[2000-02-21-WWF-Raw] HHH & X-Pac & Big Show vs Cactus Jack & The Rock & Kane

[soup23]

Opening promo sets up tonight, nothing really earth shattering here. The match itself I thought was a ton of fun and only a smidge behind the 2/7/00 tag. X-Pac was bumping everywhere and everyone else was working hard. For a feud that feels like a clear stop gap to get to Mania, Rock and Big Show does have a lot of juice behind it in the lead up to No Way Out and they have a good brawl on the entranceway in the waning moments of this one. HHH is able to sneak out the pin on Cactus but we get a great visually representation of how on Sunday he has NO WAY OUT by him and Steph retreating to the DX Express and Cactus ramming part of the Raw rig through the windshield. Super go home visual. ***3/4

[Loss]

I remember this opening promo well for Rock mocking HHH's "I am the Game-uh" inflection. HHH had long since dropped that, but it was still funny. Oh the days when HHH would sell the frustration when someone got in some good lines on him. He's also really good at reacting to Cactus as always, like he's trying not to show fear but is still showing fear, but isn't too over the top with it either. So far, I am on board with 2000 as a great year for the guy. The match was pretty fucking great. Hot six-man in front of a 28,000-strong crowd at the Georgia Dome. This was similar to the 10-man tag in how it was worked, but not quite as electric. It's interesting that HHH got the pin on the go-home show. I have no problem with that since Foley was on the verge of retirement anyway, but remember that next time someone talks about a challenger having to beat a champion to set up a pay-per-view match. There's no hard and fast rule that says that's true. Strong post-match angle with Foley running DX and Stephanie out of town. ****