No Way Out 2001 is 20 years old

[RLStern]

One of the best B ppvs ever, my personal favorite PPV ever.

590,000 PPV buys to see The Rock become WWF champion to go into Wrestlemania 17.

Show starts with a great intro, theme song and graphics package.

Theme Song:

Matches start with a 5 star hardcore title match between Raven and The Big Show, this match has multiple interferences from Crash Holly, Steve Blackman, Billy Gunn etc

Big Show wins and enters hardcore division.

Then we get perhaps the greatest fatal four way match between Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and X-PAC for the intercontinental championship

Chris Jericho retains

We then get a great cat fight great story in Trish Stratus vs Stephanie McMahon.

Stephanie wins with help from Mcmahon intern soon to be Commissioner William Regal. Perhaps Trish Stratus sexiest match ever(can’t say the same thing about Stephanie McMahon’s flat butt)

We then get Stone Cold vs Triple H in the first ever 3 stages of hell match. Austin and Triple H had matches that were flat and never seemed to have a great match prior to this, with No Mercy 1999 match being flat and lowest drawing PPV of the year, and Survivor Series 2000 match being flat with a memorable ending and lowest drawing ppv of the year.

this match ended up being the best and only great match between Austin & Triple H being the end point of a year long storyline between the two. Triple H wins, many argue this as match of the night.

Then we have another great story in the leader of the Right to Censor Steven Richards facing Jerry the king Lawler, of Richards wins The Kat joins the RTC, if Lawler wins she gets to go nude again like she did last year at Armageddon 1999.

They end up having a great matchcontinues the great RTC angle.

Next is an awesome Triple thread table match between Brothers of destruction, Edge & Christian, and Dudley Boyz for the Tag Team

Dudley Boyz win.

Now the main event, the headline of the show, The Rock vs Kurt Angle for the WWF championship.

Another match a year in the making, Rock and Kurt Angle had been feuding off and on since January of 2000 when Kurt Angle cut perhaps his most famous promo in Pittsburgh blasting Mario Lemieux and The Rock which garnered media attention.

The basis was that Kurt Angle was an all American Olympic Gold Medalist jock being against the culture and society of professional wrestling in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s while The Rock was most popular guy in Professional Wrestling and defined that late 90’s/early 2000’s wrestling culture that Kurt Angle despised.

The feud would hit another level after Kurt Angle beat Rock at No Mercy 2000(another huge Rock/Angle draw with 550,000 buys)

Over the course of late 2000/early 2001 Kurt Angle through schemes and plots would remain at the top as WWF champion, beating Taker at Survivor Series, Austin on Raw, Triple H at Royal Rumble, and winning the 6 man hell in a cell at Armageddon 2000.

Now Rock was once again number one contender and promised Angle that his reign of schemes was over. With Kurt Angle claiming that Rock was jealous of his charisma and personality(as many were arguing him as best on the mic after Rock during this time)


The Rock and Angle end up having an amazing match, even the pin botch was saved for viewers at home by Jim Ross saying he kicked out.

The Rock became WWF champion to one of the biggest pops ever, and we are now on the road to Wrestlemania 17.

 

[Chris]

Absolute banger of a card, I agree mostly. You rate most of the undercard higher than me, but that's not a knock on it at all bc it was all solid for sure. And then Austin/HHH and Rock/Angle were just absolute masterpieces

 

[Kross Rhodes]

Wregret just reviewed this show. This has to be the most perfect trilogy of shows from Royal Rumble to X-Seven.

Just one of many reasons 2001 is probably my favorite year in WWF history.

 

[Chris]

Wregret just reviewed this show. This has to be the most perfect trilogy of shows from Royal Rumble to X-Seven.

Just one of many reasons 2001 is probably my favorite year in WWF history.

Arguably the best road to WrestleMania in history and IMO it is

 

[Kross Rhodes]

Arguably the best road to WrestleMania in history and IMO it is

It has to be the best road to WrestleMania and probably the best three-four month period in WWF history imo.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

The only other option if we're talking three-four months and not specifically WrestleMania, King of the Ring 2001 - Unforgiven 2001 is also a contender.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

This video package alone shows how epic this build was to X-Seven.

 

[RLStern]

Arguably the best road to WrestleMania in history and IMO it is

It has to be the best road to WrestleMania and probably the best three-four month period in WWF history imo.

It is, each of the three PPV’s were the highest drawing of their own respective month.

The closest is 1999 & 2000, which also had Rock, Chyna, Austin(barring 2000), Triple H(barring 2000) & McMahon.

Difference though is Kurt Angle added as headliner this time leading to bigger PPV buys and quality, while everyone else was bigger than they were before.

Notice 2003 was the first year since 1997 where they had a Wrestlemania build up no one cared about?

That’s the year they really started the build up in February with returns of Rock, Austin and Hogan.

Whereas during the Attitude era they started building to next Mania season in the summer, fall latest.

Summer of 1998 - Seeds planted for Corporation with Austin/Mcmahon, Rock becomes top face leading to the fall heel turn and formation of Corporation.

Summer of 1999 - Summer of the Game

Summer of 2000 - Summer of Kurt Angle

Summer of 2001 - Invasion leading up to the winter where Chris Jericho wins both the WWF & WCW titles making him the first Undisputed champion in wrestling.

The road to Wrestlemania 19 is when they started pulling this crap, they made fans think Brock Lesnar was the heel bully who was gonna lose the title at Mania, to someone like Rock or RVD.

Instead they turn him face despite having so much heat for getting rid of(to the regular fans knowledge) Rock, Austin, & Hogan.

So that he could face a veteran by this point who isn’t gonna get booed anymore, Kurt Angle.