10 WWE Backlash Matches That Should Have Happened At WrestleMania

WrestleMania 2000 only had a single one-on-one match on its card. Can you remember what it was? If you said Terri Runnels Vs. The Kat in a Catfight, with Val Venis as the Special Guest Referee, you know how disjointed the first 'Mania of the 21st century was.

It could've been so much better with some quick fixes. This will be revisited later, but for now it's Kurt Angle Vs. Chris Benoit Vs. Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental and European Championships that's being changed. On paper, this sounds like the perfect match for the year 2000, but it went less than 15 minutes and it was just the Chrises pinning each other to take the straps off Angle. Like most of the card, it felt like the entire thing was rushed; there was potential, but they didn't meet expectations.

Later that month, with sports entertainment's only Olympic gold medalist taking on Big Show cosplaying as Hulk Hogan (isn't this meant to be one of the best pay-per-views ever?) WWE put on Benoit Vs. Jericho in a much better match at Backlash. The contest was a true display of technical wrestling, the kind that didn't happen at 'Mania. The feud was far more intense, the crowd was even more into it, and some of the reversals were like nothing Attitude Era fans had seen before.

Sure, it ended in a disqualification (and is difficult/impossible to revisit), but this match was unquestionably better than the Triple Threat earlier in the month. Angle can have a perfect match with anyone; if they'd booked the main event right, he could've even faced the Showster at 'Mania instead.

Sometimes WWE has to try something and perfect it later. That happened between WrestleMania and Backlash in 2000, more than once...