World Wrestling Federation – No Way Out 2002 – 17th February 2002
Let’s just say that this pay-per-view doesn’t have the finest of reputations. Being completely honest, I’ve never seen it in my life. I missed it back in 2002, and have never once felt the need to go back and catch up on it (particularly since, in the ensuing weeks of television, much of this show was made entirely redundant). What it is renowned for is the debut of the rather hideous WWF version of WCW’s iconic stable: the nWo. Having lost 50% control of his company to Ric Flair, then been physically beaten by the Nature Boy at the Royal Rumble, Vince had a meltdown and decided he had to kill the World Wrestling Federation – by hiring the ‘poisonous’ New World Order. Months after this would have been a good idea (as part of the Invasion), Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan return to the WWF – and that was really all you had to draw you in to this show. Rob Van Dam featured heavily in a lot of the initial advertising and promotional stuff, presumably as it was designed months earlier when he was at the height of his popularity in the Alliance, but is rewarded with a ‘high profile’ match against Goldust. HHH puts his spot in the WrestleMania main event on the line against Kurt Angle, Stone Cold challenges Chris Jericho for the Undisputed Championship in a rematch from Vengeance and The Rock is the latest sucker to be lumbered with the Undertaker. Here’s hoping this show is a pleasant surprise. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler welcome us to Milwaukee, WI.
SIDENOTE – Plenty of musical edits on this DVD release again. Generic rock replaces the show’s main theme (‘Feel So Numb’ by Rob Zombie) and Undertaker’s Limp Bizkit intro. Old Jim Johnston themes replace multiple other current entrance themes by actual recording artists too. It’s not actually the changes in music I mind, it’s the artificial, piped in crowd noise they pump in over it, which feels incredibly false and destroys any organic crowd reaction for those of us watching on DVD.
There’s no need to wait for them – the nWo are immediately out in front of the live crowd. Hogan and Nash genuinely look pretty pumped to be there, whilst Hall ambles around looking slightly vacant. Nash and Hall drop some cool ‘insider’ terms as the crowd happily ‘What’s over their entire promo. Hogan, on the other hand, gets colossal pops, almost none of the ‘What’ treatment. He has to name drop Vince to draw heat, and ultimately the promo ends with them all hugging and having said very little of any substance. The point is that they are acting nice and humble, and think they are being misrepresented as ‘company killers’.
Scotty 2 Hotty/Albert vs Christian/Lance Storm – Tag Team Turmoil Match
My heart always sinks every time they book one of these Tag Team Turmoils onto a ppv. I’m yet to see one I’ve enjoyed, and I certainly don’t hold high hopes for this one. By this point the WWF had lost total interest in their tag division. The teams they’d relied upon to carry it for so long had either split up (like Edge & Christian) or become spectacularly stale (like the Hardyz, the Dudleyz or the APA), so they just started throwing teams together. Tazz and Spike were tag champions (defending tonight against Booker T and Test). Both of these two teams had nothing to do as singles competitors so were tossed together too. Sure it gives all these talents some work, but watching the Tag Division at this point was like watching paint dry. The prize is a Tag Title shot at WrestleMania 18.
Storm and Scotty get us started. They work at a nice pace and showcase some entertaining fundamentals, so of course we bring Albert in soon afterwards to instantly add some clumsiness. Christian hangs the big man in the ropes so Lance can hit a jumping heel kick, but he simply no sells the pair of them and tags Scotty in. He back drops Storm over the ropes to the floor and gets a nearfall on Christian with a superkick. Storm distracts S2H as he tries to land The Worm, and Christian gets the victory with the Unprettier at 02:55
Rating - * - Christian and Lance bumped with real gusto to make sure this wasn’t a total waste of my time. They are massively more watchable than Scotty 2 Hotty doing a gimmick a year passed it’s peak and Albert making a fool of himself. The finish, denying Scotty the chance to hit The Worm, ensures they have heat going into the second match too…
Christian/Lance Storm vs Hardy Boyz – Tag Team Turmoil Match
I mentioned that the Hardyz were stale in my intro to the last match. Whilst that remains the case, they do at least have a limited amount of fresh interest following their brief suspension and subsequent reunion. They’ll also back themselves to get the better of long-time rival Christian when he is in a makeshift duo with less tag team experience.
The Hardyz storm the ring, with Matt instantly dropping Storm with the Side Effect. Lance retaliates by not letting him hit the needless pointing/shouting second rope leg drop and the Canadians set about isolating the older Hardy brother. The hot tag to Jeff puts pay to that as he starts crumpling his opponents with his weird double leg drop variants. MAPLE LEAF ON JEFF! Hardy saves, only for Christian to save Lance from the Twist Of Fate. Storm inadvertently knocks Christian out of the ring, and gets the Twist Of Fate/Swanton combo. Hardyz advance at 03:20 (06:15 total)
Rating - ** - As far as rushed, three minute matches as part of a bullsh*t Gauntlet Match go, this was actually a lot of fun. All four were very talented at this point in their careers, so just riffed through enough material to fill their measly time allocation.
Hardy Boyz vs Dudley Boyz – Tag Team Turmoil Match
Good news folks, the Hardyz and the Dudleyz are fighting AGAIN. They must have faced each other thousands of times over the last couple of years – so by this point seeing them in the ring together has lost all it’s magic and mystique. Which of these veteran teams will advance to WrestleMania?
The Hardyz immediately hit Poetry In Motion on Bubba Ray…only for him to pretty much no sell it and jerk Jeff to the mat by his orange and yellow hair. Determined to show something different, he puts Jeff in a standing figure 4 toehold, eventually drawing Matt in to save the match for his team. Senton bomb missed by Bubba Ray leading to tags on both sides. Matt gets 2 on D-Von with the needless pointing and shouting leg drop before joining his brother to hit a SIDE EFFECT/LEGSWEEP COMBO! That’s another new spot! Stacy Keibler saves Bubba from the Twist Of Fate…and is speared by Lita as punishment. Bubba Bomb on Matt…LITA-CAN-RANA ON BUBBA RAY! JEFF HARDY HITS A SWANTON BOMB TO THE FREAKING FLOOR! Matt rolls D-Von up to advance at 4:28. Total match time is up to 10:43. 3-D ON THE FLOOR FOR JEFF before the Dudleyz leave.
Rating - ** - Again, too short to mean anything. But I seriously regret how harsh I was to both teams in my intro to this match. They absolutely busted their asses to not make this a repeat of the multitude of previous times they’ve faced off. There were fresh spots, new combos, and the added bonus of a CRAZY Jeff Hardy spot which he really didn’t need to do considering how little anyone cared about the match he was competing in.
Hardy Boyz vs Billy & Chuck – Tag Team Turmoil Match
Billy and Chuck were one of the few thrown together teams that the WWF invested any serious time into. Gunn is a solid tag team hand, and has always been one of Vince McMahon’s ‘projects’, so they paired him up with the more inexperienced, but sizeable and talented Chuck Palumbo – who needed a new partner since they basically fired his old partner Sean O’Haire. At this point they were in the swing of their ambiguous sexual orientation gimmick, but hadn’t yet been joined by Rico Constantino as their stylist/manager. Can the new team capitalise on the increasing fatigue Matt and Jeff will be suffering to advance to the final round of Tag Team Turmoil?
Jeff has barely moved on the floor, so Gunn and Palumbo make a beeline for Matt. He fights valiantly, but eats a superkick/Fame Asser combo to bit the dust at 01:17 (12:00 total).
Rating - DUD - The perennial problem with Gauntlet Matches is these one minute, rapid fire squashes which accomplish very little and entertain very few. After some gutsy exploits in the previous two rounds, I feel bad for the Hardyz for being given such a flat and underwhelming final match tonight.
Billy & Chuck vs Acolytes – Tag Team Turmoil Match
This is the final round of the gauntlet, meaning whomever wins here will go on to get a title shot at WrestleMania. It pits one of the newest teams in the division against one of the oldest incumbents in Faarooq and Bradshaw, who had been treading water for over two years by this point.
The biggest mystery in the WWF at this point is how the APA keep getting huge pops and tons of crowd support. They absolutely SUCKED. Chuck (wrestling in pigtails) is flattened with a football tackle from Simmons, and fares little better with Bradshaw who levels him with a fallaway slam. Gunn has to run in and drop Faarooq with an illegal neckbreaker to rescue his younger partner. Bradshaw gets into lengthy arguments with the referee as a result, allowing Billy & Chuck to beat down his partner. Eventually Billy is drilled into the canvas with Faarooq’s spinebuster so Bradshaw gets to come in. Gunn sells the Clothesline From Hell like sheer death, and APA are going to WrestleMania in Toronto at 04:12 (16:12 total).
Rating - DUD - A generic and forgettable end to a particularly lacklustre gauntlet match. I had considered awarding this match 1*, but the decision to put the stale-as-three-month-old-bread Acolytes over the only new team with any serious upwards momentum was absolutely ludicrous. Luckily this entire match was pointless, because Billy & Chuck would wind up winning the titles themselves before WrestleMania – and would defend against the Acolytes AND the Hardyz…AND the Dudleyz. Just to prepare you, this isn’t the only time a match on this show is rendered totally meaningless by forthcoming events on free television.
Ric Flair thinks the New World Order were full of crap earlier, but finds his interview hijacked by Undertaker who openly intimidates the co-owner of the company.
Goldust vs Rob Van Dam
Let’s be realistic – after main eventing pay-per-views and being the most popular guy on the whole roster in the second half of 2001, by giving him less than three minutes in the Royal Rumble then booking him miles down the card tonight in the second ppv of 2002 it was clear that WWF were starting their campaign to systematically undermine Van Dam’s upwards momentum and position him as the harmless midcard babyface they wanted him to be. BUT, that’s not to say he doesn’t benefit from being in this match. Goldust is obviously a pretty weird character, but the man behind the facepaint (Dustin Runnels) is a vastly experienced pro who is pretty good at getting fans into his matches whilst protecting himself, his opponents and keeping plenty back for ‘money matches’ rather than killing himself on a nightly basis. That’s a skill Rob needed to learn if he ever wanted to break the glass ceiling in the company. The kayfabe feud here is that Goldust has an obsession with RVD, taking it to creepy extremes and provoking the wrath of Mr Monday Night.
RVD looks absolutely thrilled with the ovation he gets from the Milwaukee crowd, and he is still basking in the adulation as Goldust clobbers him straight back over the top rope from whence he came. He looks to outfox the WWF veteran with his martial arts kicks, then scores an early nearfall with a cartwheel standing moonsault. Immediately Goldy shows his veteran instincts by walking out of the ring. Van Dam gets increasingly frustrated as Dust paces around on the floor…eventually making the mistake of getting too close to the ropes so the Bizarre One can drag him outside. CORKSCREW LEG DROP OFF THE APRON! Credit to Goldust who made that look absolutely brutal. He climbs to the second rope himself to hit a BIONIC ELBOW TO THE FLOOR! Clearly fed up of being stiffed, he absolutely PUMMELS Van Dam with some very obviously not-pulled-punches then cranks his back hard across the ringpost. The back of RVD is the target now with Dust repeatedly catapulting him over his knees. Camel clutches come next, with Goldust providing some outstanding facial acting to back up his assault, even under the layers of facepaint. Van Dam retaliates with a close range superkick (which again looks like it legit catches Goldust) and makes no effort whatsoever to sell the back as he scores with the rolling monkey flip. Rolling Thunder next, this time with a little pause to sell the back, for 2. Awesome counter from RVD next, as he dodges Goldust’s signature jab from the ground to hit a somersault legdrop. Five Star Frog Splash misses, enabling Goldy to hit a DDT. He sets up the Final Cut only for Rob to land on his feet and crash into his FACE with a spinning heel kick. More angry stiff shots from Dust follow, but Rob absorbs them and counters his bulldog. Five Star Frog Splash wins it for RVD at 11:02
Rating - *** - It was obviously a waste of the substantial popularity RVD was enjoying at the time, but that’s not to say this was a bad match by any stretch of the imagination. Goldust is a solid hand, and he worked a decent match by targeting the back, playing his bizarre character well and repeatedly giving Van Dam a taste of his own medicine whenever an errant kick found it’s way into his face. In truth, what he got from RVD was a typical RVD performance. He was incredibly exciting to watch when on offence, but his selling and ability to control his haphazard striking was pretty much non-existent. What this match does prove, however, is that RVD is still crazy over with live audiences and can certainly handle himself in a ‘standard match’ at ppv level. He showed WWF management that he didn’t necessarily need the Hardcore environment to excel, and was rewarded with a meatier role (albeit still very much a midcard one) as we entered the spring season.
Steve Austin walks angrily backstage – straight into the path of the nWo. Scott Hall gives him beer, providing laughs on SO MANY LEVELS. Austin tosses it aside and gives them the cold shoulder.
Tazz/Spike Dudley vs Booker T/Test – WWF Tag Title Match
Remember what I was saying earlier about thrown together teams? Tazz and Spike were surprisingly enjoyable as the undersized over-achievers during their brief reign as Tag Champions, and got over pretty much entirely on their own hard work rather than anything the WWF did to promote them. There is minimal reason for Booker and Test to team together, other than the fact that they are former Alliance members, and both floated around the midcard acting like jerks.
Tazz’s gut was really starting to spill over his pants by this point. Test is pretty much twice as tall as him, and beats him up like he’s a little orange child at the bell. Dudley is tagged and he cleverly counters several of Test’s trademark spots before getting pinned down and beaten senseless too. Jumping heel kick/spinebuster combo scores for the challengers, with Tazz in the ring voicing his displeasure at the illegal double team before they can even attempt a cover. Test and Booker isolate Spike, and when he attempts the Acid Drop Test COUNTERS by crotching him on the top rope! Axe Kick scores for Booker and his team are so dominant he has time for as many Spinaroonie’s as he wants. Tags all round (to almost zero reaction from the silent crowd), but Test is too big for the Tazmission. ACID DROP! Tazmission on Test wins it at 07:15
Rating - * - There was simply no reason for the crowd to care about this match…so they didn’t. It was a pointless, filler match, fought between two pointless, filler teams in front of a near silent crowd. The very definition of a waste of pay-per-view time. As usual Spike Dudley put everyone else he was in the ring with to shame with his workrate.
Coach asks about The Rock’s physical condition after sustaining a Tombstone on top of a car two weeks earlier. Rock shows he’s super-serial by referring to himself in the first person, and says he isn’t worried about his bad neck and just wants to beat Undertaker up.
William Regal vs Edge – WWF Intercontinental Title Brass Knucks On A Pole Match
We’ve seen these two men battle intensely over the last two pay-per-views, each winning one match. Edge was the victor at Vengeance, only for Regal to comeback (after some heavy nasal surgery) to win an incredibly violent little match at the Royal Rumble. Now we have the rubber match, with Regal’s controversial brass knucks hung on a pole in the corner of the ring. Will Edge get revenge, or will Regal be able to legally win a match with the Power Of The Punch this time?
Edge attacks Regal whilst the ref searches him for extra sets of knuckledusters so gets to start the match very much on the front foot. The sound of the knucks clanging against the pole can be heard after every move they execute inside the ring, providing an ominous but somewhat aggravating soundtrack to the contest. The challenger escorts Regal into the crowd and leaves him there so he can go unmolested up the pole. William returns before Edge can get the weapon…and eats a missile dropkick to the face. That’s enough Edge dominance – Regal plants him with a Dominator into the top rope! Edge has been suffering with internal injuries already so he’s immediately in serious pain. He fights out of an abdominal stretch, only to be shoved off the top rope INTO THE GUARDRAIL! TIGER DRIVER ON THE FLOOR! REGAL STRETCH! The champ has Edge bleeding from the mouth and it’s quite a striking visual as he reaches out a bloody hand to the bottom rope to save himself. Sadly he gets dumped back down onto his back and ribcage again with another powerbomb seconds later. He crotches Regal as he goes for the knucks though so there is clearly some fight left in him. Regal tries to give him a powerbomb on the apron…only for Edge to grab the top rope for a SUPER UGLY counter to the floor. I’m guessing he wanted a hurricanrana there, so we’ll say it was the internal injuries that prevented him from executing it properly. Regal repeatedly punches him in the ribs to stop him getting to the knucks, and climbs up to grab them for himself. BACK SUPERPLEX by Edge, damaging himself in the process but causing the Englishman to drop the brass knucks. Edge-O-Matic gets a desperate 2-count, only for Regal to aggressively knee the ribs to block the Edgecution. The Spear scores though, giving the challenger enough time to grab the knucks. POWER OF THE PUNCH TO THE RIBS! Then the head! Regal wins with an illegal pair of knucks at 10:27
Rating - *** - Weapon On A Pole matches are traditionally rather hokey affairs, so credit to these two for working around an unnecessary and goofy stipulation to provide a third extremely physical and hard-fought pay-per-view contest. Royal Rumble was a little smoother with some crazy spots, but this one told a significantly better story. Regal working Edge’s ribs made sense, and unlike RVD earlier Edge worked damn hard to sell them. In fact, he was so good I’m not even sure popping blood capsules in his mouth was needed. Regal’s win makes sense considering he was starting to get over both as a heel and as a tough competitor inside the ring, whilst Edge was popular enough without the IC Title and would go on to work higher profile programs in the coming months as WWF continued to mould and shape him into a main event player.
Kurt Angle didn’t get his gold medal in a box of ‘Lucky freakin’ Charms’. (great line)
Undertaker vs The Rock
To their credit, having watched him be largely appalling inside the ring ever since he came back as the ‘American Badass’ in 2000, at least WWF creative had devised a way to make his character interesting as we exited 2001. The ‘Big Evil’, heel Undertaker character, stomping around sulking about people disrespecting him, and being more successful than him, and being better workers than him was at least entertaining and engaging from a storyline perspective. Last month at the Royal Rumble we saw one of the biggest shocks in World Wrestling Federation history when Taker, distracted by the Hardy Boyz and Lita, was eliminated from the Rumble by Tough Enough 1 winner Maven Huffman. Rock made fun of the incident during a promo, raising the ire of the Deadman who accused Rock of disrespecting him. A number of increasingly violent altercations between the two ensued – culminating in Taker injuring Rock’s neck with a Tombstone on top of a limousine. Rock wants revenge, Undertaker wants respect. Which man leaves Milwaukee getting their wish?
Rock sprints out ready for battle, with so much fire that Undertaker winds up decking him as he continually makes mistakes. Within a minute the Phenom is working his already-injured neck, doing such damage that Rocky actually hurts himself even when delivering offensive moves. An emphatic sidewalk slam has the Great One writhing in pain as the clock ticks to four minutes. He shifts the fight to the outside, setting his sights on the same Spanish announce table he’d put Undertaker through on TV a couple of weeks previously…but takes so long preparing it that Taker is on hand to crotch him on the barricade. They fight all the way to the back of the arena, then out of the emergency exits before trooping straight back to the ringside – a nice touch for the live fans but nothing more than time-wasting for those of us watching on DVD as they did nothing of any substance whilst they were out there. Big Evil puts Rock’s prone body on the apron to inflict more punishment on the exposed neck, and drills it straight south into the canvas with a running DDT as well. Bearhug next, with that sequence lasting well over two minutes. Eventually Rock escapes only to crumple on the mat right next to Taker because he’s so injured. Then just like that he starts no-selling everything, hitting DDT’s, landing on his neck, nipping up then flowing straight into a People’s Elbow attempt. Undertaker counters it with a Chokeslam set-up…so Rock kicks him in the balls. Inexplicably there’s no disqualification for that, probably because Undertaker refuses to sell low blows ever. He is right back up for a Chokeslam…then drops to the mat as if he’s suffering from delayed reaction ball pain. RIDICULOUS segment! Taker then amusingly struggles to get a lead pipe out of his motorcycle – prompting Ric Flair to run down the aisle to stop him from using it. MAFIA KICK ON FLAIR! Rock ducks a pipe shot and puts the Deadman in a Scorpion King Deathlock. Vince McMahon appears on the apron, forcing The Rock to release the hold to attack him instead. Undertaker capitalises by whacking Rock in the head…before Flair nails him with a pipe. Rock Bottom wins it at 17:23
Rating - ** - They probably had enough material for a solid 10-12 minute match here. By extending it beyond the 17-minute mark everything felt EXTREMELY slow. Undertaker, to his credit, looks noticeably slimmer than he had done in some time, so he moved around the ring much more quickly than he had been in 2001 and looked decent when he was working Rock’s neck. Unfortunately the second half of the match was almost appallingly bad. From the pointless ‘sh*t, we have two minutes of time to kill – lets walk around in the crowd’ spot, to the lengthy ‘stand around and do nothing’ bear hug, to absolutely ridiculous no selling from The Rock, then the overbooked, run-in heavy finish, I honestly can’t remember a worse last 5-10 minutes of a wrestling match EVER.
SIDENOTE – The bigger picture here is that they were building to Rock/Hogan and Undertaker/Flair at WrestleMania, which I have no issue with (albeit Vince McMahon’s presence here was still completely unnecessary). But this was such a mediocre, filler feud between them – their time would surely have been much better spent working with some up and coming talent for a month rather than facing each other in a lousy, forgettable pay-per-view match for the fifth of sixth time in recent years. Undertaker was still Hardcore Champion when this feud started. After their decent Vengeance match, why not have Undertaker/RVD II, or let Edge get a taste of main event level competition with a brief feud? And on the heel side, surely there were some undercard heels Rock could have spent a month working with whilst he waited for Hulk Hogan to arrive? Christian, Booker T, Test etc. None of those would have been groundbreaking opponents, or big business for WWF. But was Undertaker/Rock seriously that much of a draw in 2002 anyway? At least something like Rock vs Christian or Test would have been a fresh match.
Mr Perfect is at WWF New York, swaying around on stage, slurring his words and contributing nothing of any value to the show.
Kurt Angle vs Triple H
God bless Kurt, he really did try to make this feud about him. Of course he, HHH and Steph have history but, as Chris Jericho would go on to discover in the weeks before WrestleMania – this feud really is HHH vs Stephanie. In the wake of his return to the promotion Hunter and his wife started having very public marital problems. In a last ditch bid to save her marriage Stephanie faked a pregnancy, hired a British actor to be a fake doctor, and arranged an in-ring vow renewal ceremony for Raw. Meddlesome Linda McMahon thwarted her plans though, revealing the plan to HHH and prompting him to publicly break up with Stephanie during the aforementioned ceremony. Vince McMahon (yes, he was involved in this feud too) booked this one for No Way Out, forcing HHH to defend the Undisputed Title #1 contendership he earned by winning the Royal Rumble on the line, and booking Stephanie to be the guest referee to boot. Kurt was also present on television whilst these events were transpiring.
Showing her first piece of rock solid officiating, Stephanie tries to fast-count a Kurt Angle pinfall attempt before the bell even rings. In a damning indictment of the current creative direction of the product, Stephanie is getting twice as much heat as the wrestlers and drawing huge ‘slut’ chants whilst Kurt and Hunter are trying to look as intense as possible. They then pop like crazy as HHH ducks the onrushing Angle, forcing him into an inadvertent clothesline on Steph…who falls over the top rope. Triple H laughs at his wife’s misfortune and waves to her as more refs carry her to the locker room. Angle (yes, he’s in this match) punishes him a rolling German trilogy, which gets a 2-count from replacement official Tim White. Belly to belly suplex next as Kurt’s wrestling skills continue to get the better of Helmsley’s more brawl-centric style. He tries to control the Game in a sleeper hold, choking the fight and power out of his muscular opponent. Clearly that’s not the right strategy as HHH never leaves his feet and powers out. Angle is drawn into a slugfest with his opponent, and pays for it as Hunter hits a DIVING POWERBOMB! He muscles Angle into a spinebuster too, piling the pressure back onto the Olympian. HHH has an obvious limp as he pursues Kurt around the ring, eventually dropping him with a neckbreaker after Angle has floored Tim White. Angle Slam scores, and back comes Stephanie McMahon for a nearfall count. Anklelock blocked by kicking Angle INTO Stephanie. She collapses alongside White so there’s nobody to count as Helmsley hits a DDT. Angle misses a chair shot and eats a Pedigree…but Stephanie drops an elbow on White before he can count to three. LOW BLOW ON TIM WHITE! Triple H goes after his wife, turning his back on Kurt as he raises a chair and belts him in the face. Angle Slam lands for the win at 14:40.
Rating - ** - From a creative perspective this was an absolute toilet of a match. The booking had been SO heavily focused on Stephanie McMahon that she wound up stealing the heat from both the actual wrestlers, to the extent that the crowd were near enough silent during the period of the match when she was in the locker room (i.e. the ‘good bit’). Triple H and Angle have good chemistry together, meaning that even amidst a horrendous storyline, HHH rushing back before his quad was up to it and carrying miles too much muscle mass, a farcically overbooked finish and with Kurt basically a complete irrelevance to proceedings, they still had a pretty decent match. I loved the idea that HHH’s injury means he simply can’t keep up with Kurt Angle ‘the wrestler, so went for a brawling approach because he knows he has an advantage there. This match, which people paid to see on ppv, would be made totally pointless on television soon afterwards as HHH won his Mania main event slot back – just to put the cherry on top of the sh*t sundae that was the storyline around this match.
Kurt Angle walks straight out of the arena into a waiting car still celebrating his victory.
The Rock is in the medical room getting his neck checked out as the New World Order walks in. Apparently he is Nick Hogan’s favourite wrestler (I bet he’s thrilled), so Hulk wants a picture with him. They make fun of Rock…so he rips the piss out of all three of their old WWF gimmicks. This segment seriously was the highlight of the entire pay-per-view.
Chris Jericho vs Steve Austin – WWF Undisputed Title Match
With WrestleMania very much at the forefront of the creative team’s thoughts at this point, absolutely minimal effort was put into this feud. Austin defeated Kurt Angle (the thousandth time they’d wrestled in the past year presumably) to earn this spot, and proceeded to call himself a WWF Championship junkie. Jericho played the smarmy asshole well, pointing out that he beat Austin once for the Undisputed Title…before we got the usual assortments of run-ins, backstage assaults and skits to promote this main event in the most generic manner possible.
JR admits that Austin is risking his health in pursuit of the WWF Championship at this point. It doesn’t stop him smiling maliciously as Jericho hopelessly fails to outmuscle him in a test of strength – and even when Jericho starts slapping him in the face. He tees off with countless chops in the corner then switches to repeatedly battering Y2J’s face into the turnbuckles. Jericho has seen enough and attacks Austin’s bad neck – landing a swinging neckbreaker which instantly sends him scurrying for the ropes. On commentary Ross says that Austin would go home if someone told him he’d never be WWF Champion again…which ironically he pretty much did after WrestleMania. He hasn’t taken his ball home yet though, and has survived the early attack on his neck to continue his relentless attack on the champion in the corners of the ring. Chris manages to put his shoulder into the ringpost though, adding to Stone Cold’s growing catalogue of injuries and forcing him to take evasive action in the aisle. Brawling on the floor is never going to favour Y2J – a fact demonstrated as Steve blasts his head into the set, production cases, the guardrail and anything else he comes across. Back in the ring he starts hitting Jericho with ROLLING SUPERPLEXES…which is just so unbelievably self-destructive considering what state his body was in. Each time he hits the deck Austin grabs at his neck and his back and is so obviously in pain that it’s quite uncomfortable to watch. Jericho resorts to an unseen low blow in a desperate attempt to stop the relentless beating he’s absorbing and pounces on Stone Cold’s hurting spine.
Austin looks like he’s struggling to control his limbs as he runs the ropes, and has to fight to save himself in the match as Chris lines up the Walls Of Jericho. This has been the best ten minutes of wrestling the entire night, so I am in legitimate disbelief that there are audible ‘boring’ chants going up now. Jericho heaves the hapless Rattlesnake to the floor, where he lies slumped against the announce tables catching his breath and checking which part of his body hurts him the most. Lionsault missed by the champion but the punches thrown by Austin are so weary now that he is rendered unable to capitalise and Jericho climbs onto his neck again with a sleeper hold. He gets Stone Cold on the ground and is far more concerned with positioning himself on top of his challenger rather than actually apply a technically perfect sleeper. Reaching down deep into his energy reserves Austin pushes Chris back with a spinebuster, but has his neck and spine SMASHED into the turnbuckles. REPEATED LIONSAULTS get 2! Steve looks horribly uncomfortable, and crashes down onto his neck again as Jericho COUNTERS the Thesz Press into the WALLS OF JERICHO! When that doesn’t work Y2J grabs the WWF Title belt…only for Austin to spinebuster him onto it! Stone Cold Stunner COUNTERED INTO THE BREAKDOWN…FOR 2! Earl Hebner gets belted out of the ring and misses the champion tapping out to the Walls Of Jericho, and doesn’t see it again as Austin hits the STUNNER! The nWo run in for a three-on-one assault on the Rattlesnake, leaving him laying in a heap for Jericho to pin him at 21:34.
Rating - *** - On a pretty horrible night for the WWF, this was actually a surprisingly great match before it was ruined by more atrocious booking from the beleaguered writing department. They’d wrestled the perfect match for the storyline they came into No Way Out with. Austin, hampered by his increasingly broken down body, still craved the WWF Championship like a drug – so put himself through hell in pursuit of it. Jericho, confident from two months as champion and having already beaten Austin at Vengeance, went after the injuries with gusto, and showed no qualms about using cheap tactics to boot. They were going great guns until the third sh*tty main event finish in succession. Another cheesy ref bump was bad enough, but the nWo’s attack on Austin made so little sense it was laughable. What purpose did it serve? Beating up Stone Cold is hardly killing the company. He’s not even champion anymore so it’s not like it serves their purpose of being the ‘top guys’. All it does is make Jericho look like an absolute bum because, even as Champion, the nWo didn’t consider him enough of a threat or star to assault. Not to give credit to WCW’s writers, but there is no f*cking way they’d have booked their New World Order to assault Austin and let the champ get away scot free.
In fact, Jericho is such a scrub that Hall, Nash and Hogan let him walk out as they start attacking Austin (the real star) instead. The show ends with them spray-painting the fallen-Stone Cold’s broken and battered torso.
Tape Rating - * - This was, at this point, the worst ppv of the new millennium by a distance. It wasn’t just that the wrestling was dire, it’s that by this point the writing had gotten so bad too that the show was borderline unwatchable. The Acolytes as #1 contenders to your inane Tag Titles in 2002? Really? Rob Van Dam, one of the hottest rising stars, stuck in an absolutely nothing feud with Goldust. Random tag teams running around all over the place. Vince McMahon in about three different storylines. Rock and Undertaker part 68. Making Stephanie McMahon more of a draw than two of your top stars? In fact, it had gotten so bad that WWF’s writing department have started using WCW’s ideas (the nWo) AND CAN’T EVEN GET THEM RIGHT EITHER. It was brutally uncomfortable to watch, and I lost count of the amount of times I called something ‘pointless’, or used words like ‘filler’ or ‘forgettable’. In fact this whole event was so utterly devoid of meaning that very little of it had any significance as we moved to WrestleMania. The Tag Team Turmoil match didn’t matter as three of the teams got a title shot in Toronto (whilst another of the entrants held the belts by then). Kurt Angle obviously didn’t challenge for the WWF Championship in the Skydome. Stephanie McMahon remained more of a focal point of television even ahead of her own husband, and the f*cking CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE COMPANY. Despite ending with the nWo attacking Stone Cold, he was shunted out to a crap undercard feud with a rambling and incoherent Scott Hall whilst it was The Rock who got the ‘money match’ with Hogan, and the feud between Rock himself and Undertaker was forgotten as quickly as it started since it was only ever a clunky, cumbersome and wholly predictable prelude to Taker/Flair. Inside the ring not all of this show is a total bust. There are a LOT of guys on this show working as hard as possible, and there are a few half decent matches. It’s just that they are so utterly let down by the sh*tty writing that it’s almost impossible to care about what they are doing. And when you have a broken down, unmotivated and very obviously hurting Steve Austin KILLING himself in a main event, despite a crowd chanting boring and some horrendous booking, the show becomes extremely hard to sit through. A real low point for the World Wrestling Federation…
Top 3 Matches
3) Rob Van Dam vs Goldust (***)
2) William Regal vs Edge (***)
1) Chris Jericho vs Steve Austin (***)