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This was the first ever TLC match for Edge and Christian’s WWF Tag Team Titles.
It’s a mother fucker of a thing.
Certainly, yes, I recognize bias. You have to. Anyone does, trying to talk about anything like this in a fair way. I cannot imagine someone who began watching wrestling in like 2014 holding this in the same esteem as someone, in my case, who began watching wrestling in 1998. Not only in the sense that it is probably nearly impossible to look upon this with even a shadow of awe in a time not only past this, but past things that have followed this like Shelton in MITB matches in the 2000s or Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico, or in their own way, Ultimate X matches, but also in the sense that there is no nostalgia attached either to these matches or these people. I cannot make someone have their first memories of the Hardys being as psychotic underdogs and all-world babyfaces, in the same way that I also cannot make a younger person’s first Dudleys thought be the deeply deeply deeply deeply canceled and, frankly, embarrassingly entertaining Heatwave ’99 promo. My feelings on this match are — if not locked into place by — at least heavily influenced by even just faint shadows of the feeling it gave me the first time I saw it.
Having said all of that, I think it also just objectively rocks.
So often with matches like this now, it feels as if there is a pretense to it on the front end, that [x] amount of time and/or things have to happen before they get into the heavy stuff, but this match is up there with the most confidence per minute metric in the history of matches like this. They get right into it, never pause, and never ever look back. On top of the confidence of it, it also all feel correct. Beyond how little filler there is, almost every single thing seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger, resulting in a near constant state of hearts in throats in the last half. On top of that, it’s also assembled in a way in which the really huge off the ladder out through table stuff is spaced out, so that each instance feels big.
On top of the efficiency and how it’s a genuine marvel of construction, it’s also pure lunacy for eighteen minutes.
With the exception of bump coward protected ass golden boy Edge, there’s nobody here who doesn’t take at least one genuinely psychotic bump or shot. Gross hits with ladders, huge moves off of them, big falls through tables, it’s a match with so many thrills to it. The ultimate compliment is that if one were to make a highlight reel of what happened in the match, they would have to include just about everything, but that’s just as much about the near total lack of cowardice on display as it is about the planning and construction.
That’s not to say the latter doesn’t also rule.
Narratively speaking, the match is imperfect (more later) but also hits a certain sweet spot. Everything in the match comes down to either the Dudleys being too insane and aggressive, the Hardys — especially Jeff — going way too far with any minor opening of a window to go insane, or the champions hitting a perfect antagonistic blend somewhere in between cowardice, opportunism, and pure luck.
Jeff Hardy and D-Von Dudley get stuck up there with no ladder beneath them at the end, and Edge and Christian take advantage. D-Von drops on his own and the champions throw a ladder into Jeff to knock him down before climbing up to get the win.
Despite the reputation, it is not all it can be.
Partially, that just means in terms of how wild it can get. This match feels like — although having an urgency and efficiency that the WrestleMania 2000 version of this did not quite have almost six months prior — it is still just beginning to scratch a little under the surface, and not just because it is almost a quarter century old. Every inch of it is used well, but there’s something about it (and almost definitely this is the result of a direct rematch that goes even crazier but also branches off with each combo also doing the same) that leaves this feeling like the middle part of something too, even if it is an absolute mother fucker of a middle part.
As a result of the booking as well, it denies itself the greatest possible triumph in acting as a narrative stopgap before a far greater emotional payoff the next month.
The WWF being the WWF, these big attention grabbing showcase matches were all won by the team with the clear project guy on them (do not lie to yourself, Edge was as much of a protected ass golden boy as anyone save for a Cena/Orton/Batista/Reigns figure), and so in a match devoted to these gut reaction high spots and pure visceral thrills, it also handicaps itself at least a little by denying the Hardys the feel good hometown win in classic WWF fashion and having the coward champions luck out intead, stringing it along until Unforgiven a month later in one of the great forgotten matches of this golden era. It doesn’t necessarily make this specific match worse or anything, it is a special thing on its own merits, but given the raw material, one cannot help but imagine something even better.
Still, given all that comes — both in the next month and also in the next year — it is hard to be all that annoyed at a match that opts to simply be one of the great displays of raw artillery and creativity of the time. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t allowed to be, but even in the midst of probably the best year in company history, it’s still so impressive when something this great, especially like this, break loose.
One of the all-time stunt show fireworks ass pieces of bullshit, whose only true flaw in that department is that it is probably not even be the best one these teams had against each other in the same twelve month span.
HANDWERK 