Match of the Day - X-Punk whips Shane-O-Mac and HHH & Chyna join the dark side at WM15

X-Pac vs. Shane McMahon - European title match - WrestleMania XV (1999)

As a much younger, full time mark, I had a special best of WrestleMania DVD (one of the first DVDs I ever owned) that chronicled some of the best matches and events at the grandest stage of them all from WMI to WMXV. Whether it was the fact that my attention spend gave out right before the end of the video and I was getting antsy or that this particular WrestleMania was just the most exciting to my young brain, I remember always getting really amped up when this match was being recapped! 

And then there's the swerve: As X-Pac laid out Shane McMahon via the X-Factor and was about to cover him for the won, Triple H and Chyna come down to ringside and pulled Test out of the ring. Then Chyna distracted the ref while Triple H climbed into the ring and does the unthinkable. Triple H pedigrees X-Pac and drapes Shane-O-Mac over his unconscious friend, signifying that Triple H and Chyna had turned on their own team/stable and gone to the dark side: The Corporation.

Just one year before this, Triple H introduced the returning X-Pac as the new member of D-Generation X on Raw the night after WMXIV!

Theme results:

WrestleMania: WMXV

Match of the Day - Jerry Lynn's WWF debut

Jerry Lynn vs. Crash Holly - Light Heavyweight title match - WWF Sunday Night Heat (Backlash pre-show) (2001)

In honor of Jerry Lynn, one of the most underrated workers in wrestling, calling it quits for real this time last Saturday night, here's a little gem of him during his short stint in WWF after making a name for himself in ECW...

In Jerry Lynn's first match on WWF television, the New F'N Show challenged Crash Holly for his Light Heavyweight belt. And won.

Crash Holly, an already 11 time Hardcore champion by this time showed that he could also wrestle without weapons (or his cousin Bob) as he held his own pretty well in this precursor to the Cruiserweight Division in WWE type match. Unfortunately for Crash however, Lynn got the better of him and ended his one time reign as Light Heavyweight champ via a quick roll-up and a little help from tights.

Lynn would go on to hold the title from April until June of that year before dropping the belt to Jeff Hardy on Smackdown! Lynn didn't get much air-time on WWF other than that and some dark matches and matches on Heat with Rob Van Dam (who he has had countless solid matches with) and even a young debuting Chris Daniels.

Props to WWF for letting Paul Heyman talk up Jerry Lynn during this match - including amention of Lynn's early feud in GWF with "X-Pac" (who was The Lightning Kid at the time) in the early 90's.

Bonus: In Jerry Lynn's retirement match facing off against Horace the Psychopath, JB Task, and Sean "X-Pac" Waltman, Waltman supposedly tore open his anus performing his signature Bronco Buster. I shit you not! It's even on Wikipedia... check it out.

Spectators had no idea that Waltman was hurt; they thought that he was crying after the match because Jerry Lynn is now retired.

Match of the Day - DX take on The Oddities w/The Inane Clown Posse

D-Generation X (Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, & X-Pac) vs. The Oddities (Kurrgan, Golga, & Giant Silva) - Raw is War (1998)

I know, I know, ICP again? Well, at least they're not wresting this time. Wouldn't that be something, though?

Psych! It would be awful.

I'm not going to lie, The Oddities, consisting of Kurrgan (the really big guy that fought Sherlock Holmes in the first RD Jr. series), Giant Silva (the 90's Great Khali if Great Khali could wrestle even a little), and Golga (a smaller John "Earthquake" Tenta under a gold mask and a love for Cartman) along with D-Generation X had my favorite entrance music of this time. I was young...

Not too long after this, Shaggy and Scoob... I mean... Violent J, would turn their backs on The Oddities and side with an even more off-color team, The Headbangers (Mosh & Thrasher).

Match of the Day - Road Dogg gets his a-double-crooked-letter handed to him by Bradshaw

The new Age Outlaws (c) vs. The Acolytes - WWF Royal Rumble (2000)

Speaking of tag teams in 2000, here's two of the all time greatest tag teams, The New Age Outlaws and The Acolytes (soon to be starting their own protection agency as APA). With Road Dogg and Badd Ass Billy Gunn and their charismatic attitudes and The Acolytes with their brute strength, these two teams didn't need tables, ladders, and chairs to prove they were great. Dogg and Gunn did need the help of their friend X-Pac to win this match however.

This match is mostly memorable for the fact that Bradshaw, a competitor who didn't know his own strength, supposedly knocked out The Road Dogg not once but twice during this match. The New Age Outlaws would still retain the titles after the ref bump and interference by Pac, but just to watch Bradshaw and Faarooq manhandle James and Gunn like they were The Roadie and Rockabilly again, man, really made The Acolytes look tough.

Maybe I'm just bias because this was about the time I really started to get into the WWF but RR 2000 has to one of the most memorable Royal Rumbles in the history of Royal Rumbles. And that's tough for even me to say because I've seen every Royal Rumble until RR 2009.

This Royal Rumble as featured the debut of Tazz in WWF, The spot hungry Hardy Boyz taking on the wood hungry Dudley Boyz in the first-ever tag team tables match, the swimsuit contest where Mae Young flashes her "puppies", the forgettable Chris Jericho vs. Chyna feud moment when Hardcore Holly was also involved, The unforgettable return of Cactus Jack 2000 vs. Triple H in the street fight where Hunter gets a piece of plywood stuck in his leg, and the Royal Rumble match that The Rock wins and Taka Michinoku takes a hilariously painful looking bump.