Scotty 2 Hotty reflects on Backlash 2000 and his chemistry with Dean Malenko.
Backlash 2000 takes place smack-dab in the middle of WWE’s Attitude Era. On a show that also featured The Rock defeated Triple H for the World Championship and the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin — who missed the only WrestleMania he would during the era just one month prior — it was the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship match that stole the show for some people.
Scotty 2 Hotty, the vibrant and entertaining persona portrayed by Scott Garland, challenged Dean Malenko for the championship in a match that showcased just how good Scotty could be between the ropes.
Reflecting on the match in an interview with Sean Ross Sapp, Scott says that he and Dean wrestled often on the lesser shows the promotion was offering at the time such as WWF Metal and WWF Sunday Night Heat. This chance to get a feel for the chemistry the two shared allowed for an even better match on pay-per-view when the time came in April of 2000.
"I didn’t. I remember being there. It was in Washington, D.C. and I’m getting together with Dean that day and we didn’t really have a whole lot. We’d wrestled so many times at that point, it felt like we kinda missed the boat on the whole match. We were on Velocity or whatever that Saturday Night Shotgun slot was at that time. Metal or Velocity or Jakked. There’s been so many times it’s been rebranded over the years. We must have wrestled every week. We’d get to TV, we’d be wrestling. So by the time we got to Backlash, it really didn’t even feel special. But like you said, twenty years later, that’s the match that everybody talks about and the finish everybody talks about was that DDT off the top. I dodged a bullet that day, man. I was lucky.”
The type of DDT that was used to finish the match is rarely seen. Even in cases where DDT-style moves are done from the top rope, it is typically the performer whose back is facing the canvas that performs the DDT, in this case, Dean Malenko countered a Superplex attempt and delivered a Spike DDT from the top rope to secure the victory and retain his championship.
Linda McMahon was in attendance for the event and was featured in the main event match. Scotty says that Linda actually pulled him aside after he came through to the backstage area to tell him never to do that move again.
“Actually, when I came back through the curtain, Linda McMahon was standing there. She pulled me aside and said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ Linda McMahon said that. That was sick. I feel like I dodged a bullet because if you look at that, there’s no way I didn’t break my neck. I did have neck surgery the next year, so that may have played into it.”
Speaking about the chemistry he had with “The Man of 1000 Holds,” Scotty would say that the contrast the characters provided for one another led to a perfect combination that resulted in Magic occurring in the ring. Furthermore, Scotty said that one of the negatives in the current performance center system is everybody is trained under the same roof which leads to a lack of a contrast of styles.
"Dean and I was just a perfect combination. I think it sums up pro wrestling. If you had Dean Malenko versus Dean Malenko, it’s eh, okay. If you had Scotty 2 Hotty versus Scotty 2 Hotty, eh. But when you take black against white, and two different things, that’s where the interest comes from to me. That’s part of the art. I think as we grew up we saw all these larger-than-life characters, you go, ‘Oh, I want to see this guy wrestle that guy,’ that’s what makes it fun. I think back to the territory days, you have all these territories coming to the WWF. So you have all these different styles and characters meshing, which made it fun. The negative of the Performance Center is everybody is being trained under the same roof by eight to ten of the same people. So it’s basically all the same style and I think you lose something in that."
Elsewhere in the interview, Scott spoke about his leaving WWE and why he believed it was no longer fun. Read more here.
