Dave Meltzer’s WWE WrestleMania X-Seven review & star ratings 25 years later

WWE WrestleMania X-Seven took place 25 years ago today so in honor of that, the following is from Dave Meltzer’s April 9, 2001, edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter — available in our archives along with hundreds of back issues from 1991 through the current day for subscribers.

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WrestleMania X-Seven, in almost every way, was the culmination of the wrestling boom.

Much like the fantasy of WrestleMania III, which was the high peak of the 1980s wrestling boom at the Pontiac Silverdome, this show 14 years later, was the all-around greatest major show the World Wrestling Federation ever produced.

While Wrestlemania III was a good show overall and in front of a record crowd, it had an atrocious main event that time that memories have been very kind to and, really, only one great match. The in-ring standards of the WWF with the new crew of wrestlers has gone through the roof in the past two years, blowing away the quality of any previous time period.

From a business standpoint, the show on 4/1 at the Reliant Astrodome was most likely the biggest money overall revenue generating pro wrestling event of all-time. The show set not only the building attendance record with a sellout of 67,925 people, but drew the second-largest crowd in the history of pro wrestling in the United States behind only WrestleMania III for the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match.

The paid attendance was 62,885 was also the second-largest paid crowd ever in North America. 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 V 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 VI at Toronto’s SkyDome for the Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior match.

PPV figures won’t be available for a couple of weeks, but it was certainly thought to have a good shot at breaking the all-time record set for last year’s WrestleMania of 824,000 buys. With the price raised from last year’s $34.95 to $39.95, it likely broke the all-time revenue record but that isn’t a certainty because many fans last year purchased an all-day WrestleMania at $49.95.

The all-time merchandise record for pro wrestling outside of Japan was also destroyed with $1,111,343 in merchandise sales at the event, more than doubling the record set at WrestleMania III of $540,000.

From a production standpoint, it was state of the art and then some. In the ring, while there have been shows with no bad matches and maybe even some with more great matches both domestically as well as internationally, this topped any previous WrestleMania.

Whether it was the best show WWF ever presented is more debatable as there have been numerous great shows over the past year…and this show did have its bad points. Until the plethora of hot shows over the past year, the top WWF PPV has generally been considered to be 1997’s Calgary Stampede which was a two-hour event with only four matches, all of which were good-to-great, but with off the charts heat, particularly for the main event.

WrestleMania X-Seven had a few bad matches, but its three best matches were on par, and in some ways even better, than the main event of the Stampede. It was a four-hour show with far better production and it always seems better when the big show of the year delivers as opposed to just a monthly show being off the charts and then soon forgotten.

The big story in the ring was the Steve Austin heel turn, which went ignored by the live crowd in Houston who were largely there to cheer Austin to the WWF title by any means necessary. That included working heel style from the start, and gaining the title due to lots of help from Vince McMahon, including a handshake and a beer drinking toast. The Astrodome crowd largely ignored that McMahon was even there, only seeing Austin winning the title. It was very interesting because the crowd watching on television, led by the announcers’ reactions, no doubt reacted completely different than the fans in the building as shown on Raw the next night, while still in Texas.

The Austin turn had been on the books for months. Months ago, it seemed natural due to the ascension of the younger Rock who had eclipsed Austin’s mainstream popularity. In recent weeks, plans didn’t change even though the McMahon standard of listening to the audience would have made him take a different path as even with Austin’s nastier demeanor and playing the psychological heel role, the crowd was beginning to boo Rock when the two confronted each other and the company was having to confiscate signs at the TV tapings.

Even months back when the tease for the match began, a Rock interview where he started trash talking Austin saw the crowd turn on him briefly. By the final week, more due to tweaking of Rock’s character, having him punk Austin out a few times on television and be nicer to new employees, the crowd was split in their reactions. But it was a foregone conclusion that wouldn’t be the case at the beginning of the match in Houston. Every appearance on the screen of Rock was met with heavy boos while Austin received thunderous cheers.

Austin jumped him early, Rock made his trademark babyface comebacks, but the crowd booed Rock anyway. Before the show, security was removing tons of negative signs regarding Rock which is why they weren’t evident during the broadcast.

But there were numerous other stories.

The WWF, breaking with longstanding company policy, allowsed references to other federations (Chris Benoit as a former WCW champion who never lost the title, plus Paul Heyman’s repeated references to the defunct ECW championships) and even paid homage to its past with a gimmick battle royal. Sadly, that was more of a hit on the internet than it was to the crowd live, most of whom didn’t seem to know the majority of the competitors.

Quite frankly, the choice of many were strange, as some were big stars of the past, and others were gimmick flops of the past that nobody remembered. The sad end result of Iron Sheik winning was because his knees are so shaky he could barely move, and there was no way he could take any kind of a bump, so he had to be the last one in. Bobby Heenan and Gene Okerlund, in what may be their last major league television appearance after decades of being fixtures in the business, announced the match. They were encouraged to do all the dated 80s cliches they could in a short period of time to establish them as lovable characters from childhood, but that would always stay in the current fans’ childhood.

Generally speaking, except for the fitness buffs among the wrestlers who maintain their playing weight, old-timers matches are not kind to pro wrestlers and thankfully this one was kept short with the emphasis on the ring introductions and the time warp announcing.

Edge & Christian captured their record-setting seventh WWF Tag Team titles (a statistic so meaningless nowadays it was never referred to on the broadcast) in the TLC II match over the Dudleys and Hardys. While some of the wrestlers involved expressed disappointment with the match, it was superior to their SummerSlam match from a psychological standpoint. Even more remarkable was that nobody was seriously injured in a match filled with crazy spots.

From a pure wrestling standpoint, the first five minutes of Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit was the best stuff in American rings in years. They did a worked amateur style with Angle showcasing his obvious talents and allowing Benoit to escape. It says a lot for Angle’s ego and ability to recognize what he’s doing as a work to allow Benoit to appear to be able to outwrestle him in his own specialty.

Benoit, who hadn’t done anything remotely like that in a pro ring in his career and whose only real experience at learning that style was in the mid-80s at the New Japan dojo, had a match that would have been viewed as a near classic on most shows, but ended up fighting for third best of the night.

There were a few negatives. The introduction of WCW talent was a total flop on many levels. It was a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. The basic feeling was that it was too soon to shoot any kind of angle for WWF vs. WCW, since the belief is WCW needs to be rebuilt for a long time first. However, with all the talk regarding the sale and how huge the sale angle was played on television six days earlier, the feeling was there had to be some show of support for Shane McMahon but not at ringside where it would be imperative to shoot an angle.

They flew in Johnny Ace, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, Hugh Morrus, Sean O’Haire, Mark Jindrak, Chuck Palumbo, Mike Sanders, Stacey Keibler and Shawn Stasiak. All with the exception of Ace were people that WWF purchased the WCW contracts of in the sale. The wrestlers were told to bring their gear and their championship belts (in the case of Palumbo & O’Haire), so unless they were shooting publicity photos, they may have had a different idea originally what they were going to do.

They put them in a luxury box. As it turned out, they were brought in together, never brought backstage to talk to any of the wrestlers, and by the time they returned to the hotel, the WWF crew had already left. There is expected to be a meeting with the 24 wrestlers signed and WWF sometime this week. Another reason this group were the specific ones signed is because almost all, if not all of them, have their 90-day cycles expiring within a month so they can be cut loose and renegotiated with if need be imminently as WWF is under no obligation to honor their contracts if they cycle them out soon.

Even though Shane was the strong babyface in his match when he talked about WCW wrestlers and they were shown, without any graphics or mention of who they actually were which made it so rinky dink that the crowd booed them out of the building. The lack of star power meant the first impression of the angle took a lot of steam away from it without people like Ric Flair, DDP, Goldberg, Hulk Hogan or Scott Steiner that virtually all casual fans would think would be part of a purchase of WCW.

It was clear that revitalizing the brand and giving WCW its own television show was going to be an uphill battle, but it looked even steeper after this non-angle.

Some storyline gaffes regarding non-selling of injuries also made parts of the booking WCW-like. Chyna’s career -ending neck injury, which was supposed to give her an achilles heel and explain why she’s now wrestling women, saw her blow off the injury in an interview, saying she was fine, and then sell almost nothing in her one-sided squash title win over Ivory. The only positive is that the fans see her as a star, and the bookers know to keep her ring time short.

A similar situation was more minor involving Lita in the TLC II match. The announcers sold the idea early that she wouldn’t be at ringside (to set up her late run-in) due to injuries suffered on TV when Rhyno speared her. However, in a pre-tape package from festivities earlier in the week, she was shown without any signs of an injury before the announcers talked about that injury.

There were a couple of minor talent issues that surfaced during the week leading up to the show. The complete card was made clear after SmackDown the previous Tuesday, leading to a lot of the wrestlers who had been with the company on the road all year that weren’t booked on the show upset about not sharing in the biggest payday of the year.

By the latter part of the week, the word was out that virtually every full-timer on the roster would have a part in the show in some form except for a few on the bottom rung. The tradition has been those time-wasting battle royals or the hardcore match last year, but with the gimmick battle royal, doing another multi-person match would be overkill.

Then, the night before the show, apparently plans changed and everyone originally off the show was off the show again, likely because they were already doing a four-hour Mania and it wasn’t a good idea to add live matches to Heat. Several wrestlers were vocal, among them Steve Blackman because he had always done his job and been on the road all year, and X-Pac who until recently had always been kept as one of the main players on the squad. X-Pac said he was going to HHH and when show time came, many of the people originally off the show were back on.

Of the guys on the main roster, the ones not on the show were Rikishi (busted eardrum), Scotty 2 Hotty (neck injury), Tori (“Tough Enough”), Billy Gunn, Al Snow (“Tough Enough”), K-Kwik, Crash & Molly Holly, Bob Holly (injury), Big Bossman (his new gimmick hasn’t been introduced yet), Lo Down, Kaientai, Essa Rios, and Terri.

Also appearing on the show in cameos from WWF New York were Lou Albano, Fred Blassie, Jimmy Snuka, and Afa.

WWE WrestleMania X-Seven results & star ratings

Sunday Night Heat pre-show: Justin Credible & X-Pac defeated Steve Blackman & Grandmaster Sexay (2:46)

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.

WWE Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho defeated William Regal to retain (7:08)

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. **

Bradshaw, Faarooq & Tazz defeated The Goodfather, Bull Buchanan & Val Venis (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*

Kane defeated Raven (c) and Big Show in a three-way for the Hardcore title (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 but 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

Eddy Guerrero defeated Test for the WWE European title (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

Kurt Angle defeated Chris Benoit (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

Chyna defeated Ivory for the WWE Women’s title (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 Houston Astros were interviewed at ringside. Bagwell said wrestlers were great actors.

Shane McMahon defeated Vince McMahon in a street fight (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 McMahon 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 potato’d 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 Stratus wheeled out Linda fMcMahon or 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. ***

Edge & Christian defeated The Dudleys (c) and The Hardys in a TLC match for the WWE Tag Team titles (15:50)

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.

The 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

Iron Sheik won a short old-timers battle royal (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 this, 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 (who has lost a lot of weight), Goon, Doink the Clown (without Dink, this was Gary Fall), Kamala, Kim Chee (Steve Lombardi), Repo Man, Jim Cornette, Nikolai Volkoff, Michael Hayes, One Man Gang (who apparently came as Gang instead of Akeem because he had lost so much weight his Akeem costume didn’t fit), Gobbledy Gooker (Hector Guerrero?), 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

Undertaker defeated HHH (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

Steve Austin defeated The Rock for the WWF Championship (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

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