Grilling JR - WrestleMania 17 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

WrestleMania 17 took place on April 1st, 2001 from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. It drew 67,925, with 61,079 paid, and grossed $3.5 million dollars for the WWF. It did a buyrate of 2.08 for an estimated $13.31 million. It was about 900,000 buys, which was the all time record for a wrestling pay per view.

The live gate of $3,530,905 was the largest for pro wrestling anywhere outside of Japan and more than doubled the previous American record set at Wrestlemania 5 at Trump Plaza in Atlantic city for the Hogan vs. Randy Savage match. It barely beat the previous record for both the WWF and for pro wrestling in North America set at Wrestlemania 6 at Toronto Sky Dome for the Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior match.

The figure of 67,925 fans would rank seventh on the all-time recorded list, up to that point

This was the first domed WrestleMania since WrestleMania 8, in 1992 at the Hoosier Dome, in Indianapolis, Indiana. What's your memories of the decision being made to put WrestleMania 17 in the Astrodome?

This was a legendary and historic time in not only WWF history, but the in the history of professional wrestling, because about a week earlier, the WWF bought WCW, ending the very long battle between the two companies and also in the process ending the legendary Monday Night Wars, which began in September of 1995.

"In early January, we told you about an agreement that we had reached to sell WCW and its related assets. At that time, we said that we would apprise you of any changes to the way WCW operates. Effective Tuesday, March 27, WCW programming will begin a period of hiatus. During this hiatus, WCW will review its programming plans and determine the course of future WCW-branded entertainment events. On Wednesday, March 28, please plan to attend an all-staff meeting at 10 a.m. at the Power Plant, at which we will share with you further information regarding WCW plans. In the meantime, I hope that you will maintain the level of professionalism that distinguishes our organization, particularly as we prepare for the upcoming Panama City, Florida event. Thank you." -- Brad Siegel, in a memo to the staff on the morning of 3/16

The March 16th Nitro mentioned at the end of that memo would end up being the last Nitro.

Later that day, TBS announced they'd no longer be carrying wrestling, which ended the 29 year run.

Meltzer wrote - Although not highly publicized, some of the decision regarding Turner programming was made even before Kellner took over. Plans had been made more than one year ago to try and distinguish TNT from TBS and give the stations specific personalities. At first, the idea was that Nitro would move to Monday nights on TBS. Those who have international deals with WCW were told over the past few weeks that effective in late April, there would only be one weekly show available. It was to be announced that TNT would drop wrestling, a deadline that was being moved to the end of April when the changes in station philosophy were to begin, and that one show, likely named Nitro, would have aired on TBS, until Kellner made the call.

You spent a lot of time on TBS announcing WCW/NWA programming. What was your personal feelings when you heard this news?

TBS spokesman Jim Weiss dissed the programming the originally built the station, saying to Wrestlingobserver.com that "we've decided professional wrestling in its current incarnation just isn't appropriate for the high-scale, upscale brand that we have built on TNT and TBS Superstation.

We're no longer interested in carrying the product."

Ted Turner started WTCG, a UHF station in Atlanta, in 1972, and the late Ann Gunkel, the very pretty wife of Ray Gunkel, at the top the area's top babyface star and part-owner of Georgia Championship Wrestling, was able to put together a deal with Turner to move the wrestling show to the station in its prime 6 p.m. Saturday night time slot, where it became the stations' first show to draw any kind of an audience. The show moved to two hours later that year after Ray Gunkel died and Ann started her own promotion, beginning a legendary area wrestling war which saw both companies tape television on Saturday mornings for one hour in the same studio on Techwood Drive.

Jim Barnett, who remained employed by World Championship Wrestling to this day (although not consistently from that period), became the driving force behind NWA Georgia Championship Wrestling, which after the split, hired Gordon Solie from Florida as the lead announcer, and after buying out Gunkel when she threw in the towel, had a rare two hour wrestling show during a time period when most companies had one hour shows.

The show, taped every Saturday morning from the small studio after wrestlers flew into Atlanta for Friday night shows at either the Atlanta City Auditorium or the famed Omni, drew huge local ratings during a hot period with stars like Mr. Wrestling I & II, Bill Watts, Dick Slater & Bob Orton Jr., Thunderbolt Patterson, Gene & Ole Anderson, The Masked Superstar (Bill Eadie) and Stan Hansen among others.

As wrestling gained in popularity, the Sunday "Best of Georgia Championship Wrestling" was added. That studio became the national symbol of cable wrestling years later when, in 1976, Turner put WTCG on the satellite and it became the first SuperStation. By the late 70s, Georgia Championship Wrestling was available in many markets nationwide and became the first show in the history of cable to regularly top one million homes.

Meltzer wrote - There were many things that had become clear as World Championship Wrestling was spiralling downward over the past two years. It was going to be sold, as AOL, which was buying Time Warner, didn't want to keep money losing divisions. And the new buyers, whomever they would be, would have a lot of trouble because the momentum was disastrously bad, the product had been bad for years with a terrible stigma among wrestling fans, and the money losses were huge, something only a billion dollar company could carry for any length of time.

The odds, quite frankly, were, no matter who bought it, unless it was the WWF, that one year from now, it would be in rough shape. Fusient would have had to have been able to rebuild its popularity and make it more attractive for a turnover to another media conglomerate.

But for the business, it was the best option, because it's better for everyone, fans, wrestlers, and anyone else to have at least some semblance of competition to keep everyone on their game.

There's a lot to unpack here. First, talk about when you first remember hearing that WWF was going to buy WCW.

Meltzer wrote - In his first major act as CEO of Turner Broadcasting, Jamie Kellner, who has always disliked pro wrestling, made the decision to cancel all pro wrestling programming. In doing so, it nearly ended negotiations that had been rocky, with Fusient Media Ventura, to purchase the company, a sale that was prematurely announced in January by Fusient President Brian Bedol, WCW President Brad Siegel and Eric Bischoff, so as to make it public literally hours before the official consummation of the AOL/Time Warner merger.

Finalizing the deal between the two sides had many rocky points, in particular, the second round of due diligence, when the January books were examined by Fusient, found the company in a far worse financial state than Fusient had been led to believe from the original projections made by Time Warner. In addition, it scared away some of the original investment money, both of which caused Fusient in recent weeks to back away from the original $70-75 million purchase price and make an offer of $48.7 million for the company, which was close to finalization, although there were stumbling blocks, before Kellner made the decision.

Just one year ago, when SFX was interested in buying WCW, the negotiations fell apart quickly when Time Warner was asking for $600 million for the money losing company, which in around a one year period during 1999 went from being enormously profitable and clearly the No. 1 pro wrestling company in the world to a huge money loser.

Were you aware at the time that Eric Bischoff was trying to buy WCW and came very close to doing so?

Meltzer reported - Jerry Jarrett had also put forth a proposal to TBS with investors attempting to purchase the company, but that was at best a dark horse if both the WWF and Fusient deals couldn't be completed, and Jarrett's group pulled out upon the TV cancellation. Bert Prentice claimed on Joe Pedicino's "Pro Wrestling This Week" radio show on Fox Sports Radio on 3/18 that a major announcement by Jarrett should be coming very soon about a new national company, but others close to Jarrett have told people not to make that much out of this.

Meltzer reported - The reality of the WCW situation hit a little harder on 3/28 with the final staff meeting, held at the Power Plant. Basically the entire work force was let go in one fell swoop. About 120 of the 140 were let go at the meeting and asked to clear out their offices by the end of the day, turn in their cell phones, pages and company credit cards as well as anything that was Time Warner property.

Their computers were already shut down when they got to the office and all the locks on the door had been changed. Security guards were watching as they were given boxes to clean out their belongings by the end of the day and security checked everyone as they departed from the facility.

They were given nine weeks severance pay as well as an addition four weeks for every year of service to the company which is a pretty generous package. The ones that weren't let go immediately, including Diana Myers (head of legal), Aaron Blitzstein (head of marketing) and Rob Garner (head of advertising and syndication) were given an additional 30 days to help making a smooth transition, as well as some people who work underneath them. Johnny Ace also fits into that category and he is currently working as the liaison between the WWF and the former WCW talent that is no under contract to WWF.

The rest of the agents and bookers were let go, such as Terry Taylor, Ed Ferrara, Vince Russo, Bill Banks pending the expiration of their respective deals and how their contracts are structured. Kevin Sullivan, who hasn't been used since being demoted one year ago, had his contract recently roll over at $300,000 for one more year. Of that group, only Taylor appears to have any reasonable shot at being hired by WWF. Someone from human resources at the WWFE told everyone that if they were willing to relocate to Stamford, CT, they could apply for a job with WWFE, and given a form to fill out. They were told if they filled out the form they would be contacted by WWFE, if they wanted them, within 30 to 60 days

It's been said that WWF bought WCW's name and trademarks for 2.5 million and then bought the video library for 1.7 million, for a total of 4.2 million. Do those numbers sound accurate to you, and were you shocked when you found out how relatively cheap that Vince was able to acquire WCW?

At the time, what did you think of this? Did you think it was a good thing for the wrestling business for Vince to buy his competition in WCW?

In hindsight, was it a mistake?

Officially on April 4th, 2001 ECW closed and a few months later, WWF would officially buy the assets of ECW, which included the name and video tape library. We saw the WWF debut of Paul Heyman, who joined you on commentary on Monday Night Raw on March 5th, and he'd be doing commentary with you at WrestleMania 17

What did you think about WWF acquiring the assets of ECW? Did you think it was as big of a deal as the WCW acquisition?

Did you negotiate with Paul to come into the WWF and do commentary? Talk about how that came about and who made the intial contact? Did Paul contact you guys, or did the WWF contact him?

Once he came into the WWF, did you ever talk to him about his decision to close ECW and the impact it had on him? Because he did everything for ECW, a lot of people over the years has said that maybe played a role in the companys downfall, because he didn't really delegate very much. The closing of ECW had to be hard for him, wasn't it?

For those years in the late 90s, wrestling fans had the WWF vs WCW Monday Night Wars, which captivated the wrestling world and is still talked about glowingly today over 20 years later, and then ECW came out of no where and threw themselves into the mix, and garnered a huge fan base, and within just a few weeks, both WCW and ECW were gone and only WWF was left standing. It's still pretty hard to believe 20 years later if you really stop and think about it.

Over the years fans have often debated the order of the 3 companies during this era. Do you think that ECW ever surpassed WCW for the #2 spot?

Were you surprised that everything with WCW and ECW ended so quickly and so close together as they did?

Meltzer reported about ECW going out -

As has been expected for some time, HHG Corporation, the parent company of Extreme Championship Wrestling, officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 4/4 claiming $8,881,435 in outstanding debts with $1,385,500 in assets, making the company $7,495,935 in debt not including potential unfavorable results of litigation.

According to an article by Frank Jewett and John Williams at TheOtherArena.com, the debts do not include amounts listed as unknown to some wrestlers as well as potential debts from 13 different pending lawsuits including the much publicized Erich Kulas case.

The biggest debt is to the family of Paul Heyman, listed at $3.8 million. Heyman himself also declared personal bankruptcy in the wake of ECW going down. Other major debts include large amounts owed to various business partners including $1 million to Acclaim, $300,000 to Farm Club, $250,000 to The Original San Francisco Toymakers and $150,000 to In Demand, the PPV distributor. HHG is due far smaller amounts from some of the partners including $50,000 from Acclaim and $10,000 from The Original San Francisco toymakers. In Demand, which still owes the company an estimated $800,000 from its share of revenues of previous PPV events, is the only major creditor that actually owes ECW more money than ECW owes it.

Another large source of debt is money owed to television stations, to wrestling talent, and a surprising source, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment.

Although rumors, and even confirmation from those within the WWF for years had stated the two companies had a business relationship. Clearly there was one since WWF for a time sent contracted talent to ECW for Paul Heyman to attempt to revitalize their career, which worked to a degree with Al Snow and The Head gimmick and didn't work with Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas in the most notable examples.

HHG listed $587,500 as money owed to WWFE in two loans taken out in recent months, apparently as last-ditch efforts for survival. HHG listed its tape library as an asset and listed its value at $500,000, and with no money to repay the WWFE debt, one would think part of that debt could be relieved by ECW giving WWFE its tape library and all future rights to the tapes, since the tapes are of less value to any of the other creditors, although to do so would require two separate processes, getting a settlement on the debt and using the settlement to then purchase the rights to the videotapes, since the bankruptcy involves the court. There apparently was at least preliminary interest at one point by the WWF in buying ECW, but the size of the debt may have been the overriding factor in the deal not happening.

ECW owed $244,000 to Madison Square Garden cable in New York before losing the television, as well as $243,000 to American Cable Productions (America One) as well as $64,000 to William Byrd Productions, who produced the TNN show and $60,000 to Weigel Broadcasting out of Chicago, for its time slot in that market.

There were also smaller amounts owed to arenas, radio stations, ad agencies, print shops, as well as lighting and Atlas Security revolving around the live arena events held in the last several months the company was in business.

Other outstanding bills included $140,000 in legal bills to Hoffinger, Friedland, Dobrish and Stern; $50,000 in accounting bills to Donohue, Gironda and Doria CPA, a $16,659 hospital bill left in Orlando, FL that was never paid and $11,700 in travel expenses from Discount Travel of Baton Rouge (Bob Ryder's company).

There are also large debts to Steve Karel, both $50,000 personally and another $120,000 to Karel's companies, Stonecutter Productions and Stonecutter Event Promotions.

Listed debt to contract wrestlers and other performers under contract were listed as: Rob Szatkowsky (Van Dam) $150,000, Tom Laughlin (Dreamer) $100,000, Joseph Bonsignore (Joey Styles) $50,480, Terry Gerin (Rhino) $50,000, Troy Martin (Shane Douglas) $48,000, Francine Fournier $47,275, Mike DePaoli (Roadkill) $21,250, Don Callis $12,000, Dawn Marie $9,000, Yoshihiro Tajiri $5,000,

Francisco Islas (Super Crazy) $5,000 as well as $12,000 more to Tajiri and Islas' manager, Victor Quinones, and unknown figures (not included in the total debt) to Jim Mitchell and Jerome Young (New Jack). HHG claims no money owed to only two contracted performers, Terry Brunk (Sabu) and Steve Corino, both of whom ended up on the worst terms with Heyman.

The last Nitro took place on March 26th, 2001 from Panama Beach City, Florida. It drew a 3.0 rating. The show was simulcast with Raw and Vince appeared on both shows and cut a promo and then Shane appeared in the ring live on Nitro and informed Vince that he bought WCW out from under him.

Shane said to Vince - dad, the deal is finalized... with WCW, and the name on the contract does say, McMahon. However, the contract reads Shane McMahon. That's right, I now own WCW. And, dad, just like WCW did in the past, how it kicked you ass in the past and it will again, that's exactly what's going to happen to you this Sunday at WrestleMania

What's your memories of that night?

Was it surreal to see Shane in a WCW ring?

Meltzer reported - As far as talent is concerned, it gets really tricky. Virtually all the big names are under Time Warner contracts that WWF didn't pick up, largely because it would imbalance the very careful salary structure they've been able to maintain during a competition boom period in the industry.

Talent for this new WCW will likely be comprised of the current lower level wrestlers with WCW who have low contracts, any of the higher priced guys who are willing to come for a lower deal, perhaps a few disenfranchised ECW guys, in particular smaller wrestlers like Little Guido, as well as some of the WWF developmental talent that is ready for a spot but haven't broken the deep WWF roster. The McMahons have never been big on lighter weight wrestlers, but most of the talent in WCW fits into that category so they may be almost forced for the first time to see if they can market smaller men as moneymakers.

This is how things appear to stand at press time:

Talent under contract: Lance Storm, Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, Mark Jindrak, Mike Awesome, Elix Skipper, Shane Helms, Shannon Moore, Stacy Keibler, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Mike Sanders, Hugh Morrus, Shawn Stasiak, Kaz Hayashi, Yun Yang and Billy Kidman.

All of these wrestlers were picked up because they had 90-day cycles, which means they can be cut from their current deal, and in most cases will, and will then be renegotiated with by WWF and Jim Ross. It doesn't guarantee all are in the plans, just that their deals are low enough and WWF has the clause in the contract where they will be given time to be evaluated, cut, and then offered a new deal under WWF terms.

Wrestlers who may be on this list: Disqo, Reno, Johnny the Bull, Jason Jett, Wall, Lash Leroux, Kwee Wee, Jamie Knoble, Evan Karagias, Kid Romeo, Norman Smiley

WWF bought 24 contracts and we have the name of 16 above. One would think of the other eight, they would come from this list, since they are all not major money contracts and all have 90-day cycles to be renegotiated. Kwee Wee and Leroux need a new gimmick, and a few need personalities like Johnny, but the only one I'd question taking a chance on regarding this list is Wall, and with his size, the odds are he'll get that chance. Jett in particular won over a lot of people in WCW being a guy with no build-up performing in front of crowds that have become disenchanted with the product, but he always by the end of the match brought the crowd to its feet. Heyman is high on Knoble, who is a very small but underrated worker. Romeo has excellent charisma and a great theme, both rare commodities for WCW underneath talent, and is a good worker. Smiley, because of his age, may have a tough time being retained.

Wrestlers WWF doesn't appear to want: Rick Steiner, Jim Duggan, Bam Bam Bigelow, Stevie Ray, Animal, Jeff Jarrett, Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, Dustin Rhodes, Sid Vicious, Midajah, Ms. Jones, David Flair, Kronik, Vampiro

Talk about Sting, Ric Flair, Goldberg, Nash, DDP, Booker T, who were still under Time Warner Contracts. All would come in eventually, but did you talk to any and try to convince them to take buyouts to come in at this time?

In the months following WrestleMania, we saw the much infamous invasion angle involving wrestlers from WCW and ECW, which we'll talk more about on future shows, but what was the original plans and what was talked about during this time for how you guys were going to incorporate WCW and ECW wrestlers after WrestleMania?

Meltzer reported - Hulk Hogan had sent feelers, although he's done this every time his contract was about to expire, about returning to the WWF. For a new company wanting to start up, the key names because they would mean something to television executives, are probably Hogan and Bill Goldberg. Hogan is a free agent and this may give him some leverage in cutting a deal with McMahon, in that Fusient could theoretically open up later on their own using older talent that are either friends with Bischoff or that McMahon, for whatever reason, wouldn't want, if a FOX deal or another strong enough television deal would open up down the road, but would need name value stars and unfortunately to many, at that point Hogan becomes valuable.

Whether this will mean McMahon will try and snag Hogan for Wrestlemania is unknown and was considered unlikely but not impossible as of the weekend. Goldberg has several years left on his no-cut contract, which would be transferred to the WWF upon a sale depending upon the nature of the terms of the sale.

Any memories of Hogan sending feelers to you guys at this time?

Were these few months in 2001 among the craziest that you've been apart of in your career?

Let's get to some company news heading into WrestleMania 17 -

Meltzer wrote - Leviathan, who Jim Cornette has predicted will be in the Wrestlemania main event within a few years, isn't on TV as they are doing a suspension gimmick. Real name Dave Bauttista, he's probably about 6-6 with great physical proportions and ripped to shreds and they're trying to teach him to work a Kane-like monster role although he's not as big as Kane. When he did his match with Kane in Louisville, what was scary about it is they've gotten him over in OVW as a monster, and how much bigger Kane was.

I don't think he could play a monster in the WWF because of all the huge guys they've got there as he's really not much taller than Billy Gunn but he's got a much freakier physique.

With his ridiculously small waist and huge upper body, he actually reminds me physique wise of a very young Tony Atlas, but several inches taller and with stronger legs. He's been out of action for the past few weeks with a torn ankle ligament but should be back shortly. Brock Lesnar is showing improvements but he and Sheldon Benjamin, who Jim Ross talks about so much in his Ross Report, are still far from ready for prime time. Benjamin is the closest thing to a sure thing to make it while I have a good feeling, if he can develop some charisma, about Randy Orton because his work is improving rapidly and he's got a good look.

What's your memories of these guys during this time?

Interesting note from a USA Today online chat with HHH: "My son and I have watched you for years and we noticed that you have changed greatly in size. What type of body enhancing drugs do you take?" HHH: "I don't take drugs. I've been training since the age of 14. When I got into wrestling, I was 280 pounds (I'm 6-4). I wanted to be faster, so I dieted myself down to 235. But at that weight, I felt I was too thin and getting injured too often, so I bulked up again. I'm about 250-260 now.

On March 14th, Vince made an appearance on the Bob Costas show, On The Record

First, what's your memories of how that got set up and did Vince have any reservations about doing that?

Meltzer wrote - The 30-minute interview, approximately half on the XFL and half on the WWF, saw things get totally unpleasant, both for the host, the guest and the audience watching. It resulted in a take sides situation. Many people tried to cast one as the babyface and the other as the heel, depending upon, probably in the case of the wrestling audience, the predisposed feelings on McMahon. Clearly the non-wrestling audience would view things a lot less sympathetic to McMahon, who came across by the end of the interview, like a guy transforming into ones very eyes from a very confident sports promoter into the almost crazed over-the-top version of the Mr. McMahon character.

The interview about the XFL was very interesting, touching on a lot of key points and both handled themselves very well. McMahon tried to get across the league was a long-term project and a brand name that takes time to build. This is exactly the opposite of what could be said when the discussion turned to McMahon's main occupation.

Costas did a tremendous job of asking mostly the right questions, and keeping McMahon on target when he was avoiding answering them directly, particularly on the football. McMahon, to his audience and minions, did a good job of, trying to cast Costas as something he wasn't, a snooty wrestling hater and a representative of all the people who don't like wrestling, and immediately painted him as a surrogate for Phil Mushnick, the name that hits a raw nerve with his audience.

There were valid criticisms of Costas. First, he was not as prepared as he should have been, which McMahon should consider himself lucky, because had he actually watched wrestling, he may have made McMahon look even worse, but even if that wasn't possible, it would have resulted in a more compelling interview. He was more prepared than the vast majority of mainstream reporters who do wrestling, but not at the level one expects of Costas, and he wasn't in the league of Michael Landsberg of TSN who has done the best televised interviews with McMahon.

The show, which drew a 3.0 rating, up from the usual 2.3 level the show does (Bob Knight also guested on the show and Costas was far easier on him, although he did ask him the important questions as well), turned into a major topic on sports talk shows around the country the next day. In this area, which is the XFL's strongest market, the strong consensus was that McMahon was a raving lunatic and that Costas was a super babyface. In New York, the reaction was different. Most of the reaction by wrestling fans in polls we've seen was negative to McMahon, but not overwhelmingly.

It did seem the logic used by those defending McMahon demeanor, as opposed to his points, was desperate at best, because the defense of McMahon's were largely attacks at Costas for not being as hard on Knight or for the aforementioned points, which don't exactly disgrace an otherwise strong performance. There is the natural attempt when a situation is tense to transform things into the simple babyface/heel mode and trivialized the basic facts of every issue talked about, and quite frankly, McMahon's demeanor worked to do that by the end of the show as it negated his strong performance in the first half and his valid points in the second.

Costas opened bringing up the XFL ratings. McMahon said he was pretty sure about the continuation of the league and would hope it would stay on NBC next season. He termed the first year brand building and his defense of the ratings were that the XFL wasn't typical programming and it would take time. He was hoping for a long run on NBC and said that he takes a long-range approach to business. He admitted disappointment in the ratings. He admitted making mistakes but felt it wasn't too late, and pushed the calibre of play, saying it was bad at first but now it's great. That has been his main focus over the past week, the problem is, saying so doesn't make it so.

McMahon said the research showed the WWF want WWF (ie don't want XFL) and football fans want football. He said the media was somewhat unfair to the league. A valid point, but the company's antics over the past week are only going to make things worse, with this show being the most obvious example even though McMahon as football exec handled himself well.

Costas brought up that McMahon didn't risk any prestige by doing the league, NBC had lost prestige with the league.

McMahon agreed but again blamed the media for that, forgetting it was the fans, not the media, responsible for the record low ratings and the loss of prestige from that standard aside from any questions of loss of prestige in the taste department. NBC itself was responsible for the loss of taste prestige by being partners to a league based on how it advertised itself both before the season started and the recent desperation ads once the ratings tanked. McMahon said he didn't know how much heat NBC would be able to take but then said he didn't think the XFL has hurt NBC in the prestige department. Costas said XFL was low-rent, and then noted the pre-game show was one of the most mindless things he had ever seen.

Costas asked McMahon if ratings dropped further, would he fix games? McMahon got mad again, basically saying you can't fix football because the guy has to catch the ball. He said, "What a ridiculous statement" and Costas quickly responded, "It's a question, not a statement." How a guy who made his living as a wrestling promoter can feel a statement about fixing games is ridiculous, when much of the New York business world going into the season believed McMahon would be a huge success because he would script the games, is beyond me.

But McMahon, and those who defended him saying the question was unfair, don't even understand  the basic distinction between the terms fixed and worked

McMahon did say he picked the wrong announcers and that WWF announcers are not the right announcers for football. Costas noted that many top announcers in the country were reluctant go work XFL games because of the stigma attached to the league. McMahon admitted he was going to have to search to find announcing talent. Neither brought up that when they were looking for announcers, one of the things McMahon wanted were announcers with little or no experience at doing football because he wanted the announcers to do football like wrestling. Why else would you hire Jesse Ventura and have him to wrestling angles on the air?

Then the show got out of control when Costas showed a clip from the 3/5 Raw of the angle where McMahon got Stratus to disrobe and point blank asked McMahon how he could defend it. McMahon tried to defend the clip by saying it was shown out of context and blamed Mushnick for Costas showing it. He said it was part of a storyline in a soap opera and claimed his character would get his at the end. That analogy is as flawed as if a producer of porn was on the show, a porn scene was shown, and the producer's defense was that when the movie ends, the girl ends up getting her revenge.

Costas brought up crotch grabbing, pointing to the crotch and "suck it" chants, noting 11-and-12 year old (and actually much younger) boys would imitate it. McMahon went out of control at this point, screaming at Costas, "Don't raise your voice to me!" even though Costas had not raised his voice. McMahon then raised his own voice telling Costas, "You don't watch," and compared him to Mushnick "who doesn't watch either (actually not true as Mushnick if you read his columns this past week had clearly watched both Raw and Smackdown). Costas then came back and said, "These things don't happen?"

McMahon got madder, pointed his finger almost threatening like, appearing that his blood pressure was increasing rapidly, and nearly screamed, "Shut your mouth and let me answer the question!" McMahon claimed they hadn't done crotch grabbing in over a year (not true, there have been women grabbing mens crotches far more recently than that),

hadn't done "suck it" in a year and a half (not quite that long, but it hasn't been used of late) and technically wasn't dishonest (as many claimed he was), as he never specifically mentioned pointing to the crotch, which was done repeatedly on Raw two days earlier. Costas when he was done said, "But you did it."

McMahon went off on the Sopranos, which airs before Costas on Wednesday, and Sex and the City, saying he liked the shows, and noting Sopranos has far more vulgar language than WWF and Sex and the City has orgasms, something WWF doesn't do on TV. Costas brought up the difference between HBO, a subscription channel you have to pay for, and basic cable or over-the-air television.

Costas didn't bring up why that point was irrelevant, which is the number of children watching those shows and the Toys R Us action figures of the characters from Sopranos, despite being among the favorite TV shows nowadays, that don't exist. McMahon said, "If you don't like it, turn it off."

McMahon then talked about his fans not being elitists like Costas, who quickly pointed out that McMahon knew full well he had been a wrestling fan for most of his life. Costas, in fact, was the first major sports announcer to do radio play-by-play of WWF wrestling and also hosted an NBC special on pro wrestling which at the time was heavily criticized for going too easy on the subject. He had even agreed to appear at Wrestlemania VII, but pulled out because he disagreed with the company's exploitation of the Persian Gulf War in the main event angle, and lost his interest in pro wrestling around that time.

But as late as last year, he did the prologue for a very positive television special on St. Louis wrestling and Sam Muchnick, which Costas was a fan of, that was good enough to win a regional Emmy Award. He said he enjoyed the humor and the soap opera but didn't enjoy the vulgarity and said you didn't need it in wrestling. McMahon went off on a rampage saying if people wanted to see the wrestling you liked, that would be the wrestling I'd give them

Costas that brought up the Lionel Tate case. Costas never should have brought this case up because there are simply too many questions involved and nothing that reasonably links it to pro wrestling. There are stronger cases (an accidental death in Dallas where one child clotheslined his sister who hit her head on landing and told the police he was imitating Steve Austin) and this was a brutal outright murder and not kids playing doing wrestling moves and accidentally hurting a playmate. McMahon yelled at Costas for not knowing his facts, and McMahon was correct, but his histrionics at this point and head movement made him look like Chief Jay Strongbow in the 70s to make himself a caricature and come off badly when he was right. McMahon noted the child was convicted when it appeared Costas thought the trial was still going on.

"If you had done the slightest bit of research" McMahon started saying, telling him he would know that wrestling had nothing to do with the case. Costas, showing he did at least some research, but in fact, not enough, knew the judge had thrown wrestling out as a legal defense as he pointed out, which has nothing to do whether the child was inspired by wrestling as much as if he was, that is no defense against murder.

As is well documented, the judge in fact did believe wrestling had nothing to do with it, but did so, because he believed there was no form of wrestling which someone stomps repeatedly on someone half their size while lying on the ground. Had Costas done his research, he would have known that aspect when McMahon denied it could have possibly been wrestling related. Some jurors rejection of wrestling being part of the trial, and jurors after the fact said so, was because the judge refused to allow any evidence that would indicate that into the case to begin with. McMahon then made the laughable statement that you can't fool and judge or a jury.

Costas brought up degradation and objectification of women, which McMahon denied was part of the show, but the entire Jerry Lawler character as well as many of the women characters are based on that exact premise. McMahon claimed the women did it of their own volition. While they can say no, Amy Dumas just last week in an interview said she was uncomfortable doing the shower scene angle and the lingerie segments and Trish Stratus doesn't like the fact that even though her niece isn't allowed to watch the show her aunt is a major star in, she gets taunts in school from the kids who do.

Everyone knows when women in the business say no, they are quickly labeled as Sable's, Sunny's and Missy Hyatt's, and the company's look to replace them with women who don't have as much business background and maybe are more appreciative of the huge paycheck and take the money and don't complain because they know that is what is expected of women in a man's business.

Costas final point was bringing up safety and the Owen Hart death. McMahon stated the WWF, out of respect for Hart, would never have a wrestler do a similar stunt. He did say the bar does get raised in wrestling, as it does in all sports, and some things have also been toned down, which is both a fair and accurate statement as they have gimmicked many of the more spectacular stunts over the past year to lessen the injury risk.

Although many people saw it differently, while watching the show, even though McMahon was verbally out of control and Costas was almost amazing in staying composed and not getting into a shouting match or being lured into the personality arguments McMahon was starting that most hosts would fall into which would then cloud every point made by both sides, I never once got the impression McMahon would have really done anything physical. He did attempt to be intimidating. But if he had, he would have certainly greatly threatened his NBC relationship and at that point been a complete embarrassment to the network, not to mention his standing as owner of a public company.

The show ended with McMahon being the most visibly sarcastic of any guest in the history of television in how he was saying he enjoyed being on the show.

A lot to go through there. What was the reaction to Vince's appearance on the show, and what did Vince think about it when it was over?

Meltzer reported - The heat between the WWF and Jerry Lawler reached an unexpected crossroads on 3/17 on WMC-TV in Memphis as WWF pulled its developmental deal from Power Pro Wrestling over their decision to use Lawler and Stacy Carter after at one point agreeing to allow it.

PPW owner Randy Hales was put in the middle of the feud, and made the decision to go with the proven ratings drawing power locally of Lawler, a decision WMC-TV management somewhat pushed for, when the WWF forced his hand.

After Lawler quit the WWF on 2/27, the WWF asked Hales not to put Lawler on the 3/3 show. On 3/10, it wasn't an issue because Lawler went on a vacation to Florida. During the interim, WMC-TV, concerned about falling ratings, asked Hales if he could bring Lawler back. Hales, on 3/14, talked with Bruce Prichard and noted that the station wanted Lawler on the show and told Prichard that they would agree that Lawler would have no interaction on the show with any WWF personnel. Prichard said that if Lawler was on the show, the WWF would pull the talent.

The next day, Hales spoke with Jim Ross, who not only gave approval for Hales using Lawler on the show, but even worked with Hales in formulating the angle with Eaton. At that point Hales put out publicity that Lawler would return on the show and talk about his leaving the WWF, and WMC-TV began promoting it not only on the station, but also on its newscast that night which is the highest rated newscast in Memphis and as the NBC affiliate, it almost always draws its best ratings on Thursday because it comes on after E.R. Dave Brown, who doubles as the wrestling announcer, used Lawler's return to explain on television why he was no longer on WWF television as a major news story.

Even though some markets would think it hurts credibility of a newscaster to host wrestling and some would certainly point to that as self-serving news for an 11 p.m. newscast, Brown, is the most popular, and considered in nearly every local poll as the single most credible news voice in Memphis from his decades as the weatherman on the station.

At 4 p.m. on 3/16, Prichard called and said the WWF had just had a meeting and was reversing its position and Lawler couldn't appear on the show. Hales made the decision to go with Lawler instead of the WWF deal, perhaps thinking in the back of his head that Lawler would likely wind up with WCW and WCW desperately needed a training grounds and he can offer live weekly highly rated television for them to learn both the in-ring and television projection and interview aspects of the trade.

Prichard suggested the WWF talent appear on the 3/17 show to give Hales a smooth transition, with PPW champ Pete Gas and TV champ Rodrageous (Rodney of Mean Street Posse) dropping their titles on TV and the rest of the talent being blown off in some fashion, and then debuting Lawler on 3/24. Hales felt with the advertising out, it would make the station look bad, and in particular Brown and the news division, to have run with the story to hype a show that was expected to do much better than usual ratings and not deliver the goods.

WMC-TV, different from virtually all local television wrestling deals, pays the promotion $1,500 weekly for the live show, so Hales first loyalty has to be to the ratings and Lawler is the biggest ratings draw. Hales told WWF that the station was largely insistent upon Lawler being brought back and with his contract for the show coming due, he felt that was the decision he had to make. Hales was under a WWF deal, although his major source of income was from doing the television.

The two sides starting working together, after Lawler had pulled the developmental deal from Hales to Golden, because Ch. 30 had pulled Golden's television. The television was brought back, originally scheduled to a 1:30 a.m. time slot, but instead, Ch. 30 put it back in the traditional Memphis time slot. Even when Golden had Lawler and occasional WWF stars and Hales had almost nothing, the WMC-TV tradition kept them usually ahead in the ratings game.

On 3/3, when Golden's show opened with a tape of a Lawler match for his big show in Jonesboro, AR started at a whopping 2.89 rating, almost identical to the 2.99 that the WMC-TV show started at. Once the Lawler match ended, the audience switched and to show what that means, head-to-head, the WMC-TV show did a 3.20 rating for Steve Bradley vs. Pete Gas while the Golden show did a 1.82 for HHH vs. Kurt Angle for the WWF title.

What's your memories of all of this?

Meltzer wrote - Ross did an article in the new Raw Magazine ripping on critics who berated his XFL work. You know what is funny that many have pointed out, that while Matt Vasgersian did baseball for the Brewers, on a national basis, he is best known as the voice of FX' Tough Man show, which in most ways has to be called a lot more low rent than WWF programming. Ross in particular took perhaps the single most ignorant remark written about him, the one about how can someone be the best wrestling announcer, does it mean he can read a script better than the other guy, and indicted an entire media out of it.

Advice to everyone regarding "the media." Just like in all forms of everything, there are smart people, good people, total assholes, and ignoramuses. "The media" isn't against the XFL.

Many members of the media are, to be sure, for whatever reason including the personality of McMahon himself and how it plays out to the non-wrestling fan. Many criticize it fairly. The PUBLIC, not the media, caused it to flop and pointing out the ratings is not wanting it to fail, or even saying it has proven thus far to be a failure is not wanting it to fail, it is just taking the data at hand and acknowledging the reality.

It drew a huge rating the first week so everyone sampled it and didn't come back, thus must not have liked it enough. It may have been presented wrong and may just not have been a viable economic product for this time. Ross then talked about the "poor, insecure pathetic people of the media" to stand up or the fans of the WWF are normal, intelligent people who happen to like the WWF.

Some fit into that category and some don't. I think the saddest thing was reading this and then recognizing that McMahon's remarks regarding the announcing of the XFL came out the same week

Any memories of this?

Meltzer reported - WWF reached a deal with Sekani, Inc. to handle the company videotape archives and get them ready for potential video-on-demand or internet broadcasts since the company will end up owning 40 years of its own footage as well as the old WCW/Crockett library and the ECW library. Vince McMahon said on some recent interviews that they don't have any plans to do a 24-hour wrestling channel. According to an article in the Hollywood Reporter, Sekani, Inc. plans to digitize the WWF video library, which dates back to the 60s, which is largely at this point just to make pulling up footage a lot easier than having to search through thousands of hours of tape and film. The article said that at this point, there are no specific plans as to what to do with this footage, only that when technology changes to digital, they'll be ready

That takes us to WrestleMania 17

A. Justin Credible & X-Pac beat Steve Blackman & Grandmaster Sexay in 2:46 in a match for Sunday Night Heat. There didn't seem any purpose to this and the crowd didn't care. Albert took out GMS allowing the other two to superkick Blackman and X-Pac pinned him. X & JC & Albert are now known collectively as The X Factor.

Chris Jericho pinned William Regal in 7:08 to retain the IC title. Match was fine, in some ways well wrestled by Regal although Jericho had one of those matches where he was slightly off on things. Where it ended up disappointing is that it was just too short. Jericho opened by slightly overshooting on a pescado. Paul Heyman did a good job setting the stage for the match, which was built around Regal working on Jericho's shoulder, saying Jericho was injured from being in the Regal stretch on Smackdown. Regal posted Jericho's shoulder twice. Jericho came back with a lionsault, but Regal got his knees up. Crowd was quiet except when they teased a signature move. Regal undid the turnbuckle pad and rammed Jericho's left shoulder into it twice. Jericho came back with two enzuigiri's and a missile dropkick for a near fall. Regal did a double-arm superplex off the top. Regal stretch but Jericho made the ropes, and came back with a lionsault for the pin. Crowd wasn't ready for the match to end. **

Out in the back, Shane McMahon arrived in a limousine bearing the license plate 'WCW 1.'

Elsewhere in the arena, The APA smoked cigars with Jacqueline. Texas native Bradshaw proceeded to recall every major event that had happened in the arena.

Bradshaw & Faarooq & Tazz beat Goodfather & Bull Buchanan & Val Venis in 3:53. Jackie DDT's Steven Richards right away, and it looked nasty. Mainly heat on Tazz, who had a spot messed up when he was sent into the ropes. Goodfather then sat on Tazz' face while being off on a legdrop, which may have hurt Tazz. Match ended abruptly with Goodfather missing a tackle into the buckles, and Bradshaw pinning him with the clothesline. Nothing to the match. 1/2*

Backstage, Trish Stratus wheeled Linda McMahon in her wheelchair. Stephanie McMahon approached and ordered Trish to hand crush some ice ready to celebrate Vince beating Shane later on.

Kane won the hardcore title over Raven & Big Show in 9:18. No Pete Rose this year in the Kane match. They tried to do something different from the rest of the show and have most of the match backstage. Not before Kane did a flying clothesline off the top rope to the floor on Show. Backstage Raven went flying through a plate glass window and ended up being all cut up. Show was whipped through a door. He and Kane fought in a small room and they went through the wall into another room Raven was in. They ended up driving golf carts and Kane ran over Raven's ankle. Match ended up going too long. Finish saw them back on the stage in front of the crowd and there was a crash pit by the stage. Show had Raven up for a press slam when Kane kicked them both off the stage. To make sure everyone knew it was a gimmicked spot, Kane jumped off the stage into the apparent foam rubber laden pit, bouncing like little kids at a playground, and pinned Show. This wouldn't be the last time something this silly was on the show. *3/4

Backstage, Edge and Christian wanted to know if Kurt Angle wanted to go and celebrate with them after they all won their matches tonight, but The Olympic Gold Medalist was too concerned with watching a video of Chris Benoit making him tap.

"If your hand taps the mat but there's no official referee and no official bell and it wasn't an official match, then officially you didn't tap," said Angle

WWF Champion The Rock arrived at the arena, hung up his title belt and jacket, and walked off again.

Eddy Guerrero pinned Test to win the European title in 8:30. Perry Saturn came out with Guerrero, wearing a funny hat which was a cross between a Buff Bagwell hat decorated with the furry stuff Bruiser Brody used to wear on his boots. Real visual size problem here with Test a legit 6-6 and Guerrero at 5-6 1/2. At one point Test got his ankle caught in the ropes and the ref couldn't break him loose. At another spot Guerrero just fell out of the ring. Finally, after far too long, Guerrero and Saturn sort of had to break character and spread the ropes to get him free. Test came back with a tilt-a-whirl slam and a tilt-a-whirl into a power bomb for a near fall. Saturn did sort of a fisherman's buster on Test when the ref wasn't looking, which they are giving a long silly name to. They talked a lot about Guerrero's family history in wrestling. Test did a pump handle slam on Guerrero and punched Saturn, but Guerrero kicked out of the pin. Dean Malenko came out and distracted the ref while Guerrero got the title belt and hit Test with it for the pin. **1/4

Backstage, Michael Cole interviewed Mick Foley and Steve Austin walked into his dressing room to a huge pop

Kurt Angle pinned Chris Benoit in 14:02. Angle insulted the Texas crowd to make sure Benoit got a decent face reaction, because the Benoit turn psychologically hasn't been handled well and fans really haven't seen it as any kind of a turn, because if you pay attention, it hasn't been. They did awesome matwork early. Like the best matwork in this country in years. Angle basically did all his amateur takedowns and was tremendous in doing so, and gave Benoit openings for escapes and reversals.

Fans politely applauded the matwork, which was a risk because when you have such a large audience, the real wrestling fan percentage is usually low as compared to people who are going to the one show of their lifetime and aren't going to be as into the wrestling itself as a smaller crowd would figure to be. They kept this up for several minutes and the crowd still appreciated it until Angle did the subtle heel forearm and sending Benoit into steps. Angle started suplexing Benoit all over the place. Benoit came back with a superplex off the top and a rolling german suplex and then Benoit used Angle's ankle lock on him.

Benoit also got a crossface and Angle needed to make the ropes, but then Angle got the crossface, and actually did a more believable version of the move than Benoit, for a rope break. There was a weak and needless ref bump here. This match was getting over in a different type of suspension of disbelief manner, and the ref bump really hurt the match because it woke everyone up to the fact what they were watching was the same as everything else on the show. The ref bump was for Benoit to get the crossface and for Angle to tap, setting the stage for Benoit being screwed. But since they were already doing that in the post-match interview, it didn't seem to serve a purpose. Angle used the newly named "Angle slam" for a near fall.

He went for a moonsault, but Benoit got his knees up, which actually hit Angle in the face and his moonsault positioning was off. Benoit used a diving head-butt for a near fall but Angle got the pin out of nowhere using the tights. This was the old Jack Brisco-Dory Funk Jr. psychology in that both would work a scientific match, but Funk would heel while keep world champion wrestler credibility by showing he could really wrestle, but take subtle shortcuts, which because of the context, got over better than all the overt heel tactics in the undercard usually. Very similar to early Don Frye in Japan in that in the context of a match that looks real, something simple like not breaking clean on the ropes can generate a ton of heat. After the match, Angle did an interview and Benoit attacked him and put him in the crossface and Angle tapped again. ****1/4

Backstage, William Regal found Kamala standing on his desk

Up next, a video package showed us some of the WWF superstars taking part in a Wrestlemania pep-rally with members of the armed forces.

Back in the arena, Kevin Kelly tried to interview Kurt Angle, but Benoit attacked him and put him in the crossface

A second video package followed this one highlighting the rivalry between Chyna and WWF Women's Champion Ivory.

Chyna won the Women's title from Ivory in 2:39. Chyna has dropped a lot of weight, slimming down but also dropping a lot of muscle mass to try and give her a more mainstream look. Match was terrible because it was a total ego show. Chyna blew off the injury angle. Ivory hit her with a belt shot at the bell, but she made a quick comeback and it was a one-sided squash. Chyna gave her a power bomb, then lifted her up at two. She then gave her a press-slam and pinned her by just laying backwards like it was a piece of cake, showing no respect to her at all. -*

Jeff Bagwell and Moises Alou of the Astros were interviewed at ringside. Bagwell said wrestlers were great actors.  What was the reaction to those comments?

Backstage, Vince made sure that Trish Stratus knew to bring Linda down to the ring during his match with Shane.

Michael Cole then interrupted him to discuss Shane buying WCW, but Vince wasn't interested in that.

We then see a video chronicling the the rivalry between the Vince & Shane, including Vince telling Shane that he wished he'd never been born.

The feud started with Vince's disapproval of Mick Foley's job as then-WWF commissioner as well as Foley's decision of holding a six-man Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon 2000, taking into consideration about the well-being of the wrestlers involved in the match. Despite his attempts Foley was given full support by Linda McMahon. Not pleased with this result, Vince immediately demanded a divorce from Linda. Shortly after Armageddon, it was revealed Linda was rushed to hospital suffering with a nervous breakdown. With Linda hospitalized, the Board of Directors appointed Vince as the new CEO of the WWF, allowing him to fire Foley as commissioner.

With Linda in a coma-like state, Vince started to have a public affair with Trish Strarus. At No Way Out, Stephanie and Trish squared off, with Stephanie scoring the victory after interference by William Regal. On the February 26th Raw, however, during a match that placed Vince and Trish against Stephanie and William Regal, Stratus ended up having sewage dumped over her.

In the following weeks Vince continued to demean Trish by having her do such actions as bark like a dog around the ring and stripping down to her lingerie. On the March 12th Raw, Shane McMahon made his return to the WWF.  Shane started to attack Vince only to be stopped by William Regal. Earlier we talked about how their feud was escalated when Shane bought WCW in storyline from under Vince

How did these two train for this match and who helped them do so?

Shane McMahon pinned Vince McMahon in a street fight in 14:12. Shane pointed out the WCW talent in the building before the match, which was a funny reaction since he was the face and the crowd turned on him. Stephanie came out with Vince and slapped Shane early.

Shane got a kendo stick and started hitting his father. The gimmick with the kendo sticks is if you get hit in the middle, there is a lot of give, but on the ends, it hurts like hell.

Vince potatoed Shane at one point as late in the match he was getting a mouse on his eye. Vince isn't a well trained worker physically in that his stuff looks bad, but he knows how to play a crowd and is willing to get hit. The big spot was Shane coming off the top rope through the spanish announcers' table when Vince was pulled to safety by Stephanie. Trish wheeled out Linda for the big spot. Trish slapped Vince, which was all the revenge this girl was getting. Stephanie and Trish brawled to the back.

With Linda supposedly all doped up, Vince called her a bitch, pulled her out of her wheelchair and put her in a chair in the corner and kept verbally abusing her. Vince threatened to beat up Linda, but ref Mick Foley stopped him and he and Vince had their fights including Vince hitting him twice with chair shots. Vince grabbed a garbage can to hit Shane, but Linda got up out of the chair and gave Vince a low blow. Shane then put a garbage can in front of Vince's face and came off the top rope all the way across the ring with a dropkick to the garbage can, a modified Van Terminator for the pin. ***

Earlier that weekend, at the Axxess convention, Kevin Kelly interrupted The Hardy Boyz autograph signing to ask them about TLC. Matt and Jeff were nervous but also excited.

Back in the arena, Triple H sat in his dressing room grunting while Undertaker hung out in the boiler room, shadow boxing. The two would meet later on in the show, but TLC was next.

Edge & Christian regained the WWF tag titles in a three-way tables, ladders and chairs match over The Dudleys and Matt & Jeff Hardy. They announced Lita was injured, but had been airing stuff from the weekend showing her being fine. Christian took an early bump where it looked like he was supposed to crotch himself, but overshot the ropes and crashed on the floor and it looked like he'd be done for the match, but he got up and seemed fine.

They brought the ladder in just 45 seconds in. Lots of bumps off the ladder. At one point Buh Buh power bombed Jeff onto Edge through a table. They set up two stacks of two tables for the last stunt in the match. Spike Dudley showed up and gave the Acid drop to Edge and put Christian through a table. Rhyno came in and speared Buh Buh.

He then put Matt through the table. Lita came out and hit a huracanrana on Rhyno. Dudleys did the old doomsday device on Rhyno. Lita then took off her shirt, revealing her bra, but for her trouble, they 3-D'd her through a table. Jeff pulled out a 14-foot ladder to set up the swanton dive off the top onto Rhyno and Spike and putting all three through a table. Jeff was to set up a spot where he'd jump from ladder to ladder and grab the belts, although he'd be thwarted. However, he messed up the first time when the ladders lost balance. He went back to do it again and did it right, which momentarily conjured up thoughts of a Sabu stunt show.

This time when he was hanging, Edge climbed halfway up the 14-foot ladder and gave him a flying spear causing Hardy to land from close to ten feet on his back. Matt and Buh Buh climbed up, but the ladders were shoved by Rhyno and they took a spectacular bump over the top rope crashing through the two sets of two stacked up tables set side by side. Finish saw Rhyno pick Christian up on his shoulders and climb the ladder with Christian on his back so he could grab the belts and come down as the winner. ****3/4

Howard Finkel announced that Wrestlemania 17 had set an all-time attendance record for any event at the Houston Astrodome of 67,925 fans.

Before the Gimmick Battle Royal, Gene Okerlund was introduced as our guest play-by-play announcer and Bobby Heenan came to the ring, making his first WrestleMania appearance since Wrestlemania 9 as the  special guest color analyst.

How did Bobby & Gene's returns here come about?

Iron Sheik won a short old-timers Battle Royal in 3:05. The ring intros were campy, as was the commentary by Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan. Sheik was so immobile than coming down the aisle and moving so slowly, Heenan joked Sheik wouldn't make it to the ring until Wrestlemania 38. Originally Gillberg was to be in the Battle Royal but he was pulled from the show because they were afraid it might start a "Goldberg" chant, which was a smart move on their part.

Remainder of the guys in were Bushwhackers, Duke Droese, Earthquake, Goon, Doink the Clown, Kimala, Kim Chee, Repo Man, Jim Cornette, Nikolai Volkoff, Freebird Michael Hayes, One Man Gang (George Gray, who apparently came as Gang instead of Akeem because he had lost so much weight his Akeem costume didn't fit), Gobbledy Gooker, Tugboat, Hillbilly Jim, Brother Love and Sgt. Slaughter. A lot of the wrestlers got no reaction, which isn't a surprise, because many of them in their heyday also got no reaction. Bushwhackers as cult favorites, Hayes, who was big in Texas, Love, from Houston and Jim, more because of having catchy entrance music, got nice reactions. Guys were thrown out as quick as possible leaving Sheik alone in the ring as the winner. Slaughter then put Sheik in a cobra clutch after the match and Sheik went out and Slaughter's music played. DUD

The next match was Undertaker vs Triple H

After defeating Steve Austin in a 2 out of 3 falls match at No Way Out, Triple H felt that he deserved to be in the WrestleMania main event having defeated everyone in the WWF, including The Rock and Austin. The Undertaker took exception to that and told him that Triple H had never defeated him, the two had never faced each other in a one-on-one match on a ppv

During his entrance for a Hardcore title match against The Big Show, Triple H attacked Undertaker. Kane ran in and saved the Undertaker but ended up being attacked by The Big Show.

On the following episode of Smackdown, Undertaker tried to break into the limousine of Triple H and his wife, Stephanie, but ended up being arrested by the police. As a result, Kane requested a match against Triple H later that night but lost when The Big Show interfered

A video package followed highlighting the rivalry between Triple H and The Undertaker.

Motorhead then played HHH to the ring

Why was it decided to put Undertaker and HHH together here?

Undertaker pinned HHH in 18:17. Motorhead played HHH's music as he came to the ring. The lead singer didn't know the words, so that was funny. It's funny because HHH never does a clean job, and he did here, and instead of elevating a new star, he put over an established star which is so smart politically doing a clean job on the biggest show of the year while at the same time not making a new star. Both guys worked really hard, as you'd figure. They quickly broke the second spanish announcers table. HHH got the sledge hammer early but ref Mike Chioda took it away. Undertaker catapulted HHH into Chioda.

Undertaker used a choke slam but Chioda was groggy and got there slow, so HHH kicked out. Undertaker then kicked and elbow dropped the ref. Luckily that is no longer a DQ. HHH took a nice bump over the top. The two went into the stands and brawled. HHH gave Undertaker a hard chair shot to the back and a not so hard shot to the head, being he just got the staples out.

HHH delivered eight more chair shots, which was strange in hindsight since that was the finish of the main event.

They brawled into this camera pit and Undertaker choke slammed HHH over the pit into this gimmicked gymnastics pit. This was so stupid because the camera just showed this unbelievable site of HHH going over this railing disappearing into thin air as Ross talked about a big drop onto concrete. They showed more replays of the same thing. Then they killed it with the final replay, actually showing his landing was into a gimmicked foam rubber pit, basically turning the match from serious to comedy and making Ross look bad trying to sell it as devastating.

Undertaker, like a young kid at a Jungle Gym, did an elbow drop into the pit making it even sillier since you could see the foam rubber protect his fall. Even sillier, the EMT's came out for HHH and Undertaker attacked them. By the time they got back in the ring, it was nearly 14 minutes into the match. Undertaker got the sledge hammer and teased using it forever. Instead, HHH had time for a low blow. They traded punches until Undertaker used the tombstone, but again no ref. Undertaker set up the last ride power bomb, but HHH hit him in the head with the sledge hammer and potatoed him, busting Undertaker up. Undertaker quickly came back and won with a last ride power bomb. ***1/2

They would go on to have 2 more WrestleMania matches against each other. Out of the 3 matches they ended up having, where do you rank this one?

The next match was the main event, for the World Title, World Champion Rock defending against Steve Austin.

First, we see a video with the song “My Way” by Limp Bizkit showing the events that led up to this match

The Rock and Steve Austin had previously wrestled for the World Title at WrestleMania 15 and Backlash both in 1999, with Austin winning both matches.

In the buildup to the match, Austin's then wife Debra, was ordered by Vince to be The Rock's manager

This was quickly dropped, and during the match at WM, neither you or Paul mentioned it. Why was it dropped so quickly?

Getting back to the WM buildup, On the March 12th Rawm The Rock was placed in an ankle lock during his rematch with Kurt Angle. When Debra went to check on The Rock, Angle also placed her into an Ankle Lock. Austin ran in to save her and knocked Angle out of the ring. He then gave The Rock a stunner.

The following week on Raw is War, during a handicap tag team match involving The Rock, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, and William Regal, Austin made his way down to the ring and ended up getting a Rock Bottom from The Rock in response to the stunner from the previous week.

You did a sit down interview with Austin and Rock. During it, Austin told Rock that he needs to beat him for the title, he said he needs it more than anything. Steve has said those comments were a shoot. What's your memories of that interview?

Steve Austin won the WWF title from Rock in 28:06. Hot pace early. The vast majority of the crowd cheered Austin. You couldn't hear any boos for Austin, even when he did the full-fledged turn. There were always some cheers for Rock, but the boos would quickly overwhelm the cheers. Austin undid the turnbuckle padding. Austin hit Rock with the ring bell. Before this happened, Rock stumbled and fell down to grab the blade that Earl Hebner dropped on the ground for him. Very obvious as TV caught it all. Austin beat on him to open the cut up worse. Rock came back and put Austin's forehead into the exposed turnbuckle and he bladed.

Austin catapulted Rock into the post and he juiced even more. Austin hit him with one of the monitors and put on the sharpshooter, with the bloody Austin being reminiscent of the Bret Hart vs. Austin match four years ago at Mania where Austin made his face turn. Austin made the ropes. Austin then put the sharpshooter on Rock, but Rock didn't make the ropes and powered out. Austin put it on a second time and Rock made the ropes.

Austin used the cobra clutch, the old million dollar dream finisher he used as the Ringmaster in 1996 but Rock kicked off the ropes while in the old backwards for a near fall, the pin that Hart got on Austin at Survivor Series in 1996 (older fans will remember it as the finish of the 1971 match where Pedro Morales beat Ivan Koloff for the WWWF title). Rock hit a stunner for a near fall when Vince came out. Austin hit Rock's spinebuster for a near fall and Rock came back with a spinebuster and people's elbow and McMahon broke up the pin with a save. Rock went after Vince but Austin gave him the rock bottom for a near fall.

Austin used a low blow and held Rock for McMahon to hit him with a chair. Even at this point the crowd refused to turn on Austin even though the belief was the McMahon heel character was strong enough to turn him, they wouldn't turn on this night. They traded more near falls including Rock using the rock bottom and Austin using the stunner. McMahon gave Austin a chair to use again but Rock kicked out. Finally Austin went berserk using a chair and hit Rock up and down his body at least 15 times before scoring the pin. Austin and McMahon shook hands and drank beer together after the match. Fans still cheered Austin and after they left, when Rock finally recovered, he was still being booed. ****1/2

How did you prepare for what you were going to say once this happened? Did you decide ahead of time or did you just let your emotions guide you as you were talking?

Steve has said over the years that next to him walking out in 2002 instead of losing to Brock Lesnar that turning heel here was the biggest mistake of his career, and if he could do it over, he would've called an audible and hit Vince with the stunner. However, he has said that turning heel here was his idea, because he felt like he was getting stale and needed a change.

Talk about when you first heard that Steve wanted to turn heel here, and what was your thoughts about it, did you think that it would work?

How was Steve feeling backstage after the match? Did he feel the turn went good and this heel run was going to be a success?

It ultimately wasn't a success, especially from a business standpoint, because after Austin's turn, ratings, merchandise, attendance and PPV all dropped, in most cases significantly, which are all documented.  In hindsight, how would you of booked the ending to this match or would you of kept everything the same?

The next night on Raw, we saw a rematch in a cage between Austin and Rock for the title. HHH eventually came down with a sledgehammer and after making it seem all ngiht that he was unhappy with Vince for siding with his hated rival Steve Austin, HHH hit Rock with the sledgehammer and he and Austin brutalized Rock to end the show.

Rock would be given a suspension by Vince to be written off TV for a few months, so he could go film Scorpion King.

On Smackdown, you did an in ring interview with Austin, and he attacked you and beat you up badly to try and solidify his heel turn. What's your memories of that?

When did you first realize that this just wasn't working?

Do you feel that Austin turning heel effectively ended the Attitude Era?

Over the years, a lot of fans have debated that WrestleMania 17 is either the best WrestleMania of all time, or definitely in the top 3. You were apart of many WrestleManias, where would you rank WrestleMania 17 on your list?