Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': Triple Threat Done Right

My Rating

It would be impossible to explain the wide range of emotions this picture evokes to anyone who did not watch every Monday night through the Monday Night Wars, up through this event.

Chris Benoit is a murderer.

That needs to be established before any further discussion of this match occurs. Covering this match is not an attempt to "save" his legacy or negate anything that happened in his Georgia home; regardless of what health and/or lifestyle factors may have led to the killings (and whether Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or other concussion-and-drug-related brain degeneration played a role in that), Benoit ended his own life in an awful sequence of events.

Knowing all of that, I would be lying if I said that I didn't watch this match with my heart in my throat. Nothing here is a throwaway, and fourteen years after the fact, the drama of the closing sequence is still gripping.

WWE reportedly, at the time, wanted Benoit as "the guy" but did not have the faith that a one-on-one match with Benoit capturing The Big One would move pay-per-view numbers, thus the triple threat.

It's impossible to say in retrospect whether a singles match would have turned out better than this, but it's also impossible not to consider this a main event for the ages (considered in the context of its own time, of course).

There's a cognitive dissonance that comes with loving this match with the full knowledge of what the following handful of years would bring; the Eddie Guerrero reunion after the bell is heart-rending on a number of levels, and the thrill of Benoit finally reaching the pinnacle is, thanks to the pace and storytelling of the contest (and that Garden crowd), a massive shot of adrenaline and pure markdom.

Then, again, we realize where Benoit's path leads.

I'm torn on a rating for the match because praising its virtues (and there are lots of them) seems to ignore the non-kayfabe drama that unspools afterwards. Harping on that, however, ignores the massive sacrifices and theatrics Helmsley and Michaels bring to the match to help boost Benoit into the stratosphere: Benoit is obviously the steak of this match, but his two opponents are the sizzle.

While it's still onscreen, my reaction is to rate it high, at least 9/10; the minute Eddie, Benoit, and the confetti disappear, though, it's hard to justify keeping that rating.

We'll leave this one with that 9/10 but add an asterisk that this is a recommendation to watch 30 minutes of a pro wrestling story told masterfully by three very flawed men, but not an endorsement of those men themselves (though nowhere near Benoit's crimes, HBK and HHH have earned their fair share of scorn throughout their careers). At the very least, if you've become a fan in the era after Benoit made CNN, look to this match to understand why longtime fans are so conflicted about his place in wrestling history.

Meltzer Says

Meltzer (in his 2004 review of the card) gives this one ****3/4; Dave admitted on a recent Talk is Jericho that he has been unable to re-watch a Benoit match in the past decade, so it remains nearly perfect in his archives.

---

Send us news tips at [email protected]