WWF Raw Is War 10/01/2000By Nick Sellers| January 9, 2012 WWF Through the years (2000) Quick recap- HHH had defeated Rikishi on Smackdown to retain the WWF title but tensions are mounting in the rest of DX, as the friction grows between them. Mick Foley returned to batter the Fake Mankind and cause more problems to HHH and his stranglehold over the company. Raw Is War 10/1/2000 Live from St. Louis Quick results We open with The Rock and the entire WWF roster (minus DX) holding the show hostage until their demands are met. HHH and Steph are forced to do the following: – The want to reinstate Mick Foley, which is obliged. – Foley then makes HHH defend the WWF title against him for the Rumble. – They want DX to face each other in matches, so they book Mr.Ass vs Road Dogg and X-Pac vs Triple H. – They also want Rock, Foley and the Acolytes to face all of DX in the main event, which is also granted. Road Dogg beats Billy Gunn. Gunn went for the Fameasser but Road Dogg countered it into the Pumphandle Drop. The Hardyz defeated Kurt Angle and Steve Blackman, with Blackman taking the fall. Kurt technically remains undefeated since he didn’t suffer the loss. Val Venis defeated Edge to retain the European title. The Holly Cousins pinned Chris Jericho and Chyna after Jericho left Chyna to the wolves, refusing a tag. He storms off with the Intercontinental belt afterwards. Triple H defeated X-Pac thanks to Steph’s interference. Too Cool & Rikishi defeated Al Snow and The Headbangers. Snow went mental again after the match. He just can’t find a tag team partner, can he? The Dudleyz match with Godfather and D’Lo Brown went to a no-Contest as the Dduleyz started messing with the ho’s. Big Show & Test defeated Big Boss Man and Prince Albert. All of DX defeated Rock, Mankind and the Acolytes when HHH pinned Foley, despite the rest of his group walking out on him. Mankind destroyed him afterwards with a bunch of weapons. DX Explodes?- Outlaw vs Outlaw and Kliq vs Kliq The tension in the DX camp was in full force again here in Saint Louis, and isn’t it just delightful television? Up first, Outlaw vs Outlaw, the tag team champions forced to do battle with each other via The Rock’s uprising during the opening. The match told a fine story in a short space of time; at first the tag team partners were reluctant to lay any force into each other but they gradually became more competitive as the match progressed. Top marks too for the finish, with Billy going for the Fameasser only to have it countered by Road Dogg into a Pumphandle Drop for the pin. Nicely done. Triple H and X-Pac would square up later on in the and you won’t be surprised to read/see that they tore the house down, especially X-Pac. Looking back on this, I genuinely think that X-Pac could’ve gone further in the industry than he actually did; his quickness, technique and selling in particular were just fantastic. I’m not sure what it was that prevented him going that extra step, but the potential was certainly there. You don’t need me to tell you how brilliant Triple H was at this point either. This was great, and it’s almost a shame that they never had a particularly high profile feud against one another, I’m sure HHH would’ve made X-Pac look like a real star too. Still, this added more bite to the DX shenanigans tonight and Steph’s involvement in the finish keeps asking the questions and in turn keeps the viewers hooked. The 8-Man tag main event progressed not just the friction within DX, but also the growing hatred between Triple H and Mick Foley. The crowd were eating up the babyface rampage here against a usually dominant heel faction, and they delighted in seeing the unruly HHH get something of a comeuppance through most of it. Once again though he proved his worth as the WWF Champion by getting the winning pin over Foley. If anything this just makes HHH even more detestable to the crowd; they KNOW he’s excellent and he actually DOES backup what he says, which is what every great heel should absolutely strive for. The post-match brawl where Foley gets a measure of revenge on HHH sets things up very nicely for the Rumble. HHH’s winning the match despite the awkward situation proved that Mankind needed to dig deeper and up his game for the Rumble title match, and it’s like losing the actual pinfall lit a fire in his belly post-match. Again, wonderful storytelling and this thankfully continues well after this show went into the record books. The World Rock Federation- Rock calls the shots. The opening segment with Rock & the rest of the superstars holding the company hostage accomplished several goals. 1) We found out that Mick Foley would be facing Triple H at the Royal Rumble for the WWF title and… 2) We heard Rock announce himself into the Rumble match. That’s your headline acts for the PPV virtually sorted and you’ve secured at least a few thousand more buys just from these aspects. Of course the Rumble would do well regardless, but it all helps build the anticipation when you’ve got a title match like that planned and when you know Rock is likely going to dominate the Rumble. 3) We had the DX matches made which gives us another good running theme for the rest of the show. I mentioned in the Smackdown recap from the last week about how this was vital to sustain the viewers’ interest and once again it’s been provided here. 4) World Rock Federation. Who wouldn’t have loved that? Midcard Musings- The other stuff Chyna and Chris Jericho teamed up yet again against the Holly cousins and this time they managed to put their squabbles aside for the most part, showing in storyline terms that they’d actually began to gel better. Naturally they weren’t quite on the same page yet, and Jericho’s shenanigans in avoiding the tag and costing them the win keeps this simmering hatred brewing on the road to the Royal Rumble. Perfectly good segment and slowly but surely this is getting much more interesting. Val Venis and Edge contested a good TV match for the European strap with Val getting the duke, crisp Fisherman Suplex and all. It ends with a nice segment where Val, Edge and Christian all hug in celebration of Edge’s engagement to Val’s sister and Christian being his best man. To the best of my knowledge this wasn’t for any storyline purposes and they didn’t play up to it for that purpose, but it was an interesting enough backdrop to a good TV match. Too Cool and Rikishi annihilated Al Snow and The Headbangers. Personally I’d have liked to have seen the company kick on with Rikishi’s momentum a little better seeing as he’d just come out of an excellent title match with HHH last week on Smackdown, but Al Snow seemed to be the focal point here and it centred around him still not being able to gel with another set of tag team partners. At least it was fun to see Rikishi and Too Cool dominating them. The tag bout with Test & Big Show vs Boss Man and Albert was short but sweet enough, certainly the most entertaining of the interactions between Test and his respective nemeses’ in recent shows. Again, I’d like to have seen Big Show do a little more tonight considering how he’d just lost the title and had obliterated X-Pac last week, I felt they could’ve kicked on with him a bit better. He still looked dominant though. Tensions mounted between Steve Blackman and Kurt Angle as the team lost to the Hardy Boys. Angle never took the pin so he can technically claim to still be undefeated and it’ll give him more whining ammunition in his promos. The match itself was another fine television contest for free TV and the Hardyz were absolutely the right call in the booking stakes here. Simple: While Angle was probably the more high profile name in the match, it makes perfect sense that the Hardyz experience as a team would serve them better in this match type. Good stuff. The Dudleyz began a rather dangerous path in terms of how they treat their women. The tag match with Godfather and D’lo resulted in a no contest after the Dudleyz, ahem, introduced themselves to Godfather’s ho’s. It adds another dimension the Dudleyz characters in that they don’t care who they roughen up, even women. You’d struggle to get away with stuff like this today, but at the time it just reaffirmed the point that you just do not mess with the Dudleyz. As we’ll see in future episodes, this was tame in comparison to what they’d soon be getting up to. Overall- Raw was rocking this week, the DX stuff is terrific TV and the Rumble build was top banana. Things progressed nicely in the midcard storylines too, even with the DX stuff dominating the shows headlines. Worth a Watch for… Outlaw vs Outlaw, HHH vs X-Pac and the main event. So basically anything involving DX. But actually the whole show is a fun way to kill 2 hours. The only reason I haven’t deemed the rest to be as much as a worthwhile watch is because there are bigger, better segments with the midcard crop in over the next few shows which are far more interesting. Next up, Smackdown from later on in the week. Two words: Cactus Jack. And will the DX tension continue or can they put their squabbles aside? Follow me on twitter: @Nick_Sellers #WorldRockFederation
