Hello friends! My name is Bry and I am a Twitch streamer and part-time speedrunner. If you have looked around this game's leaderboard, you might have noticed my name not only as a mod, but also as a runner with a time in (nearly) every category. I started this as a guide for the Any% category, but it ended up becoming more about Road to WrestleMania as a whole, and so I have created this guide with both categories in mind. I have spent tens of hours testing out different combinations of theories and routes, so I figured that I would compile my notes and leave it here to share with other players. Skip to the end of the guide to see the TL;DR results, but if you want to get in-depth and detailed information about both the speedrun AND the game, read on, for we have much to talk about.
The 100% category is pretty self-explanatory. Win all of the matches. You will need a 100% win rate, along with winning the King of the Ring and the Royal Rumble. You will also need to actually win the WWF Championship at WrestleMania, so you cannot win with a count out in that match. Win every match as fast as you can, and that's it! You did it!
The Any% category differs from the 100% category because (obviously) you don't have to win every match. This is great because since the 100% category features count out victories whenever you get the chance, the Any% category means the 29 second match time is a guarantee because YOU CAN JUST STAND OUTSIDE AND LOSE. This takes a lot of stress and frustration away from an opponent running into the ring at the count of 9 and having to try the count out again, or worse, an opponent reversing your grapple or punch at the last second making you lose the match and forcing you to restart the week to get that elusive victory. It doesn't matter how many matches you lose; you simply need to see "Congratulations" and the credits at the end of WrestleMania in order for the run to count. So, what DO we need to win? We'll get there, young one.
Let's talk about match types really quickly. You will see six different matches along your journey: single, hardcore, tag team, 3-way, cage, and the Royal Rumble. Based on the type of match you are having, you'll have to adjust your tactics accordingly.
For single and tag team matches, the fastest consistent way to win is to IMMEDIATELY leave the ring. Once outside, you need the opponent to join you. If the opponent is looking at you, they may just come out on their own. If they are taunting you and not taking the bait, try moving off to the closest outside corner and move around the railing. For some reason this usually makes the opponent rush you. If they aren't playing nice or they are focused on your partner (in a tag team match), you can try to grapple them by the apron, pulling them outside to the floor. Using these methods, you should get them outside 90% of the time. Sometimes they just don't take the bait, and you will need to jump back in the ring to throw them out physically, or just retry the same method. Anyways, once they are outside with you, kick the crap out of them and get back in the ring before the 10 count, leaving them on the floor. There isn't really a standard way to do this, because it will vary depending on when you get them outside, how many reversals they pull off, if they try (or succeed) to get back in the ring, etc., so just punch, grapple, and taunt accordingly. You'll find a rhythm. Ideally, my method involves them coming out immediately, doing a few basic grapples, and then pulling off a stronger move around the 8 second mark to keep them on the ground. As an example, a double underhook belly to belly snap suplex (that's a mouthful), pick them up, same suplex, taunt them, pick them up, Chokeslam 01, and then run back in the ring. You may not have time to do all of these things, but do what you can to make sure they stay out, while you get back in. I could probably talk more about this topic, but really, you'll learn as you go. Feel free to watch some of the top times on the boards as well to get a feel for how we have adapted to different circumstances. If you want to lose the match, well, go stand outside for ten in-game seconds. Easy peasy.
For hardcore and the dreaded 3-way matches, there is no easy way out. You simply need to pin your opponent. The best method is to taunt as much as you can and get your special as fast as possible. You should be able to get two taunts off before your opponent does anything. From there, you can keep taunting or you can attack your opponent, giving you more time to taunt. You can also run away from your opponent, hiding in corners of the ring to get a taunt or two off. Regardless, once you have your special, nail it two to three times, and get that victory. Usually, a pin this quickly will require their attitude to be low combined with an upgraded pin (powerbomb pin, a pin off the top rope, etc.), so keep that in mind. Strength of opponent and how far you are into the Road to WrestleMania also affect how easily you can get a pinfall too. For example, you might be able to get away with pinning the Blue Meanie with a regular pin after two specials at the beginning of the run, but the Undertaker might kick out of three specials and a strong pin towards the end of the run. To play it safe, I almost always perform three specials and a strong pin on my opponent. Hardcore matches are usually pretty straightforward, but 3-way matches are your kryptonite. These matches almost always make you get your special two or three times, with you needing to hit your special on both opponents multiple times. Once they are both weakened, hit your special on both of them and perform a pin on the opponent you used your special on first. You CAN get lucky and just beat up and pin one of the opponents while the other just watches or misses breaking up the pin, but it's not consistent and can be frustrating. I'd suggest just beating them both. For Any%, you'll want to just win the hardcore matches. Yes, you'll end up with the belt eventually and have to defend it, but currently there is no quick way to lose a hardcore match. The 3-Way match though can be a little different. The benefit to Any% is that you can lose the match, so technically you could aim all of your offense at one opponent, and then let the other opponent pin them while you allow it. Ultimately, it's faster if you can get the lucky quick win that I mentioned above, but if that fails, I'd keep pouring the offense on the injured superstar and take the loss.
Cage matches are pretty simple. Get your special, use one of your finishers on the opponent, and climb out. Mash those buttons hard while at the top of the cage, because your opponent may get up and try to stop you. GO GO GO! There is no consistent, easy way to lose a cage match, so just win, bud.
The Royal Rumble. The run killer. You thought 3-way matches were bad? Oh boy, aren't you in for a treat. Quite simply, the Royal Rumble will most likely make or break your run. A good Royal Rumble in this mode will be something like fifteen minutes. If you can do that on your first try, you are in great condition. More likely, you are bound to lose an attempt or two. If you are ten minutes into the match, lose, and have to restart, you just lost ten minutes on your entire run (or more if you had a match before the Royal Rumble that you need to play again). If that happens a second time, well, now you've lost twenty minutes, and your run is probably dead, if it wasn't already. This, combined with the fact that the Royal Rumble is pretty much at the end of the speedrun, means that this match can tilt you like no other. Keep a level head, my friends, it sucks for all of us. THIS MATCH IS HARD. Ideally, the best method to win is to knock out the opponents over the top rope with a combination of weak/strong punches. If that doesn't work, you can grapple an opponent, throw them towards a rope, and perform a running attack to knock them out. I highly encourage new runners to watch BOTH the top times for the Royal Rumble Any% category, as well as the Royal Rumbles for the top times on the Road to WrestleMania categories. These will help start you off in the right direction. Also, check out the Royal Rumble Any% guide by 5upamayne. It should be noted that the strategy performed for the Royal Rumble Any% category IS possible to duplicate on your Road to WrestleMania attempts, but it is highly unlikely. Your Royal Rumble is going to be on the "hard" difficulty, rather than the "easy" difficulty. The only advice that I can really give is to keep your attitude up, keep your back away from the ropes, and get good at reversals. If you can knock out all three opponents at one time, and then face each opponent one on one as they enter the ring, that's even better. Take your time, play smart, and practice in exhibition mode if you need to. You want to lose and skip it? It's super easy to get yourself eliminated if you'd like to, but you'll never want to do that as winning the Royal Rumble is the key to seeing the credits and validating your run in both Any% and 100%. Good luck, you are going to need it.
Alright. So now that you know what you are up against, let's talk about the actual run itself. "Road to WrestleMania" is WrestleMania 2000's story mode, in essence, taking you and your superstar through a full year of wrestling. You'll start in the first week of April, 1999, and end at WrestleMania, at the end of March 2000 (even though the real WrestleMania 2000 took place on April 2nd). You will select your wrestler and tag team partner to start, and then the match types and opponents you face are randomly generated (to a point) as you play. The total number of matches you wrestle seems to vary between 55 matches and 60, but it could be possible to get more or less than that. The WWF Tag, Intercontinental, European, and Hardcore Titles are all up for grabs, but none of them are necessary to your run. If you win the WWF Title at WrestleMania, you get the "good ending" and get to see the credits. This is important to know because both categories of the Road to WrestleMania speedruns require you to see the credits in order for the run to count.
You may choose a stock wrestler or a Create-A-Wrestler (CAW) for both yourself and your partner, but you may find that a CAW is the way to go. There is no guide on the best CAW build currently, but essentially you want X-Pac's taunts, a fast, 'A'-powered finisher, and a balanced move set that you are comfortable with. Don't forget to adjust your fighting style, offensive strength, and defensive strength to your liking. If you want your run to be competitive, the only stock wrestler I can really suggest would be X-Pac. His taunts are the best in the game, allowing for the fastest special, and his finisher is also one of the quickest 'A'-powered moves. But hey, if you want to do attempts with The Hardy Boyz, be my guest!
Your difficulty settings do not matter for this mode, regardless of what you have selected in your main menu options. It feels like you start out on the normal difficulty, and are swapped over to the hard difficulty by the end of the run, but this isn't fully confirmed. I'd suggest turning off the referee and the replay, while leaving attitude meter, bloodshed, and music on. The replay is just that, replaying some of the more powerful moves, and will make you lose time. The attitude meter is key to the run, so you should have that on to always know how close you are to your special. The music should be on to help mods verify the run. The referee and the bloodshed though are just preference. The ref will pop on the screen for pins, submissions, etc., which I just don't care for, while bloodshed will allow or disallow wrestlers to wear the legendary crimson mask. But like, what's a wrestling game without a little blood?
For every week that you wrestle, you will need to mash the "skip" button for matches that you aren't a part of. If you accidentally choose "watch", you can pause the match and skip it or go back to the main menu. Mash skip, wrestle your match, and mash skip. That is a standard week of wrestling. If you are running the 100% category and you happen to lose a match along the way, no worries! You can simply pause right after the loss on that week's screen and exit the Road to WrestleMania mode. Once back in the main menu, select your save file and the week should restart from the beginning, allowing you to retry the match without taking a loss. You will lose a little time, of course, but it's usually better than ending the run and starting from scratch. Beware though that if you have multiple matches during that particular week, you will have to wrestle ALL of your matches again, which could cause a considerable time loss. Alternatively, if you know you are going to lose (say your move gets reversed at the count of 9 while going for a count out, and you know you won't get back into the ring in time), you can pause the match, quit, and then restart the match. This method of "losing" will save you from restarting the week.
Now that you know what you are up against, your options are set, and you have your superstar ready to go, choose the Road to WrestleMania mode on the main menu, and select a "New Game" file. Choose your wrestler, and then choose your tag team partner. This will take you to the win/loss and championship info screen. Your run timer will start the same time that you select "start". From here I will go month-to-month to give you a general idea of what to expect, and what happens if you win/lose certain matches. Some of this information isn't necessarily important for speedrun purposes, but if you are still reading to this point, I'm sure you will be interested. I made these discoveries while I was working on the best path for the Any% category, so I figured I may as well share this information rather than throwing it away. I'm sure someone at some point will have the same questions that I did, and this will save them some time and give them some answers. Good luck!
April will consist of four standard matches. Nothing important to note here.
May will go the same way. Hopefully you get some good RNG and avoid those 3-way matches!
The first three weeks of June will be the usual assortment of matches, but the last week will feature your very first pay-per-view: The King of the Ring. You will probably have two matches here, with one standard match earlier in the card, and then the King of the Ring tournament. In the tournament, you will have three matches, and all of them will be treated like a hardcore match. Yes, there are no count outs, so beat 'em up and put 'em down. There is a glitch here that should be noted, where if you are NOT in the top match of a round bracket, if you mash the skip button fast enough, you can sometimes skip your match. For example, the first round contains four matches, and if you aren't in the first and very top match of the bracket, if you mash "skip" there is a chance you will skip your match and not have to wrestle it, with the game playing the match for you. Where you are in the bracket is RNG, and the specifics of why and how you can skip the match aren't currently clear as of this writing, but it's probably just because if you mash fast enough, you hit the "skip" button on your match before the game takes that option away. Beware though, while you can skip your match for a quick and easy victory, the AI can also make you lose, meaning that you have to back out and start the tournament over. Regarding this, I once experienced another glitch where I "skip lost" a match, backed out, and restarted the tournament. At the end of that run, which was a supposed PB, I discovered on my stats screen that I had lost a match, voiding the 100% attempt. After watching the playback, I found out that my loss occurred at the King of the Ring tournament (even though my stat screen said that I had won it). In other attempts, backing out of the tournament and jumping back in didn't count as a loss, but this time it did. So just know that trying to skip the tournament is a big risk for sure, and one that doesn't always work, but it can pay off nicely. I also discovered in my Any% testing that winning the King of the Ring is what gives you a WWF Title shot at Summerslam. Winning the championship this early in your attempt isn't important and (spoilers) you will get stripped of the title eventually if you keep it anyways, but if you are the WWF champion you may see more title defenses of it and cage matches throughout your run. This means that if you are doing the Any% category, you can lose the King of the Ring and it won't affect your ability to see the credits. To that end, let me clarify a few things about losing the tournament. The best way to go about this would be to get lucky and get a position in the bracket that would allow you to skip your match, do so successfully, and lose. This way you essentially spend no time in the tournament. If that doesn't work, I toyed with the idea of the opponent pinning me in the opening match with mixed results. You CAN'T be pinned immediately unless you have some damage to your character. I had the opponent do pin reversals and all kinds of things to me, and even when I didn't push any buttons, I immediately kicked out. I also tried letting the opponent get their special ASAP and then light me up while I stood there and took the beating. Depending on who you are up against, this CAN work, but it's quite RNG heavy. Some superstars don't get their specials too quickly, and then when they do, they don't use it properly to secure a fast win. Over a number of attempts, IF I got lucky and was defeated in a timely manner, the match still lasted about two or three minutes. I'm not saying that it can't be done faster, but that was about the average. If you take into account that you can just win all three matches in about the same time, the better and more reliable method is to simply win the tournament. This gives you the added bonus of getting a shot at the WWF Title, if you want it. Put simply, for Any%, try to skip your match and lose, and if that doesn't work, then just win the tournament.
July is a return back to the standard mix of matches. Hopefully you're getting good at getting those count outs!
August will function the same as June, with the first three matches being your standard mix, while the last week will feature Summerslam. This pay-per-view isn't anything too special though. You will have a match earlier on the card, and if you won the King of the Ring, you will have a WWF Title match at the end of the card. So, if you are doing 100% or if you are doing Any% but won the King of the Ring, you will have two matches. If you are doing Any% and lost the King of the Ring, you should only have one match. Once summer has been properly slammed, hopefully hard, it's time to move on to September.
September is, you guessed it, another standard mix of matches. As Billie Joe Armstrong and the boys sang, wake me up when September ends.
September's over? That's nice. October is also pretty unexciting. Keep practicing those count outs and 3-way matches...I'll continue my snooze.
Alright, I'm awake now and November has come. Survivor Series is upon us and will happen during the fourth week of the month. Why do all of these pay-per-views happen at the end of the month? Must have something to do with consumer income or something. Anyways, Survivor Series really isn't that interesting besides the venue looking different. You'll most likely defend a title of some sort here in a standard match, but you could get unlucky and have a second match. May Lady Luck bless you as you flip the calendar.
Ah, December. The time for family, giving, and togetherness. Good times! In this game though, you're just going through the motions. Get through these matches and finish out the year.
Welcome to the new millennium! January 2000 has come! Hopefully you've had a good time, because your run might be ending here. The end of the month features the aforementioned run killer, the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. You usually have two bouts on the card, one being a standard match and the other being the Royal Rumble itself. I have seen runs where you only had to wrestle in the Rumble, but I've also seen runs where you've had three matches to deal with. Regardless, you have one main goal here: YOU MUST WIN THE ROYAL RUMBLE, even if you already are the WWF Champion. This goes without saying for 100%, but for Any%, this is the first of two matches that you MUST win to see the ending credits. Winning the Rumble gives you a match for the WWF Title at WrestleMania. If you don't win the Rumble, you don't get the title shot, and it's game over. Refer back to the Royal Rumble section above for help if you need it. May your eliminations come swiftly, and your feet remain inside the squared circle.
Did you outlast the other 29 WWF superstars? Are you headed to WrestleMania? Congratulations! You are on the path to easy mode now, as the hardest part of the run is over. February and March are both standard months, with one caveat. If you are the WWF Champion, Vince McMahon will strip you of the title and award it to the Undertaker (I don't think I've seen him give it to anyone else, but I could be wrong). I've seen Vince strip you of the title immediately after the Royal Rumble, and I've seen him wait until the week before WrestleMania. Regardless, at SOME point, you will lose your WWF Championship. If you didn't win the Royal Rumble, you won't get another title shot for it, and the credits won't roll. This is why the Rumble is so important. Battle on and breathe easy, because the run is almost over.
WrestleMania will be the final pay-per-view, taking place during the final week of March. Our good friend RNG will give you one, two, or three matches here at the "grandest stage of them all." This MIGHT depend on how many championship titles you hold, but that's just speculation. I have noticed that it's common though to have a 3-way match to defend your Hardcore Championship, so don't be too surprised if that is your first match of the night. The only match that you can guarantee on having will be your WWF Title match in the main event, which will be in the form of a regular singles match or a cage match. Remember that you must actually win the title in order to see the credits and make your run count, so score that pinfall or climb that cage. Once you do, your timer will stop on the first frame of the "Congratulations!" screen, and your run is complete. Well done! Now I would recommend watching the credits roll and then going back to show your save file stats as a part of your submission. This isn't necessarily required, but it will help mods with verification (showing a 100%-win rate for the 100% category), and on top of that, it's kind of fun to see how many total matches you wrestled throughout your attempt, and how many titles you won and defended.
Just another thing of interest: If you are doing Any% and you find yourself losing a lot of matches, it is likely that your tag team partner will leave you. They will then be replaced by a random, lower-card, superstar. This can and will happen multiple times during a run if you lose a lot (I got this cut scene four times in one of my practice runs). Interestingly enough, your partner can still leave you during the 100% category, but it is less common. If you happen to be the tag team champions when this happens, you will forfeit the titles to another team. The details on how/when/why this happens aren't clear as of this writing, but just be aware that it can and will during your attempts.
You didn't want to read the whole guide? Did you read the whole guide (thank you) and now your brain hurts from the information overload? Here is what you are looking for, in a much more condensed package:
Any% TL;DR - Start timer as you select start to begin the Road to WrestleMania. End matches via count out when you can, whether you win or lose. Pin hardcore opponents. Win cage matches. Skip or win the King of the Ring. Win the Royal Rumble. Pin the champ or climb out of the cage in the main event of WrestleMania. Stop the timer as "Congratulations" appears on the screen. Watch the credits roll, and go back into your file to show your stats (not required to be a viable speedrun, but also good/fun to show).
100% TL;DR - Start timer as you select start to begin the Road to WrestleMania. Win matches via count out when you can. Pin hardcore opponents. Win cage matches. If you lose a match, back out of the mode to the main menu and then go back in to restart the week. Skip (only if you win) or win the King of the Ring. Win the Royal Rumble. Pin the champ or climb out of the cage in the main event of WrestleMania. Stop the timer as "Congratulations" appears on the screen. Watch the credits roll, and go back into your file to show your stats (not required to be a viable speedrun, but really helps the mods verify your overall 100%).
That's gonna do it! I hope that you enjoyed this guide and if you are thinking about running this game, I encourage you to do so. It is a lot of fun and I feel like there are still some tricks to discover along the way, as well as some time to save overall. Good luck on the attempts, and feel free to reach out to me personally if you have any questions. You can message me here on speedrun.com, or find me on Twitch at twitch.tv/brybad and I will respond as soon as I can.
Credit to 5upamayne for starting us on this Road to WrestleMania adventure and learning/sharing some of these tricks with me as we lowered the time together. It was a blast, my friend. :)
