shows. 

The reality is the Dog show, up until the past three years, generally drew a higher rating than Raw and as a one-time deal was far more valuable because it brought in substantially more advertising revenue to USA because it appealed to a more lucrative demographic than WWF wrestling. The U.S. Open was one of USA's plum prestige events over a three-week period. While the U.S. Open never came close to Raw's ratings on Mondays, it also had a more favorable demographic profile to advertisers. 

McMahon also complained that USA Network execs snickered at him when he asked to buy into the Sci Fi Channel and help program it. However, court documents did reveal that USA Network President Stephen Chao proposed launching a new station they would call the "Man Cable Channel," based around WWF wrestling and the XFL.

The following week, Dave reported - Delaware Chancery Court Judge William Chandler ruled in favor of the World Wrestling Federation and Viacom on 6/27 in the lawsuit filed by the USA Network, which will result, officially, in September, for all WWF cable programming moving to Viacom stations TNN and MTV.

Chandler ruled against USA Network's claim that their right of first refusal in the contract, which expires in September, only pertains to the four wrestling shows on the network and not to an overall marketing deal between Viacom and the WWFE as a company. USA agreed to meet Viacom's $26 million bid for Raw, Sunday Night Heat, Live Wire and Superstars in specific, but would not, and could not, meet the overall bid which included money to develop other non-wrestling related television shows as well as synergistic promotions including advertising on Viacom owned radio stations, promotions on company owned billboards and in theme parks as well as a book publishing deal with Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster.

The five-year Viacom deal also includes cable distribution of the XFL football games on TNN, distributing a weekly radio program, continue theater distribution at Famous Players in Canada of live WWF PPV events similar to the old closed-circuit set-ups as well. It also includes a contract extension through 2005 for the series Smackdown on UPN, so long as Viacom owns the station (Viacom President and COO Mel Karmazin has said publicly that if UPN doesn't turn a profit by the end of next season, Viacom would sell the station. 

For the fiscal year ending on 4/30, WWFE took in a record $379.3 million on expenses of $293.6 million for a before tax profit of $85.7 million. For the period of May 1, 1998 through April 30, 1999, those same figures were $251.5 million gross income, $195.1 million in expenses for a before tax profit of $56.4 million.

In breaking down the growth, revenues from both live events, PPV and television grew from $170.0 million to $265.5 million, an increase of 56%, both from increasing ticket prices to live events, growth overall in PPV and increase in advertising revenue from the addition of the Smackdown program in September. 

A breakdown of the $96.5 million increase in revenues was advertising up $47.8 million, much of it due to the addition of the new Smackdown show, PPV revenue up $25.6 million, live events up $19.2 million (largely through increasing ticket prices as actual attendance only slightly increased) and television rights were up $2.9 million (both from Smackdown and international deals). WWFE merchandise jumped from $81.4 million to $113.8 million over the course of the past year, which included a $7.5 million jump in internet merchandise revenue.

The new contract with Viacom should lead to a huge increase in television revenue, as the cable contract alone increased in value from the $5.2 million WWF received for this current television season to the $26 million just for the four cable shows it will receive this coming season. In a stock prospectus, CEO Linda McMahon estimated the first season of the XFL would result in $80-85 million in gross revenues and an estimated $120 million in expenses, which would result in a $35-$38 million first year loss, half of which would be paid by NBC, which owns 50 percent of the league.

For the quarter from 2/1 to 4/30, the WWFE had its biggest gross to date of $116.4 million and a profit of $19.4 million.

Meltzer reported - Raven has not signed a contract with WWF but the sides have come to a verbal understanding and it's basically a question of when he gets his ECW release that he'll be coming to WWF. There are no major guarantees so he's going to have to prove himself due to his baggage and past as opposed to people who are brought in with basically a guaranteed push 

At this point it's not a question of if, but when Raven starts here. He had a meeting this past week with Jim Ross at Titan Towers. He hasn't signed a contract, nor could he legally since he doesn't have a release from ECW. He's pretty well made an agreement to start after getting his ECW release and will be doing the same Raven character. 

Even though Paul Heyman had talked for weeks about releasing him, at this point, because he's lost weight and has straightened up, or maybe having nothing to do with such, the release hasn't been given and may be held up for a while. His ECW contract expires on 8/26 if he doesn't get a release, but figures to get one before that point 

Vince Russo quit WCW on June 15th. Were you guys keeping tabs on that at all, and do you recall any discussions about bringing him back?

How personally did Vince take it when Russo abruptly left WWF for WCW in 1999?

Meltzer reported - NBC officially purchased the WWFE stock and signed for television broadcast rights to the XFL on 6/13 in the deal that had been announced some months back. NBC purchased 3.3 percent of the WWFE for $30 million, or a price of $13 per share, well under the going rate of $18.38 for the stock as of its close on 6/14 

Today, WWE's stock goes for around $47.39

Meltzer reported - According to the WWF, there was no plan to introduce Stu Hart to the crowd or have him walk to the ring with Davey Boy Smith on the 5/27 house show in Calgary. The plan, according to a WWF official, was for Diana Smith (Stu's daughter and Davey's wife) to come out with him, but that didn't materialize since they are having problems. Bruce Hart had told the WWF he was going to bring Stu to the show, which also didn't happen, and you know how that went. 

Stu was at Keith Hart's house that day when they went to pick him up. The reason he was at Keith's house was because of the feeling Stu would be talked into walking Davey to the ring and because of the lawsuit, Stu, who is suing WWF, appearing before the public at a WWF event would become something probably involved in the suit or at least a media issue in the market

Jim Neidhart was sent back to Calgary from Memphis where he wasn't working out in his role of a trainer and coach. Officially, they are keeping Neidhart on payroll, and one suspects that means he'll testify if need be in the trial, with his new job to scout Stampede Wrestling and the local indies for any talent that shows promise

The King of the Ring tournament started on the May 29th Raw with Rikishi beating Shane McMahon and Bull Buchanon beating Steve Blackman. 

On the June 1st Smackdown, Kurt Angle beat Bradshaw and Crash Holly beat Albert. On the June 4th Heat, Chyna defeated The Godfather, and Val Venis beat Al Snow. On the June 5th Raw the Chris Benoit beat Road Dogg and Hardcore Holly beat Faarooq.

On the June 8th Smackdown, Chris Jericho beat Test and European Champion Eddie Guerrero beat Matt Hardy. On the June 11th Heat, Bubba Dudley beat Big Boss Man and Perry Saturn beat Dvon Dudley. 

On the June 12th Raw, X-Pac beat Dean Malenko and Jeff Hardy beat Christian. On the June 15th Smackdown, Edge beat Grand Master Sexay and Scotty 2 Hotty beat D-Lo Brown. 

On the June 18th Heat, the tournament started as Bull Buchanan defeated Perry Saturn and Val Venis defeated Jeff Hardy. On the June 19th Raw,  Kurt Angle defeated Bubba Ray Dudley, Chris Benoit defeated X-Pac, 

Eddie Guerrero defeated Chyna, Chris Jericho defeated Edge, Rikishi defeated Scotty 2 Hotty and Crash Holly defeated Hardcore Holly 

That takes us to the King of the Ring 2000 pay per view

Rikishi beat Chris Benoit via DQ in 3:25 in a KOR match. Rikishi was one of several wrestlers undergoing slight name changes on this show, as he no longer has a last name. Benoit hit a german suplex and a standing crossface before getting his regular crossface and a rope break. Benoit then hit Rikishi with a chair to the upper chest for a cheap DQ. After the match, Benoit destroyed Rikishi with three more chair shots and another crossface in the middle, a diving head-butt, and back to doing the crossface. Rikishi somehow came out of this with a big legit bruise on his right shoulder. If nothing else, this was a terrible waste of Benoit in regard to the time of the match even if the booking demanded the other guy going up, although I don't see how the booking demanded that either. DUD 

There was a clip of an interview from Heat where Linda McMahon said she was going to talk to her husband.

There was a shot of the McMahon office with Vince McMahon talking to Triple H, Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley. Vince said he knows Linda is there, but tonight he’s going to keep his cool because tonight he is “Joe Cool.” Vince left.

Chris Benoit was interviewed by Michael Cole backstage. Benoit said that he does what he wants to do, when he wants to do it and no one can stop him.

Val Venis pinned Eddy Guerrero in 8:04. Guerrero looked really smooth here and was the most impressive wrestler on the show. Guerrero came off the top but Venis moved and Guerrero rolled, rather than take the impact on his elbow. Venis, who is no longer a porn star, which is just as well as the feeling since to be that gimmick helped him greatly at the start but at this point was holding him back, still did his money shot, but Guerrero got the knees up. 

They traded some good moves and near falls until Guerrero hit the huracanrana off the top, but Trish Stratus distracted ref Tim White. Chyna threw Stratus down. Venis went to punch Chyna, but she blocked it and responded with one of her own into a schoolboy by Guerrero, but Venis kicked out. After a reversal, Venis scored a surprisingly clean pin with a fisherman suplex. They teased dissension between Chyna and Guerrero over the loss. *** 

Pat Patterson was in the locker room looking at dresses to wear for his Hardcore Evening Gown Match. Pat said that if he’s going to do this, he needs to do it right. He talked to a woman that was a WWE designer. Patterson said that he needed to look better than Brisco. She told him she’s good, but she’s not a miracle worker and Pat wondered what she was trying to tell him.

Rikishi was interviewed in the locker room by Jonathon Coachman. Rikishi said that what he’s been through is nothing compared to what he’ll do to Val Venis. Rikishi said he’s looking forward to it.

Crash Holly pinned Bull Buchanan in 4:07. Buchanan basically destroyed him the entire match, but missed his scissors kick and Holly, who was called Crash Holly by Jim Ross, but simply Crash in his ring intros by Howard Finkel for both matches, got the pin with an Oklahoma side roll. 3/4*

Throughout the show were vignettes which basically resulted in Vince agreeing that there would be no interference in the main event. Vince was strutting around calling himself Joe Cool, saying how his wife had no effect on him. Kind of funny. In running down the things Linda had done over the past few months, Vince made a rare faux paus talking about her bringing back Dave Hebner (rather than twin brother Earl). 

The mental errors in situations people wouldn't normally make them (virtually every announcer in WWF and WCW has fallen prey to this more than ever of late) is a sign of people being overworked due to the demands of producing and keeping up with this volume of wrestling in both the major companies.

Vince McMahon walked into a room with his wife Linda. Vince recapped all the things that Linda has done in the last few months to counter Vince and he said, “you brought back Dave Hebner” he was supposed to say Earl. Vince asked her what brings her to Boston. Linda asked what he’s doing about the six-man tag and wondered if it would be fair. Vince said nobody should ever question his intestinal fortitude. Vince said that it was Linda’s idea to put this championship provision in the match. Vince said no interference, but in the end, they will be victorious.

How mad would Vince be at someone if they said the wrong name, as he did here?

Kurt Angle did a pre-match promo in the ring before his match. Angle said that this is a very special night in his life. He said he’ll do something in this town that nowadays is practically unheard of. Angle ripped on the Boston sports teams and said that “the teams in this town really do suck.” Angle said he’ll bring home the big one and it’s true. Then he did a weak Boston accent to close out the promo.

Chris Jericho did a promo where he ripped on “Kirk Angel” calling him the king of goofy, ugly ring attire. Jericho called Angle the king of all the nerds and the king of the 30-year-old virgins. Jericho called Angle a royal pain in the ass.

Kurt Angle pinned Chris Jericho in 9:50. This was a really good match with a somewhat weak finish. Both did a lot of great moves. Jericho hit the lionsault but Angle got his foot on the ropes. Jericho hit a missile dropkick and a springboard dropkick as well as a Frankensteiner off the top. Angle crossed up Jericho's usual facebuster spot with a hard clothesline. Jericho got out of the slam, then put Angle in the lion tamer when Stephanie McMahon came out. Angle was tapping but ref Teddy Long missed it, and was then bumped.

Stephanie went to hit Jericho with the belt, but he moved and she hit Angle. Actually, she missed Angle by way too much, but he took the bump anyway, being that this is slapstick entertainment and you can do things like that. Jericho kissed Stephanie, but when he turned around, Angle used the Olympic slam for the pin. ***1/4 

Vince and Shane McMahon were in their office. Shane complained about how Vince didn’t keep his cool. Vince said that Rock, Undertaker and Kane can’t order lunch together, much less compete together and they will be adversarial to eachother. Vince told Shane to have confidence and told him to remember his last name. Shane said he was worried about Hunter’s confidence.

There was a shot of WWF New York with a restaurant full of fans watching King of the Ring. Mick Foley was there along with Ivory behind the bar as the bartender. Foley said he had a business meeting in Connecticut tomorrow, so he decided to go to WWF New York. Foley said that his personal favorite to win King of the Ring was Kurt Angle. Mick ended it with “Have a Nice Day” 

The next match was for the tag team titles, On the May 29th Raw, Too Cool defeated Edge and Christian to win the tag team titles. T & A and the Hardy Boyz were feuding at the time, and were added into the tag title match, making it a 4 corners elimination match

Edge & Christian regained the WWF tag titles in a four-way over Too Cool, Test  & Albert and Matt & Jeff Hardy in 14:11. Edge & Christian spoofed Bill Buckner letting a ground ball roll through his legs in the World Series, which took place how many years ago? Albert is back to being called a hairy Prince. Fast-paced with the usual generally good work. It lacked the spectacular moves you'd expect from these guys and only had so-so crowd heat. The first fall saw Lita clothesline Stratus and Matt use the twist of fate on Test. Albert broke it up and had Lita up for the neck hanging tree slam, but Matt dropkicked him in the knee.

Matt then pinned Test after Jeff delivered the swanton in 3:41. After this, Jerry Lawler made the remark about teams tagging out regarding strategy that if you stay outside the ring, you can lose but you can't win. Actually in the first pin situation of three-way dance rules, such as WCW and WWF often do, it makes no sense logically because nobody would ever want to tag out because you can lose outside the ring but you can't win. However, this had elimination rules, so what Lawler said didn't apply. Jim Ross actually said something to the effect of not thinking that was the case.

Lita did an awesome spinning huracanrana on Edge which may have been the hottest move of the show. Matt used the twist of fate on Christian, but Edge speared Matt and Christian came back with whatever they will eventually name his move (the Tommy Rogers' tomokaze) on Matt for the pin in 7:55. Edge & Christian teased a double worm on GMS, as up to this point, Too Cool had stayed out of the ring. Scotty broke it up with a double facebuster and gave Edge the worm. GMS hit Edge with the hip hop drop, but Christian hit GMS with the title belt and Edge pinned him. That title belt finish has become so overdone in WWF and WCW to where in big matches, it's often about the only false finish that people pop for. **3/4 

There was a commercial for WWF Fully Loaded on July 23. 

Crash Holly was interviewed by Michael Cole and he said he was an overachiever. 

In the semis, Rikishi pinned Venis in 3:15. Venis worked on the right shoulder to no heat at all. Rikishi pinned him clean with a belly-to-belly. After the match, Venis destroyed Rikishi, doing everything Benoit did in the previous match working on the shoulder. This was equally as bad as the Benoit match. DUD 

Gerald Brisco was interviewed by Jonathon Coachman. He said that Pat Patterson stole his Hardcore Title, but Patterson will find out he was all man. A guy walked into the room telling Brisco his evening gown had arrived and asked if he wanted regular panties or the crotchless kind. 

Angle pinned Crash in 3:58. Angle threw all kinds of great suplexes. Fans really didn't care. Angle scored the clean pin with a hotshot and an Olympic slam. It was real good while it lasted, but was way too short. **1/4 

They showed a few highlights from the WWF live event at Madison Square Garden one night earlier and Donald Trump was shown at ringside. With his future wife Melania. Lawler interviewed Trump, who said he was friends with Vince McMahon and they were doing an amazing job. Trump said that his favorite superstar was The Rock. You said that Trump had a nice lady with him (Melania) and Lawler said Trump shouldn’t run for President, he should run for king of New York. 

There were quick interviews with Kane and The Undertaker where they talked about how they were going to win the title.

There was a video package for the Patterson vs. Brisco match.

The next match was an evening gown match for the Hardcore title, Pat Patterson defending against Gerald Brisco

On the June 19th Raw, Gerald Briso and Pat Patterson interfered in a King of the Ring tournament match between Hardcore Champion Crash Holly and Hardcore Holly. Hardcore was Dqed after Brisco hit Crash twice with a 2x4, and Brisco, pinned Crash to win the Hardcore Championship. After returning to backstage, Patterson blinded Brisco by tossing a champagne in his head and pinned him to win the Hardcore title. 

On the June 22nd Smackdown, Vince McMahon announced that Patterson would defend the title against Brisco in a Hardcore Evening Gown match at King of the Ring 

Crash regained the hardcore title by interfering in the evening gown match between Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson in 2:47. Patterson and Brisco dressed in dresses, with womens underwear, lipstick, stuffed bras and wigs. About the only thing funny was Brisco getting mad at the person showing him the dresses saying that since he's the champ, he needs to look better than Patterson. Actually Patterson's interview complaining about the dresses was pretty funny. If they had just canceled this travesty. 

Patterson kissed Howard Finkel which I can almost bet money Finkel didn't know was coming. Ross mainly did gay jokes about Patterson, such as his part-time job is doing rear end work at the body shop. Patterson stuffed a banana in Brisco's mouth. Ross mentioned there was no telling where that banana had been. The visual thought of that one was just about enough to give someone morning sickness even if they weren't pregnant. Patterson then tried to shove a maxi pad in Brisco's mouth. Patterson's dress still had a tag on it. 

They were ripping at each others' dresses making sure everyone saw their womens underwear. Fans were booing this out of the building. I was swearing Russo had secretly jumped back and got his job back without an editor. Finally Crash saved the day and hit Patterson with a garbage can to score the pin in the longest 187 seconds of recent wrestling history. Thankfully all the old women in the front row at the Cow Palace who used to idolize Patterson no longer watch wrestling. -*** 

The Dudleys were shown backstage with D-Von saying that they will know why thou shall not mess with the Dudleys. Bubba wrote “TORI” on a table and they brought it to the ring.

There was a video package showing highlights from their rivalry. The feud lasted for about two months going into this match. The Dudleys wanted to put Tori through a table, but they were unable to do it up to that point

Road Dogg & X-Pac & Tori won a three-on-two dumpster and tables match over the Dudleys in 9:45. The rules were that the match would end either with all three members of DX being put through a table, or with both Dudleys being put in the dumpster. With the possible exception of Guerrero-Venis, this was the only match on the show which was as good in the ring as one would think it would be ahead of time. D-Von used the head-butt off the top to the groin on all three, so Lawler could get his line in about rubbing Tori to ease the boo-boo. 

They put the Dudleys in the dumpster and shut the lid, but ref Jimmy Kourderis missed it. Dudleys came out the sides, crawled under the ring and nailed Dogg & X with hard chair shots. They stacked two tables outside the ring, and put the ring steps near the ropes. Buh Buh, from the ring, climbed up the steps and power bombed Dogg over the top through two tables. D-Von then superplexed X through a table. Tori then hid in the dumpster. As the Dudleys were stalking her, X & Dogg hit both with chair shots and they fell into the dumpster and the lid was shut to end the match. 

After the match, the Dudleys got out of the dumpster and did a 3-D on both X-Pac and Dogg to lay them out, and finally power bombed Tori through a table. Tori's shoulder appeared injured (announced on television later as a separation and that she'll be out of action for a while), which apparently happened the previous night in Madison Square Garden when she separated the shoulder and came back to finish the program and will be out of action for a while at this point. 

This is an injury dating back to when she wrestled as Terri Power in Japan and destroyed the same right shoulder and kept working for months on it, which actually pretty well ended her career as a female wrestler. **3/4 

Kurt Angle was interviewed by Michael Cole backstage. Angle said he has to win this tournament. He said Rikishi was great if you like dancing and putting your butt in people’s faces. Angle said he’s going to win the tournament, then beat Triple H to win the World Title

There was a replay of Rikishi getting beat up by Val Venis earlier in the night. Rikishi was interviewed in the locker room by Jonathon Coachman. Rikishi told Angle that all the Wheaties in the world isn’t going to stop this ass from backing up.

Angle pinned Rikishi with a belly-to-belly superplex in 5:56. Rikishi came out throwing blow after blow with the right arm that both Benoit and Venis had destroyed in their post-match attacks until finally starting to sell it. Rikishi kicked out of the Olympic splash before the finish. Very disappointing finale. *3/4 

2000 was a huge year for Angle. He first won the European title, then the Intercontinental title and held both at the same time, he lost them both at WrestleMania 16 in a triple threat match to Jericho & Benoit. In a few months, Angle would win the World Title

That takes us to the main event, the 6 man tag team match for the World Title.

Leading up to the match, On the June 1st Smackdown, Rock, Kane and Undertaker won qualifying matches to qualify for a WWF Championship title shot at King of the Ring. On the June 12th Raw, Linda McMahon announced that at King of the Ring, Rock, Kane and Undertaker would team up to wrestle Triple H, Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon in a 6 man match.

On the June 15th Smackdown, a stipulation was added into the match that if Triple H's team won, Triple H would defend the title against the winner of the King of the Ring tournament at Fully Loaded, but if any person from Rock's team got the pinfall, he would lose the title. On the June 19th Raw, an additional stipulation was added into the match that if a member of Rock's team got the pinfall at King of the Ring, he would become the new World Champion

Vince McMahon was backstage with Triple H, Shane McMahon and Stephanie. Vince said that they are going out there with a victory because the other team can’t get along. Shane said that they had to have a deadly focus. Hunter complained about Vince backing their team in a corner.

Kane was shown walking backstage, The Undertaker was shown on his motorcycle and The Rock was shown walking also as they made their way to the ring for the main event.

Rock & Kane & Undertaker defeated Vince & Shane McMahon & Hunter Hearst Helmsley in 17:54 and by virtue of the pre-match stips, Rock, who scored the pin, won the WWF title. Basically the story was that the face team couldn't get along because they all wanted to win the title for themselves. HHH hit a pedigree on Rock but Undertaker saved Rock. It was largely HHH vs. Rock, as it needed to be because they were the only two good workers in the match (Shane is great in choreographed spots but unless the match is totally laid out, his inexperience shows in a long match; Vince isn't good and Undertaker is too banged up), but even though they worked their usual hard style, all the distractions from the outside seemed to take away from them rather than enhance them. 

Rock wouldn't tag out, which actually as a strategy made sense, both for the match and for the logic of the match. Kane and Undertaker started fighting each other. Rock set up the people's elbow on HHH, but Kane, wanting the title himself, turned on Rock and choke slammed him. HHH acted like Kane had joined his side, which guaranteed he was about to get slammed, and he actually took a tombstone piledriver (no other compressions moves such as brainbusters, DDTs off the ropes, dragon suplexes, etc. were done on this show nor any high risk moves such as topes or planchas which may have been why even the good matches on paper seemed ordinary) from Kane. 

Undertaker pulled Kane out of the ring and hit him with a chair. Then in the long high-risk spot of the show, Taker threw Shane off the top rope through the American announcers' table. It was pre-ordained that one was breaking since minutes earlier Rock had moved the monitors to make sure the dangers of the broken glass wouldn't be there. Vince went for a people's elbow on Rock, but Rock got up and used the Rock bottom on Vince for the pin, and also hit him with the title belt after the match. *3/4

This was Rock's 5th World Title

The next night on Raw, in Worcester, MA drew a sellout 10,829 paying $331,365. Show opened with a Rock interview. Vince came out said he was going home to produce some more babies with Linda because he's a genetic jackhammer. Vince wanted to shake hands with Rock, but Rock gave him a rock bottom. 

Rikishi beat Benoit via DQ in an IC title match in 2:26 when Tazz interfered but hit Rikishi instead of Benoit with a chair. Benoit hit Rikishi with a diving head-butt after. 

X-Pac pinned Jericho in 2:44 when Stephanie distracted the ref and Dogg interfered. They held Jericho for Stephanie to slap him and give him a low blow.

Venis beat Guerrero via DQ in a European title match in 2:55 when Chyna interfered. Chyna & Guerrero gave him a double-team DDT. Michaels came out.

HHH came old and mentioned how he lost the title the previous night and never did the job. Michaels then introduced Foley as commissioner. Foley made fun of HHH's boring 20:00 promos by doing one of his own.  He set up a three-way with HHH, Angle and Rock as the main event. 

Lawler beat Malenko in a stripper match. When someone is thrown over the top, either Kat or Terri had to take off clothes. They were both there in bra and panties when Malenko went over, meaning Terri had to take off her bra. She did, but Stevie Richards came out as the censor. 

A Battle Royal to earn a title shot on Smackdown ending with Acolytes winning in 3:53 after throwing out Saturn, who teamed with Brown. 

Undertaker & Kane beat Edge & Christian in a non-title in 1:27 when Taker pinned Edge after a choke slam. 

HHH vs. Angle vs. Rock ended with Rock pinning HHH with a rock bottom in 8:54 in a pretty good match. Jericho interfered snapping HHH's neck on the ropes leading to the pin 

• Thumbs up 44 (19.9%)
• Thumbs down 138 (62.4%)
• In the middle 39 (17.6%)

BEST MATCH - 

Edge & Christian vs. Too Cool vs. Hardys vs. T&A 51

Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle 41

Val Venis vs. Eddy Guerrero 19

WORST MATCH - 

Gerald Brisco vs. Pat Patterson 151