It’s 9/11. Let’s do something patriotic for the occasion… by reviewing a WWF PPV that took place two weeks after the United States endured tragedy and travesty.
Continuing our week of Kurt Angle spotlight shows, we’ll be touching on WWF Unforgiven 2001, knee deep in the much-maligned Invasion angle, with reigning WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin (still pretty much a heel at this point) defending his title against the patriotic All-American hero and Olympic Gold Medal winner with a broken fricking neck, Kurt Angle… and also other stuff too.
Anyway, let’s jump in and be all patriotic and stuff… even I’m not American.
WWF Tag-Team Champions The Dudley Boyz defeated Big Show/Spike Dudley, Hurricane Helms/Lance Storm, and the Hardyz in a four-corners elimination match (one of the rare instances where the WWF had a elimination-style four-way as opposed to the usual one-fall-to-a-finish) to retain the titles. So for those keeping score, the Dudleyz and Hurricane/Lance are part of the WCW/ECW Alliance (or just the Alliance for short) while the Hardyz and Big Show/Spike are team WWF. If it sounds like I don’t care about allegiences, it’s because I don’t… but apparently, someone in the audience did and this gave way for all those brand supremacy bullshit shows where both RAW and Smackdown fight for bragging rights and pretty much nothing else. So chalk that up as another reason why the Invasion sucks ass. All that aside, this was a perfectly fine and sometimes even fun little opener. Hurricane Helms is still in his infancy and very much a heel that’s underdeveloped, but don’t worry. It’ll get there soon enough.
Rob Van Dam arrives at the arena and Stephanie Nipple H offers her services… I would like to point out that this is a WWF PPV event from 2001. Also, Kurt Angle’s family is at ringside for this event… and also Kurt might not be medically cleared due to neck issues… almost as if they’re giving away the results of the main event without actually saying it aloud.
Perry Saturn defeated Raven via submission. Match was a thing that happened, not much more than that. By the way, for those who care, this match was a thing because Raven fed Saturn’s pal Moppy to a wood chipper. Moppy is, of course, a mop that Saturn considers a pet… because he’s “special.” Again, this is a WWF PPV event from 2001.
Christian defeated Intercontinental Champion Edge via chair to the balls to win the title… eh, honestly wasn’t feeling this one. Seems like both guys were still getting a feel for what they’re like singles-wise. Just because I felt like it, I loaded up their match from Dynamite a few months ago and man, go watch that before coming back and giving this another watch to see how far these two men have gone.
WCW World Tag-Team Champions Undertaker and Kane (no, that is not a typo; the Brothers of Destruction were the reigning and defending WCW Tag champions… welcome to 2001) defeated Kronik to retain the titles. This is the infamous match that people say was one of the worst matches in wrestling history and, yeah, the match is pretty bad… but as far as worst match ever or anything like that, I’m not sure I’d go that far. Sure, it was a bit of a mess, but I was expecting something truly dreadful and I came away mildly disappointed and mostly bored. Oh well… Kronik would be gone from WWF soon after.
Hardcore Champion ROB VAN DAM defeated Chris Jericho to retain the title in a pretty fun match. Several months later, these two would have a match that people didn’t think was excellent and that would cause poor Jericho to go off on the Internet Marks because they wouldn’t recognize that match’s greatness or something. I say that here because I need something to pad this thing.
WCW Champion THE ROCK defeated Booker T and Shane McMahon in a handicap match to retain the title in a mediocre sports-entertainment match with brawling WWF and WCW refs… but then when it comes to the finish, who should make the count but EARL HEBNER of all people? I bet Bret is fuming and calling whoever booked this shit a complete idiot. Also, poor Booker is made to look like an idiot because he couldn’t win his title back from the Rock in a 2-on-1 situation. Mind you, his partner’s Shane McMahon, but still…
Rhyno defeated United States Champion Tajiri in a short and painless match to win the title. I’m amazed that nobody had the foresight to book these two in a hardcore match type of situation, considering both are former ECW guys… but I guess we really needed our buffer match between the mediocre Dwayne match and our main event, so we get this… which, again, was short and painless.
Kurt Angle defeated WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin via submission to win the title. I thought the match was alright, but not quite as great as their Summerslam match. That match had a bit more drama to it while this felt like a regular match. It’s one of those things where you have a match that should feel like a big deal, but doesn’t. On the bright side, Kurt Angle got the hero’s celebration with family and friends. Which might seem a bit hokey, but hey, at least Angle WON the fucking title, so that makes it less so.
Alas, Austin’s leg would later be revealed to be under a rope, necessitating a rematch that would see Austin regain the title with an assist from then-WWF commissioner William Regal. So clearly, the feelgood moment that sees Kurt Angle win the title for America (brother) lasts about a week or two before we’re back to business as usual. Hell, once the Invasion is done, Angle is back to being the goofy heel again, which is a shame because he had a bit of that babyface fire on display here and it would’ve been nice to see them go with that for a bit considering there weren’t any strong babyfaces for the heel Austin to contend with.
On a whole, a perfectly fine B-level PPV event with a notoriously bad match that is perhaps overly notarized and a main event that was perhaps overhyped. Still, this isn’t too bad of a show and you had a feelgood moment to end the show that would last all of two weeks… oh well.
dtm666 