WrestleMania X-Seven

WrestleMania X-Seven (also known as WrestleMania 17) was the 17th annual

A record-breaking attendance for the Reliant Astrodome of 67,925 grossed US$3.5 million.^[4] Many in professional wrestling considered Wrestlemania X-Seven to be the pinnacle of the company's famous Attitude Era as the WWF bought out rival competition WCW the week prior. In addition to its commercial success, the event has received acclaim from critics and fans, and is often regarded as the greatest WrestleMania of all time, and the greatest professional wrestling pay-per-view event ever produced.^[5]

Production

Background

The main feud leading into WrestleMania X-Seven involved

The secondary feud leading into the event pitted

Another major feud that was built up in the lead to WrestleMania was the one involving Vince McMahon and his son

Because, dad, the deal is finalized... with WCW, and the name on the contract does say "McMahon". However, the contract reads "Shane McMahon". That's right! I now own WCW! And, dad, just like

WCW did in the past, how it kicked your ass in the past and it will again, that's exactly what's going to happen to you this Sunday at WrestleMania!

— Shane McMahon on the series finale of WCW Monday Nitro, talking to Vince McMahon who was at Raw is War.^[14][15]

To make matters worse for Vince, Mick Foley appeared shortly afterward that night and revealed that prior to his firing, Linda had made multiple contracts for him to sign, one of them was for Foley to referee a match of his choice at WrestleMania. Foley then chose the match between Vince and Shane, which was designated a street fight.

At the

Event

Before the event aired

The third match was the triple threat hardcore match between Raven, Kane and The Big Show for the WWF Hardcore Championship. Raven came out with a shopping cart full of weapons. Kane and Raven began fighting before Big Show made his entrance. During the match, the three wrestlers fought their way out of the ring and through the crowd into the backstage area. Big Show tried to lock himself, Raven and the referee in a security cage but Kane broke the padlock and afterward threw Raven through a glass window. Big Show and Kane continued to brawl ending with the two throwing each other through a wall. Raven tried to escape by driving off in a golf cart, but Big Show stopped him and caused him to crash. The golf cart also ran over some cords that allegedly almost knocked the power out of the building. Kane shortly followed with another golf cart, accompanied by the referee, and ran into Raven. The fight headed back into the stadium with Big Show attempting to press slam Raven off the entrance stage but both were kicked off it by Kane. Kane followed this with a diving leg drop off the stage onto Big Show, pinning him to become the new Hardcore Champion.^[18]

The fourth match was the WWF European Championship match between Test and Eddie Guerrero. During the match, Test went over the top rope but got his foot caught between the top two ropes, forcing the referee and Guerrero to have to untangle him. With the help of his fellow Radicalz members Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn, Guerrero hit Test in the face with the European Championship belt while the referee was distracted and pinned him to become the new champion.^[17]

The fifth match pitted Kurt Angle against Chris Benoit. The match started with mat wrestling between the two but Angle soon punched Benoit out of frustration and threw him out of the ring, so he could throw him into the broadcast table and the steel steps. Back in the ring, both men tried to submit their opponent using the other's signature hold with Benoit using the ankle lock on Angle, and Angle using the Crippler Crossface on Benoit. Benoit eventually succeeded in forcing Angle to tap out to the Crippler Crossface but the referee was knocked down and didn't see it. Near the end of the match, Benoit tried to pin Angle after a diving headbutt but was met with a two-count. Angle then quickly rolled-up Benoit, using the tights for leverage to win the match.

The following match saw Chyna challenge the WWF Women's Champion Ivory. After an early bit of offense from Ivory, Chyna performed a Chynabomb and looked to have the pinfall, but picked Ivory up after the 2-count. Chyna then performed a gorilla press drop and nonchalantly pinned Ivory to win the Women's Championship.

The seventh match was the street fight between Shane McMahon and Vince McMahon with Mick Foley as the special guest referee. Shane dominated his father during the earlier part of the match by attacking him with various weapons such as a kendo stick and monitors from the Spanish broadcast table. Shane laid Vince on said table and performed a diving elbow drop off the top rope but his sister, Stephanie, pulled Vince out of the way, causing Shane to crash through it. Trish Stratus came towards the ring, pushing Linda McMahon out in a wheelchair, and then slapped Vince, causing her and Stephanie to get into a fight that led them out of the stadium. As referee Foley tried to wheel Linda out to safety, Vince hit him with a steel chair, and then pulled Linda into the ring to make her watch as he beat down Shane with a garbage can. However, Linda stood up and low-blowed Vince, allowing Foley to recover and attack him. With Vince prone in the corner, Shane placed a garbage can in front of Vince's face and hit a Coast-to-Coast dropkick, pinning his father to win the match.

The eighth match, dubbed "TLC II",

The ninth match was a gimmick battle royal, involving nineteen WWF alumni famous for their outlandish gimmicks. To further increase the nostalgia, former announcers "Mean Gene" Okerlund and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan handled commentary for the match. The Iron Sheik won the match by throwing Hillbilly Jim out of the ring. In revenge for being eliminated, Sgt. Slaughter reentered the ring and put him in the Cobra Clutch.^[16]

The penultimate match was between The Undertaker and Triple H. For his entrance, Triple H had British heavy metal band Motörhead perform his theme song, "The Game", live. The match started with the two fighting outside of the ring with Triple H quickly being put through the replacement Spanish announcers' table. Later on, referee Mike Chioda accidentally had Triple H catapulted into him and was then attacked by Undertaker due to his dissatisfaction over a two-count. With Chioda knocked out, the two brawled outside the ring, through the crowd, and into the technical area. On top of scaffolding, Triple H used a steel chair to attack Undertaker's legs, but Undertaker retaliated with a chokeslam off the scaffolding, followed by a diving elbow drop. Back in the ring, Undertaker hit Triple H with a Tombstone piledriver and went for the pin but Chioda was still unconscious. Later in the match, Triple H tried to pin Undertaker after hitting him in the head with a sledgehammer while in the Last Ride position but only gained a two-count. Triple H sent Undertaker into the corner and stood on the second rope to hit him with more punches, but Undertaker countered with a Last Ride, allowing him to pin Triple H and increase his WrestleMania winning streak to 9–0.^[20]

The final contest of the night was the

X-Seven was also awarded Best Major Show for 2001 by Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter. The Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match for the WWF Tag Team Championship between The Hardy Boys, Edge and Christian and The Dudley Boyz was also placed #5 on IGN's list of Top 20 Matches in WrestleMania History and noted that the match included "some of the most memorable bumps wrestling fans have ever witnessed."^[22] D-Von Dudley expressed his belief that the match should be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, stating: "In my opinion, I think that we should — you know, the n.W.o got inducted into the Hall of Fame and those guys were already in it. How about a TLC induction? How about recognizing how special that match was? Because think about it, not only was the match special, but they actually named a pay-per-view after it. So, you know, it has some relevance to it to be special, so why not put that match in the Hall of Fame?"^[23] Matt Hardy said it was his favourite career TLC match.^[24]

In 2013, WWE released a list of their "15 best pay-per-views ever", with WrestleMania X-Seven ranked at number one.^[25] In 2019, Troy L. Smith of cleveland.com released a list of the "50 greatest wrestling pay-per-views of all time" from every professional wrestling promotion in the world, with WrestleMania X-Seven again ranked at number one.^[26]

The promotional match preview video package for the main event, set to Limp Bizkit's My Way, is widely considered one of the greatest wrestling video packages of all time.^[27][28]

Aftermath

The following night on Raw, Austin and The Rock faced each other in a rematch held in a

Following The Rock's suspension, Triple H's feud with the Brothers of Destruction continued with Austin now on his side. On the edition of April 5, 2001, of SmackDown!, Triple H challenged Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho for his title and after interference from Commissioner William Regal and his wife Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley defeated Jericho to win his third Intercontinental Championship.^[31] The feud with Undertaker and Kane was temporarily put on hold after Triple H and Austin entered a brief rivalry with the Hardy Boyz, which resulted in Jeff Hardy beating Triple H for the Intercontinental Championship the following week and Triple H promptly regaining the title the next Monday on Raw.

Meanwhile, the Brothers of Destruction defeated Edge and Christian to become the new WWF Tag Team Champions on the edition of April 19, 2001, of SmackDown! in a no-disqualification match. Austin and Triple H decided to challenge Undertaker and Kane for their newly won titles, but due to some wrangling by Linda McMahon the match between the teams signed for Backlash forced the two to put up their singles titles against the tag team titles in a "winner-take-all" match. Triple H scored the pin after attacking Kane with his sledgehammer and the Power Trip became the second team in WWF history to hold both major singles titles and the tag team titles at the same time.^[32] The feud came to a climax at Judgment Day when Austin defeated Undertaker to retain the WWF Championship while Kane defeated Triple H for the Intercontinental Championship.^[33] The next night Austin and Triple H lost the tag team titles to Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit; during the course of the match Triple H tore his quadriceps tendon and would miss the remainder of the year, leaving Austin to feud with the tag team champions alone.^[34] The feud culminated in a Triple Threat Match at King of the Ring, where Austin pinned Benoit to retain the WWF Championship. Ten years later in 2011, Undertaker and Triple H would once again renew their rivalry, went on to face each other in a rematch at WrestleMania XXVII with The Undertaker defeating HHH via submission, to set his WrestleMania winning streak to 19–0. A year later, they faced each other a third time at WrestleMania XXVIII in a Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels as the special guest referee. The Undertaker once again won the match to extend his WrestleMania winning streak to 20–0.

Due to the acquisition of WCW, Vince's feud with Shane would later spiral into The Invasion storyline that dominated the WWF in the latter half of the year. It consisted of WCW wrestlers "invading" the WWF's televised shows in an attempt to "take over" the WWF. The Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion would also be involved with Stephanie as its new owner, merging WCW and ECW into The Alliance. Despite giving her own demands for a divorce shortly after WrestleMania, Linda would eventually reconcile with Vince in the wake of the Alliance's threat to the WWF.

Shane McMahon's next feud would involve Kurt Angle as he would crash Angle's Olympic Gold Medal Ceremony reenactment on the May 21 edition of Raw. Angle was celebrating the return of his Gold Medal from Chris Benoit which he won back the previous night at Judgment Day. Shane mocked him while declaring the return of WCW, and he got an Angle slam for his efforts. Shane would return the favor on the June 11 edition of Raw with an assist from The Undertaker. The two would eventually meet in a streetfight at King of the Ring, which was the third of three matches for Kurt Angle on the night.

The other two matches were the Semifinals and Final of the King of the Ring tournament which Angle was the defending champion. He would lose to Edge thanks to interference from Shane. Following King of the Ring, Edge let success go to his head and this led to Christian becoming jealous of Edge's success. They would break up on the September 3, 2001, edition of Raw following Christian's loss to The Rock in a WCW title match. After a brief feud for the WWF Intercontinental Championship, both would go on to become successful singles wrestlers in their own right with Edge being best known as the "Rated R Superstar."

This would be the only WrestleMania for Paul Heyman as a commentator. However he has served in a variety of roles for the WWE for the better part of the time since, including creative team member and manager of his longtime friend and client Brock Lesnar.

Results