10 WrestleMania Followup Pay-Per-Views with WrestleMania Rematches

#7. Backlash 2000 pares down WrestleMania 2000's multi-person madness

If at first, you don't succeed, try, try again

WrestleMania 2000 was a bit of a hot mess of a card, where only one match (a catfight between The Kat and Terri Runnels) was a true one-on-one affair; everything else was a mishmash of triple threats, fatal four-ways, and thrown-together tag matches, as well as a nonsensical Hardcore Battle Royal.

The WWF recognized the gold it had in some of those muddled matches and took two contests down to their best and most entertaining elements.

First was the triple threat match for the Intercontinental and European Championships from WrestleMania, where Chris Jericho took the European Title, while Chris Benoit walked away with the Intercontinental Title; Jericho would drop his belt to Eddie Guerrero soon after, then begin a career-defining feud with his fellow Canadian Chris for the Intercontinental Title.

A wonky finish mars an otherwise great first pay-per-view outing for a classic feud

The "Chrises" had their first solo pay-per-view clash at Backlash, and showed flashes of the intensity that would make this feud one of the 2000s best; Jericho lost when, during a ref bump sequence, Y2J answered Benoit hitting the Manitoban with the belt by decking The Crippler with his own championship. It was at this point that referee Tim White came to, disqualified the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla, and took a Walls of Jericho for his efforts.

What most people remember about Backlash 2000, however, is its main event, where The Rock, having been screwed out of the WWF Championship by company owner Vince McMahon and the rest of his fiendish family, got a one-on-one chance to take the belt from Triple H.

If The Rock Rock Bottoming Triple H and Shane McMahon simultaneously through a table happened a month prior, it would have been a classic WrestleMania Moment.

Featuring ref bumps, shenanigans from all McMahons involved, and the return of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin where, to deafening applause, he laid waste to the entire McMahon-Helmsley Era with a steel chair, the match saw its electrifying conclusion with Linda McMahon evening the odds by bringing Earl Hebner to cut through her family's scheming, allowing Rock to hit his spinebuster and People's Elbow to give fans the WrestleMania finish they truly wanted.

Which Worked Better?

Again, Backlash's rehashes were, undoubtedly, the better matches; Jericho and Benoit got more time than they had at Mania (time which they had to share with Kurt Angle and confusing stipulations), and a Rock vs. Triple H solo match was the WrestleMania main event crowds had been clamoring for.