I stumbled upon this clip while I was on the Botchamania site, and thought you guys might get a kick out of it. I don’t want to encourage the humanoids who constantly pine for the Attitude Era, but in 2000 Smackdown still mattered. In fact, it was still new and a pretty big deal. Also, listen to that crowd! The story here is really simple: Triple H and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley tried to rig a lottery to get Triple H an easy title defence coming off of a brutal match with The Big Show on RAW. Being the heel champion, that goes poorly for ol’ H, and he ends up defending against the also huge Rikishi, who also happens to be MASSIVELY over. The crowd proceeds to lose their shit over every near-fall that Rikishi gets on the Game, and again when Triple H gets himself intentionally disqualified to save the belt.
That is one thing I miss in WWE nowadays: crowds that give a shit. Rarely will you get a midcarder getting that kind of a reaction when he’s suddenly thrust into a main event, and if you did, that guy would get buried immediately (see Ryder, Zack).
Also, as much as people hate him now, the Triple H of 2000 was a WORKHORSE.
Fun fact: in the opening frame of this clip, I thought Stephanie McMahon was Cactus Jack.
http://youtu.be/L3-21MoVbM4
