“Hulkamania is alive! Well, so is communism in China and crotch rot,
and no one’s real thrilled about them, either.”
Scott Keith, 2002
Someone had sent a question via the question box gimmick on the blog’s side bar thing about how I had felt when Hulk Hogan had won the WWF Championship in 2002.
For those who need context, WWF Wrestlemania X-8 featured the marquee match of The Rock facing off against Hollywood Hulk Hogan, where the heel Hogan was cheered by the Toronto crowd while the normally babyface Rock was booed heavily. This resulted in a resurgence of popularity that saw Hogan break away from the WWF version of the nWo (another story for another time), bring back Jimi Hendrix as an entrance theme (before it got redubbed with Real American in the replays), and go back to the ol’ red and yellow… while keeping the Hollywood Hogan five o’clock shadow. This nostalgia run, as it were, somehow resulted in a PPV main event that saw Hogan challenge for the Undisputed WWF Championship, which was being held by McSon-In-Law, who won the title at Mania from Chris Jericho in what can be generously described as an anemic main event.
The thought then occurred to me that it’s been years since I’ve seen the Backlash show in which that match took place. And while the WWE Network is kaput, the show is on Netflix… but I also have my old DVD recording of the PPV from back in the day and since I prefer Voodoo Child over Real American as a Hogan theme – hell, I’d take American Made over Real American – I went with that instead.
And yes, I will get this out of the way. Backlash 2002 is a largely terrible show because WWF in 2002 was the drizzling shits that wouldn’t get better… but at the very least, it gives me stuff to talk about. Granted, I could have watched the Backlash show that took place last weekend, but really, other than the 738,909,251,831,862,583,019th match between John Cena and Randy Orton, there was nothing on that show that made me go, “Yes, I want to watch this.” So you get this, instead.
See? We both suffer… that’s how life works around here. Anyway, moving right along…
Tajiri defeated WCW Cruiserweight Champion Billy Kidman via RED MIST to the face during a rare Kidman powerbomb attempt to win the title… see just because YOU CAN’T POWERBOMB KIDMAN doesn’t mean that KIDMAN CAN POWERBOMB YOU. In fact, I don’t know why a guy who spends his career countering powerbombs would want to try a powerbomb of his own if he never knew one that actually hit. Also, despite the fact that it’s introduced as the WWF Cruiserweight title, they’re still using the old WCW Cruiserweight title and wouldn’t introduce a proper WWE version until mid-2002; hence my referring it to its former title rather than the later one. I’ve been trying to pin an actual date for when they debuted the new belt, but so far, research has run dry.
Scott Hall (with a Kane mask-wearing X-Pac) defeated Bradshaw (paired up with Ron “Faaaroooooqqqqq” Simmons) with a rather sad-looking lowblow followed by a sad looking roll-up in an otherwise sad looking match. There’s no beating around the bush here; Hall looked like absolute shit and trying to watch him go through a match while being in no condition to walk a dog, much less wrestle a match is almost painful. I should note that this PPV is taking place a month after the initial WWF draft that split the roster between RAW and Smackdown… and in the process, the APA were split off with both members going to different brands. So, this reunion after a month apart seemed like a big deal… but even that couldn’t save their whole sad state of affairs.
And of course, Scott Hall would be gone from WWE not long after.
Women’s Champion JAZZ (yes, THAT JAZZ) defeated Trish Stratus via submission to retain the title in a short five-minute match that saw Molly Holly ambush Trish before the match. I kinda wish that this match ran a little longer because JAZZ is a monster worker and Trish was kinda, sorta getting there… but I guess we need to devote as much time as possible for the main event of the seven Hs or something.
Brock Lesnar defeated Jeff Hardy and his dayglow gear via ref stoppage… because Brock giving Hardy an unnamed F5 and several powerbombs of pain was too much fun for the audience, so this ref decided, “Yeah, this show’s starting to get fun for the fans. RING THE FUCKING BELL!” Still, if you wanted to showcase Brock as a monster that murders people, mission accomplished.
Kurt Angle defeated Edge in a genuinely, shockingly excellent wrestling match… I suppose “shockingly” is a bit of an oversell because Kurt Angle was a wrestling machine and Edge was definitely getting up there. Fortunately, Edge would get his win back next month and Kurt… well, he’d lose a bit of hair over that… I might have given a bit too much away, haven’t I?
Out comes Chris Jericho to complain about how he went from being Undisputed WWF Champion to not even having a match on BACKLASH. He’s not even good enough for BACKLASH! Sadly, Chris Jericho circa 2002 is no Joey Styles circa 2005… nobody is going to get that.
Eddie Guerrero defeated Intercontinental Champion ROB VAN DAM via FROGSPLASH to win the title. RVD tried his damnedest and held up his end of the bargain, but in the end, Eddie was simply the better wrestler and brought Mr. PPV to school. For added context, Eddie was let go in 2001 and was eventually brought back a month prior to this match, so this would have been his first big match and whatever he was dealing with, he seemed to have gotten under control enough to deliver a good match and continue a good run that ended way too soon.
Undertaker defeated “Stone Cold” Steve Austin via chair kicked into face and pinned… while Austin’s foot was on the ropes. It should be noted that the special referee for this match was Ric Flair – at the time a storyline co-owner of WWF – who would eventually see the finish to the match and utter an “oh shit” in response. I suppose if you spent more time on being a good ref rather than spent money picking out your best red shoes, you end up making some stupid calls. Speaking of stupid calls, this match was fucking horrible and I absolutely hate it. Granted, Austin and Taker never had any truly great matches and even their best outings were just decent at best, but to call this match the drizzling shits would be too kind. This was heel biker Taker, which meant he was largely shit. And this was also a largely unmotivated Austin who hated creative and was weeks away from the whole “ball taking home” thing… And this was almost HALF A FUCKING HOUR LONG. WHO BOOKED THIS SHIT AND WHY WERE THEY ALLOWED TO LIVE?
Oh wait…
World Tag Team Champions Billy and Chuck defeated Al Snow and Maven to retain the titles in the traditional buffer match that lasted five minutes. If they’re not going to give this thing time, then why should I?
On the bright side, Maven now runs a lovely Youtube channel while Al Snow runs Ohio Valley Wrestling. Hope both are doing well enough.
And in the main event, Hollywood Hulk Hogan defeated Undisputed WWF Champion Triple H (who looked to have weighed 800 pounds according to the Huckster Scale) to win the title… yes, there were run ins from Jericho and McMahon and such… but in the end, Hunter hit his move, Hogan hulked up, gave McSon-In-Law the big boot and leg, and got the clean pin. In a way, I almost feel sorry for HHH here because he had just returned from a horrific quad injury, had gotten the hero’s welcome earlier this year, and was poised to go on this amazing run of sorts with the title… and then a month after he won it, he’s dropping it to an old, out-of-touch dinosaur who was barely mobile during his prime WCW years, let alone in 2002. Hell, I’d have to think that if this title change hadn’t taken place, then we wouldn’t have had to suffer from the McSon-In-Law Reign Of Terror that dominated RAW from 2002-2005.
The thing is, though, that HHH run had fallen off a cliff long before he won the title. The whole HHH/Stephanie/Jericho thing was an absolutely horrid piece of business that killed Jericho’s stock as champion – which made HHH winning the title less of a big deal than anyone expected – and given that people weren’t exactly on board with this HHH babyface run… hey, what else was there? Austin was hurt and possibly on the verge of flaking out, Rock was committed to Hollywood, there were no other potential stars to elevate and take the reigns… who did you have left, really?
And yeah, back in 2002, my first thought on changing directions would not be giving over-the-hill Hogan another run with the title. And in even today, I’m watching this unfold and I’m like “What are you doing?” to the booking team… but there’s also the matter of this Hulkamania thing having one last big run for as long as it goes. And also, the dude was getting some big pops. The sustained audience applause in Montreal is something seldom few people got back in those days. Would I have gone with Hogan as champ based on that alone? Probably not, but given that there was no other directions to go to, I could understand why it was worth a shot if nothing else.
That said, yeah, this was a terribly long main event. Cut the first fifteen minutes, go straight for the run-ins, and give Hogan the belt in less than ten minutes and it would’ve been tolerable.
But yes, Backlash 2002 is a dreadful show that paints a not-so-pretty picture about the absolute dismal creative that was going on. It’s hard to imagine the WWF being in such dire straights after a wildly hot Attitude Era period, but given how they handled the Invasion in 2001 and pretty bungled that piece of business, seeing them in such dire straights was just painful to watch.
And then the World Wildlife Fund struck… and the World Wrestling Federation became World Wrestling Entertainment. Sadly, a name change did nothing to improve the product… as we’ll see next week.
dtm666 