A WrestleMania X-Seven Retrospective From Inside The Astrodome

The Greatest Of All Time?

The reaction in the stadium was still mostly one of celebration, tinged with confusion. Among the 67,000 attendees I had been one of a small minority who was supporting The Rock at the start of the match, and as it became clear what was happening I was surprised that barely anyone else was being recruited to our side. Most of the crowd didn’t seem to mind that their hero was breaking the rules or even that Austin had “sold his soul for the WWF title”, as Heyman put it on commentary. It was almost as though fans were seeing it as Vince joining Stone Cold rather than the other way around. As we filed out of the stadium into the Houston night I couldn’t decide how I felt about the move – the second year in a row that Wrestlemania had ended with a heel victory, after fifteen years of the top good guy reliably ending the show on a feel-good note. In any case, this was the end of our Wrestlemania experience – back then the “Raw after Mania” was only just becoming recognised as an important occasion and in 2001 it wasn’t even happening in Houston, but 250 miles away in Fort Worth. We had been there in person for the start of a new chapter, but like most of the world we would watch what followed on television.

We all know what came next: the Rattlesnake’s heel turn was by his own admission a mistake, and in later years he admitted that if he could do it all again he would call an audible post-match and hit McMahon with a stunner to immediately cancel their alliance. More broadly, the purchase of WCW (and later of ECW, who filed for bankruptcy three days after Wrestlemania) led to one of the biggest missed opportunities in the industry’s history, with the “invasion” storyline that dominated the rest of the year panned by most critics. That weekend in Houston is regarded by many as the end of pro wrestling’s boom period, after which a WWF devoid of serious competition never quite regained its mojo. All of that may be true, and there is no doubt that this unforgettable spectacle took place at the most consequential moment for the McMahon empire since at least the steroid trial of 1994, if not since the inaugural Wrestlemania in 1985. But what about the show itself? Was it the greatest edition of wrestling’s Super Bowl that was ever produced?

The answer, of course, is a matter of taste but there are a few reasons to think it might be slightly overrated: the poor build to many of the top matches meant that fans’ emotional investment in many of the storylines was somewhat superficial; the (unrealistic) expectations raised in the week before the show about how WCW’s purchase might impact the night could never be met; and the finish of the main event seems in hindsight to have been a mistake – a move that might have worked in front of a pro-Rock crowd in Miami but not less than a hundred miles from the town where Steve Austin grew up. For what it’s worth, despite my obvious soft spot for an event that I attended, I have always thought that the nineteenth instalment two years later in Seattle was the high point in the show’s history. All of that being said, and for all of its imperfections, Wrestlemania X-Seven was a raucous celebration of the most successful era in WWF history – a victory party at the end of the Monday Night Wars which was headlined by the winning side’s two biggest megastars facing off. To have been there in person still feels very special, as though I was present for an important historic event. After the dust settled in the Astrodome the wrestling world had changed forever, and nothing would ever be the same again.

SIDE BAR: WRESTLEMANIA X-SEVEN RESULTS

Sunday 1st April 2001; Reliant Astrodome, Houston, TX.

1. WWF Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho (c) defeated William Regal (7:08)
2. Tazz and The APA defeated Right to Censor (Bull Buchanan, Goodfather and Val Venis) (3:52)
3. WWF Hardcore Title: Kane defeated Raven (c) and Big Show (9:17)
4. WWF European Title: Eddie Guerrero defeated Test (c) (8:30)
5. Kurt Angle defeated Chris Benoit (14:04)
6. WWF Women’s Title: Chyna defeated Ivory (c) (2:39)
7. Street Fight: Shane McMahon defeated Vince McMahon (14:12)
8. Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match for WWF Tag Titles: Edge and Christian defeated The Dudley Boyz (c) and The Hardy Boyz (15:47)
9. Gimmick Battle Royal: The Iron Sheik won by last eliminating Hillbilly Jim (3:07)
10. The Undertaker defeated Triple H (18:19)
11. WWF Title: Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated The Rock (c) (28:08)

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