Armageddon (2000)

Background in Birmingham, Alabama. In December 1999, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) established Armageddon as their yearly December PPV, after the promotion had ended their In Your House-branded shows earlier that year in February. The second Armageddon event was held on December 10, 2000, at the Birmingham–Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Storylines The central feud heading into Armageddon was between WWF Champion Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and Rikishi inside Hell in a Cell for the WWF Championship. At No Mercy, Angle won the championship from The Rock in a No Disqualification Match. Angle would later retain the title against The Undertaker at Survivor Series and again at Rebellion in a Fatal Four Way Match against The Rock, Rikishi, and Austin. Commissioner Mick Foley would later announce on SmackDown! that Angle would defend his title against The Undertaker, Triple H, Austin, The Rock and Rikishi inside a six-man Hell in a Cell match. Mr. McMahon would try desperately to get all six men to back out, but ultimately failed to do so. Another feud heading into Armageddon was between Chris Jericho and Kane in a Last Man Standing match. It started at Survivor Series when Kane defeated Jericho by pinfall. They would later fight again at Rebellion only for Kane to defeat Jericho. It was later announced on Raw is War that their feud would come to an end at Armageddon in a Last Man Standing match. ==Event==

Before the actual pay-per-view started, Scotty 2 Hotty pinned D'Lo Brown on Sunday Night Heat. Preliminary matches The pay-per-view opened with a six-person intergender tag team elimination match between the Radicalz (Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, and Eddie Guerrero) (with Terri) and Team Xtreme (Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy and Lita). The early stages of the match were dominated by Team Xtreme as Jeff Hardy blocked Guerrero's hurricanrana and then performed his High-Angle Senton, the "Swanton Bomb" on Guerrero for the three-count, eliminating Guerrero. Jeff then executed his Flying Top-Rope Kick, which he calls "Poetry in Motion" on Malenko. However, the momentum began to shift towards the Radicalz when Malenko immediately tagged in Saturn, who promptly eliminated Jeff with a Death Valley driver. Matt then came into the match and blindsided Saturn with a bulldog for a near fall. Matt then attempted a Swinging Neckbreaker, which he calls "Twist of Fate" on Saturn but it was countered into a suplex. Matt tried again and this time nailed it to eliminate Saturn by pinfall. Afterwards, Radicalz manager Terri slapped Matt and Lita speared Terri for her efforts. Malenko took advantage and rolled Matt up from behind for the pin. He wouldn't have long to celebrate though, as Lita performed a headscissors kick on Malenko. She then executed her moonsault, which she calls "Litasault", on Malenko only to have him kick out at two. After taking a subsequent DDT, Malenko superplexed Lita and stopped his own pinfall. He pulled her up from a pin again after a backbreaker, and instead forced Lita to tap to his finisher, the "Texas Cloverleaf". After the match, Michael Cole tried to interview Lita. She responded by saying that she can beat Malenko. ==Reception==

In 2017, Kevin Pantoja of 411Mania gave the event a rating of 3.5 [Bad], writing, "So much of this PPV felt like filler. It was the definition of a one match show. They continually hyped the main event throughout the night and it was the sole focus. Everything else felt like it was there to fill the other two hours. The two tag matches were decent, but something you could get on TV. The only other match with a shot at standing out was Jericho/Kane, but they put on a stinker of a performance. Check out the main event and skip the rest of the show". ==Aftermath==

After Kurt Angle retained the WWF Championship against Stone Cold Steve Austin on the January 8, 2001, episode of Raw is War, Vince McMahon announced that Angle would defend his title against his son-in-law Triple H at the Royal Rumble. Triple H claimed that Angle could only have become the champion because Triple H allowed him to, with which Angle disagreed. At the Royal Rumble, Angle defeated Triple H in a singles match for the WWF Championship following interference from Austin. WWF Commissioner Mick Foley considered resigning due to a promise that he made on SmackDown! leading into the PPV, where if anyone suffered a serious injury in the 6-man Hell in a Cell match, he would resign as Commissioner. Instead, Foley chose to keep his job due to support from Stone Cold Steve Austin and the WWF fans. However, on the December 18 episode of Raw Is War, when the board of directors deemed Linda McMahon incompetent to continue being CEO due to a nervous breakdown from Vince publicly requesting a divorce (kayfabe), granted Vince McMahon 100% control of the WWF, allowing him to fire Foley as Commissioner. The Undertaker also began to feud with Triple H, albeit immediately after HHH's feud with Angle began to wane. On an episode of SmackDown!, The Undertaker had a restraining order placed against him after attacking Triple H's on-screen wife, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, but The Undertaker would exploit a loophole in his restraining order by assigning his kayfabe half-brother, Kane, to stalk Stephanie. When new WWF Commissioner William Regal refused to grant him a match against Triple H at WrestleMania X-Seven, an event The Undertaker had never lost at, he threatened to have Kane throw Stephanie over the balcony above them. Commissioner Regal finally gave The Undertaker his match. The Undertaker would go on to up his WrestleMania record to 9–0 with his victory over Triple H. Stone Cold Steve Austin would go on to enter the Royal Rumble Match at the Royal Rumble despite being attacked and busted open by Triple H before Austin officially participated in it by entering the ring for costing him a chance to become the WWF Champion earlier that night in revenge for Triple H robbing Austin of a reign with the same title on a past episode of Raw is War. On the way he fought long-time rival The Rock, who claimed to have won the Royal Rumble for the second time in a row. At the Royal Rumble, Stone Cold Steve Austin won the match after eliminating Kane. He would go to WrestleMania X-Seven to defeat The Rock in a No Disqualification match to win the WWF Championship with some highly unlikely help from former arch-rival Mr. McMahon, thus beginning his heel turn. The 2000 Armageddon would be the final Armageddon held until 2002, as the originally planned 2001 event was replaced by Vengeance due to the September 11 attacks; the promotion felt that the "Armageddon" name would be offensive to the victims of the attacks. As such, the 2000 event was the final Armageddon held under the WWF name, as in May 2002, the promotion was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It would also be the final Armageddon held before the introduction of the brand extension in March 2002, where the promotion divided its roster between the Raw and SmackDown! brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform. ==Results==

Intergender elimination match ==References==