Randy Savage’s untimely death reminded me that today is the tenth anniversary of the greatest rassling match I ever attended. Raw came to San Jose, and the tag-team title owned by Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin was on the line against Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. It promised to be a good matchup. Triple H and Austin were not very good technical rasslers, but they had charisma and knew how to play the audience (Triple H in particular was very good at building a dramatic narrative within a match). Benoit and Jericho could take care of the technical side … Jericho (who recently competed on Dancing with the Stars), had both skills and personality, while Benoit was an awful interviewee but was arguably the best all-around in-ring grappler of his day. He had technique, and like Triple H, he knew how to construct a match. All four participants had appeared the day before in a pay-per-view, so they could be forgiven if they were tired and/or hurt, and it seemed unlikely that any big storyline would occur just a day after the PPV. But a good match was certainly a possibility.
The match turned out to be legendary. Not only for the action, which was top-of-the-line, but also because of the injury Triple H incurred near the end of the match. He tore his left quadricep muscle … you’ll see him start dragging his leg … he ended up being out of action for 8 months, yet on that night, he not only finished the match, but allowed himself to be placed in Jericho’s “Walls of Jericho,” which puts stress on precisely the place where Triple H was injured.
By the end of the match, all four stars had pulled off their signature finishing moves, but for various nefarious purposes, none did the job.
Benoit was a favorite of mine, and when he later killed himself and his family, I found myself stepping back from the game. I haven’t paid much attention to rassling the last few years. But I still remember that night in San Jose.
Here is the second half of the match. Triple H blows the leg muscle just past 6:20.
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