10 Best Years In WWE History

2. 2000

Steve Austin Vince McMahon Raw 1997
WWE.com

The year 2000 saw the WWF turn the Monday Night War into a genocide.

Week-to-week storytelling remained a compelling - if unsustainable - beast. But the signing of the Radicalz and the preternatural progress of Kurt Angle ensured that the product was so well-rounded, it catered for most every conceivable branch of the wrestling fandom.

Their technical thrillers were several classes apart from the putrid Mideon and Viscera matches which had previously tainted many an Attitude Era card. While they needed the help of tables, ladders and chairs to do so, Edge and Christian, the Dudley Boyz and the Hardy Boyz reinvented tag team wrestling in a series of brutally dynamic matches, which were more in the spirit of the era than cynical exercises in shortcut-taking.

Not to be outdone, the main event stars more than carried their own weight.

Jim Cornette is right about most things, but he was wrong (at least in part) about Triple H, who if only for a year, wasn't the guy who worked with the guy who made the money in 2000. He was simply the man, and his matches with The Rock, Chris Jericho and Cactus Jack were critical and commercial smashes.

Neither WCW nor ECW could compete, not that the former in particular were equipped to do so. It was suicide as much as it was genocide.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!