More than 12 hours...
For the final pick of Round 9,
Team Malfunction Junction says...WELCOME TO
WRESTLEMANIA EIGHTEEN!!! Chosen in the
Pay-Per-View Category.
This is the view I had of the show...
March 17, 2002 (7 years ago today), live from Skydome (before it was Rogers Centre) in Toronto, Ontario, Wrestlemania 18 was the final Wrestlemania under the "WWF" name brand (they adopted the WWE name shortly thereafter).
The show featured 11 matches, 6 title matches, and only 2 title changes other than the 5 times the Hardcore Title changed hands (RVD became the IC Champ, and Triple H became the Undisputed Champ).
Undertaker stretched his 'Mania win streak to 10 in a victory over Ric Flair.
The show also featured two battles between the icons of the Monday Night Wars (which, like the actual Monday Night Wars were won by the WWF)...Steve Austin defeated the nWo's Scott Hall (with Kevin Nash); and The Rock defeated the nWo's Hollywood Hogan.
The Rock/Hogan match was the one that received the best crowd reaction, even though it was not the expected reaction. The crowd was solidly in support of Hogan, who had been playing the heel role leading into the match. As a result, the "Rocky Sucks" chants started early and lasted through most of the match. Luckily, both men were smart enough to give the crowd what they wanted, as Hogan began returning to his "hero" persona, and The Rock re-embraced his "villain" role.
Because of the unexpected crowd reaction, Hall and Nash were sent to the ring at the end of the match, seemingly to help Hogan, but they turned on Hogan, which allowed The Rock to return to the face role by helping his recent foe.
Hogan soon dropped the black & white "Hollywood" role, and returned to the yellow & red of Hulkamania.
The main event saw Triple H defeat Chris Jericho (who was accompanied by Triple H's estranged wife, Stephanie) to become the second Undisputed Champion.
More than anything else, the reason I chose this is because this was the first (of two consecutive) Wrestlemania shows that I attended in person. I was about 15 rows from the ring on the floor directly in front of the main cameras for the PPV broadcast.