Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

HHH in 2000


goodhelmet

Recommended Posts

I want to add HHH vs Benoit from sometime early 2000/around No Way Out (It's an episode of Smackdown where every member of the Radicalz get a match for a contract).

 

Solid TV match with Haitch making Benoit look like gold. Sure he beat him, but dammit for a second it looked like Benoit could beat him.

 

It's this match:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can someone explain the argument being made here.Is it that 2000 was HHH's peak year for inring work?

Is the argument that 2000 HHH was better than 2000 Kuroda, 97 DDP, 89 Luger, 92 Nikita, 2006 Booker T, 2001 Austin, 92 Dustin, etc?

That 2000 Triple H was a great year. Not better than everybody, just all round great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can someone explain the argument being made here.Is it that 2000 was HHH's peak year for inring work?

Is the argument that 2000 HHH was better than 2000 Kuroda, 97 DDP, 89 Luger, 92 Nikita, 2006 Booker T, 2001 Austin, 92 Dustin, etc?

 

At the old board, Dylan Waco argued that HHH's 2000 was nothing special and laid out 100 wrestlers who had better years than HHH had in 2000. The argument resurfaced in the Raw thread and I laid a direct challenge at FSW's feet... explain why HHH had such a great 2000. Give examples, review matches, etc. So far, he has not really been up to the task. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Can someone explain the argument being made here.Is it that 2000 was HHH's peak year for inring work?

Is the argument that 2000 HHH was better than 2000 Kuroda, 97 DDP, 89 Luger, 92 Nikita, 2006 Booker T, 2001 Austin, 92 Dustin, etc?

 

At the old board, Dylan Waco argued that HHH's 2000 was nothing special and laid out 100 wrestlers who had better years than HHH had in 2000. The argument resurfaced in the Raw thread and I laid a direct challenge at FSW's feet... explain why HHH had such a great 2000. Give examples, review matches, etc. So far, he has not really been up to the task. 

 

Wasn't Dylan's deal that it was 100 wrestlers better than HHH period? And it got silly? Or am I mixing up threads?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope, it was 100 years that were better than Triple H in 2000, with his added caveat of not using any one guy twice.  I remember agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, and not having seen enough on some, but it's been awhile.

 

There was also the Dustin of the Day, when Schneider and Tom K were doing the "50 Dustin Rhodes matches better than any HHH match ever" idea, which I didn't completely agree with the premise, I was fine with, because Dustin is fucking awesome.

 

Then there was also the Lonce~! (Lance Storm) vs. the World polls, where Dean put poor, poor Lance against a ton of different guys of all levels, which eventually turned into a long-ass series of polls involving all sorts of things, including Faces of Fear vs. Jack Kirby and Rob Liefeld, which nearly broke my poor brain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Triple H vs Chris Jericho -Last Man Standing Match Fully Loaded 2000.

 

Man I hate Last Man Standing matches. The concept is great in terms of everything but the finish. I've never seen an LMS match end without being somewhat deflating because they big spot finish is great but the ten count kills the crowd. And normally these matches devalue every finisher because they use multiple as near falls.

 

Anyway the story to this match is that Jericho is the cocky upstart taking on the big dog. The feud is built around Jericho kissing Stephanie, then ruining a bunch of Hunter's proper rivalries by costing him matches. He also gets Hunter stinkfaced! Yes! Anyway Hunter asks for Jericho, then he and DX beat the shit out of him, and give him the sledgehammer to the gut. This means that Jericho has the "internal injuries" gimmick going on, including the mythical "bandages around the midsection". Early on, that's the story of the match, obviously. They brawl into the crowd, with Jericho perhaps unreasonably holding his own in that situation. It's amazing the difference between Jericho and Hunter in everything. Jericho looks a rung beneath Hunter in everything, slower and looser and just less threatening. At the time, 14 year old me wanted a Jericho title run as much as the next guy. Looking back on this, and a few other related videos, it's clear why that didn't happen. He just doesn't feel like a star, the way Ziggler doesn't. Anyway Hunter eventually cuts him off and there's an extended heat section mostly based around Jericho being pugnacious and gutsy and Hunter beating the shit out of him.

 

One of the reasons I think I liked Hunter so much back in the day, is that his offence was based around his own body part rather than his opponents. I wasn't watching the pro wres critically back then, but I was always a big fan of the knee attacked Hunter did. The running knee, knee smash, dropping the knee on a downed opponent etc was different and stood out. It helped that he was so crisp with the timing too. This heat segment is pretty great, Hunter is kneeing(~!) him in the gut over and over, then hooks in a pretty neat abdominal stretch that twists somewhat in the wrong direction and yet still looks worse. Jericho gets more or less nothing in here.  Hunter gets a sleeper on Jericho, which is great because he hooks in a body scissors and basically engulfs Jericho's tiny frame with it. It's like the giant squid alien thing in Prometheus. Jericho gets up from the resulting ten count, gets a flurry, then hits the Lionsault onto Hunter's knees(~!). He gets up again and starts calling Hunter out, not fighting back just getting beaten down. I believe this is what you creepy Japan watchers call fighting spirit? This leads into a good old fashioned American Pedigree.

 

At this point in the match, Hunter is doing a great job playing the dominant veteran. He grinds Jericho down, kisses the old lady a few times, sits back and watches the count. After the Pedigree he lays along the top rope like Michaels used to, and watches the count. Jericho starts getting up around 8ish and Hunter gets mad and goes outside for a chair. This is where the match picks up the pace and really gets going. Unfortunately it's also where Jericho starts getting offence in. After another count Jericho finally gets the momentum and really if this was anyone less bumpy than Hunter, it would look gash. He throws one neat charshot leading to a standard crimson mask for Hunter then starts doing his spots, notably the bulldog that implies that his one handed shove can force a 260lb man into a chair face first. He gets the LIontamer on, which quite frankly looks like a quad popper at this point because Hunter is about four times Jericho's height. Maybe a lift fell out? Hunter sells it like death, getting to the ropes and then climbing to the second... which surely increases the pressure on his back? Anwyay Jericho pulls him in again and JR says something about the mean streak Jericho has always needed. Steph hits him to break the hold and gets a Liontamer of her own.

 

Jericho has basically turned the tide at this moment and to be fair both guys are doing that part of the story really well. Jericho comes off as fighty and tough, Hunter comes off as a guy struggling to hold on and a little bit underprepared for the amount of fight Jericho has brought. Man I love Hunter's punches. I know you guys like the real ones, but Hunter does these cool downward "precise" ones that look badass. The end basically comes as Jericho is on top. He sling shots Hunter into the ring post on the mat, gets the sledge and hits him in the gut because turnabout as we know is fairplay. Hunter ends up on the table, Jericho sets up for a Lionsault from the wall to Hunter on the announce table, Hunter low blows him, then backdrops him through the table. Hunter pops up at 9 1/4, then falls at 10 and wins.

 

I feel like most of what was good in this match was Hunter. It's by no means a showcase for him, or the match I'd put as the best example of Triple H's 2000 being great, but it's a pretty good showing for him. The story of the match is really well done. Jericho, shitty moves aside, is really good as the upstart babyface trying to prove himself, and the switch in the match, pretty much exactly half way through, works well with both guys. Arrogance costs Hunter what was looking like a routine win for him, but Jericho's cockiness lets Hunter back into it periodically, and also results in the finish too. It's a pretty great elevator match for Jericho, moving him up from Eddie, Road Dogg and Chyna etc in the midcard. Hunter definitely does most of the work here, and really gives Jericho a lot considering he didn't rate him, at all.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's 11:40 and my window for the night shut but I'll try to have mine done in the next 24 hours. I haven't seen that match since 00 and my opinion on Jericho at 19 was not all that different than yours at 14 and is rather different now. But yeah, it was a good review. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, I'm with Vic and Matt, the review was good.  

The only match review I've ever written that I was happy with was one on Cena/Umaga LMS, but that's been vanished by the old board's death, unless it does manage to phoenix up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll always have a soft spot for that match because I was live in Dallas for it, and at the time, it was easily the best live match I had ever seen.  I was just loving every minute of it, getting into it as a fan, and having no idea who was going to win, not as a person analyzing each move and how it fit into whatever equation of perfection it needed to be.  If you hate the match, so be it, but I thought at the time it was tremendous and became a bigger fan of Jericho and had more begrudging respect for HHH when it was over.

 

 

I feel like Jericho and HHH had bad chemistry. So they never matched up well together.

 

I always hated their 2002 series.  I loved the 2000 matches because it just felt like cocky, asshole HHH who felt like he was better than everybody against the smartass Jericho trying to prove his worth and prove him wrong.  It felt like the real HHH against the real Jericho.  The stuff in 2002 was just anti-climatic, you never for one second thought Jericho had a chance in those matches.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Their Mania match is awful, but the HIAC is pretty good.  Not a classic or anything, but worth watching.

 

Trips was a long way from his 2000 self in 2002 though.  He eventually got back to being sometimes good, but he wasn't nearly there yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, I've watched that match so many times over the years, and I always thought Jericho brought his A game to it, much more so then FSW did. To be fair, I first saw it when I was 10, so childhood memories and all that.

I think that match in particular is a great example of how much Steph added to Hunters act though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can someone explain the argument being made here.Is it that 2000 was HHH's peak year for inring work?Is the argument that 2000 HHH was better than 2000 Kuroda, 97 DDP, 89 Luger, 92 Nikita, 2006 Booker T, 2001 Austin, 92 Dustin, etc?

92 Nikita? What the hell? When did that become a thing?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...