Unforgiven
September 24, 2000
First Union Center, Philadelphia, PA
With the summer behind us and another good PPV in the books the previous month, the WWF ventured into the fall with a lot of momentum. The Rock would continue to play the role of fighting WWF Champion, as tonight he would once again find himself against multiple challengers. This time it would be in a fatal four way where he would attempt to hold onto the title against the Undertaker, Kane and Chris Benoit. Meanwhile the highly personal issues between Triple H and Kurt Angle involving Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley would come to a head as the two would face off in singles action – a match so filled with hate that Commissioner Foley appointed himself as the guest official. And on top of all that, we have the return of the toughest SOB in the WWF. Stone Cold is back after being run down almost a year ago and he’s out for revenge. Lets get this show going. Please share your thoughts and feedback with me on Twitter at @Mpmcc91.
Our opening video package is all about the two big matches I just mentioned as well as the return of the Rattlesnake. He’s not in action tonight by the way – this is just his full time return to TV. We’re welcomed by our usual commentary team of Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler and we are set to get things underway. Before our opening contest we cut briefly to the parking lot where we see Kevin Kelly waiting for Stone Cold to arrive. More on that later.
Dudley Boyz & The Acolytes vs Right to Censor
For the second PPV in a row, we kick the night off with the RTC in the opener. They’ve added a new member to their ranks here, as the faction previously comprised of Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan and the Goodfather has now got Val Venis in on their quest to clean up the filth in the WWF. Of course, when we last saw Venis he was doing his own thing under the management of Trish Stratus. Well, after Trish accidentally cost Val the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam, the former porn star would fire his manager shortly after on Smackdown. He would tease a face turn on the next episode of Raw is War, blowing off Steven Richard’s request he join the RTC and went on to team with the Road Dogg to battle Buchanan & Goodfather later in the night. Venis would be taken out on the outside during that match and carried off by the RTC members after their victory. The next week, Buchanan & Goodfather were in action against the Acolytes when Venis made his return but decked out in the familiar white shirt and tie. He would join in the beat down on the Acolytes and officially join the RTC faction. In the weeks that followed, the RTC would dish out beatings on both the Acolytes and the Dudley Boyz, which brings us to eight man tag team action here tonight. Anyway, the faces are out first here and the RTC follow, with Richards getting on the mic before the match promising to fight the good fight. We start the match off with the Goodfather against D-Von, and the faces take control for the early going. After various combinations go at it, the RTC take over the match as they work over D-Von. After taking a beating, he gets the hot tag to Bubba, and the Dudley Boyz clean house. They hit the always popular Wazzup spot (D-Von delivering the headbutt to the groin) to Venis, but as Bubba makes the cover, the Goodfather comes in and breaks up the count. He gets rid of D-Von, but Bubba follows by sending the interfering RTC member out as well. Amongst the chaos, Richards, who had avoided tagging into the match as much as possible, comes in and decks Bubba with the Stevie kick. That allows Venis to score the pinfall, picking up another victory for the RTC at 6:04. A pretty basic opener that was once again about putting over the RTC as the new dominant faction on the scene.
Grade: *1/2
After the match the faces get their heat back by the Dudley Boyz going after Stevie. Stevie gets the Wazzup and Bubba tells D-Von to get the tables. The Acolytes prevent the other RTC members from intervening. They are unsuccessful as the RTC manage to get in to their leader’s aid, but the Acolytes fight them off and do a number on Stevie as well. From there, Bubba delivers the powerbomb through the table to the RTC leader to a big pop.
In the back we see Triple H and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley together. Stephanie is worried about her husband’s condition after a recent beating on Smackdown, but Triple H says not to worry about it. He vows to end this thing with Kurt Angle tonight. Stephanie promises that he has her support. Trips was being positioned in a more sympathetic light with this storyline, with Angle taking the arrogant heel role.
Kevin Kelly is still in the parking lot, but there’s no sign of Austin yet.
Strap Match:
Jerry Lawler vs Tazz
Following Lawler’s victory over Tazz last month at SummerSlam, Tazz attacked Lawler at the announce position the following night on Raw is War during his match against Steve Blackman. Later that week on Smackdown, the King would respond by costing Tazz a match against Chris Jericho, which led to a tag match the following Monday pitting Lawler & Jericho against Tazz & Mideon (who knew he was still around?). Lawler would pin Tazz once again, but the Human Suplex Machine responded by attacking the King with a leather strap after the match. This all led to Commissioner Foley booking a strap match between the two for Unforgiven. Unlike previous strap matches however, this one could be won by pinfall or submission as well as the touching four corners rule. Anyway, the King leaves JR to call this one solo on commentary. Tazz quickly throws Lawler to the outside as the match gets under way, and starts mouthing off to JR like last month. The distraction allows the King to come back and choke Tazz with the strap before tossing him back into the ring. Tazz goes for a low blow which turns the tide back into his favour and starts to pound on the King with the strap. Lawler comes back with the Piledriver, but Tazz pops right back up, and does the same for a second before staying down on the third one. Wow. The crowd are actually getting behind Tazz here which makes sense since we are in ECW’s neck of the woods. Speaking of ECW, as Lawler goes to touch the corners, the debuting Raven (mentioned by name by JR) comes in through the crowd and DDTs Lawler to a huge pop. From there Tazz locks in the Tazzmission on the King, choking him out for the win at 5:05. As a match, this was pretty basic, but it was cool to see Raven debut in Philadelphia and align with his fellow ECW alumni. Sadly the newly formed duo wouldn’t really take off from here, but as I’ve said before, the tag division was already stacked by this point. This feud ends now, and Lawler is helped off for medical attention.
Grade: 1/2*
The Hardcore Championship is up next and we see the current champion, Steve Blackman preparing backstage. We then cut to the parking lot where Austin pulls up in his truck. In a hilarious moment, Kevin Kelly excitedly welcomes Austin back and asks how he is feeling, only for Austin to throw him against the wall and toss some pipes onto him.
Back at ringside, Michael Cole joins JR on commentary in Lawler’s absence. He’s become the play by play guy on Smackdown since we last had him on commentary on PPV, so he’s a lot more comfortable than he was back in 98/99 at this point.
WWF Hardcore Championship – Hardcore Battle Royal:
Steve Blackman (c) vs Al Snow vs Crash Holly vs Funaki vs Perry Saturn w/Terri vs Test w/Trish Stratus
Its time for another one of those multi-person Hardcore title matches on PPV. This is the same rules as the match at Wrestlemania earlier in the year, only its ten minutes rather than 15. The winner is whoever holds the title at the end of the allocated time. Steve Blackman is the reigning champion here as we saw him defeat Shane McMahon to win the title back last month. His challengers are all former Hardcore Champions from some point or another. Speaking of the challengers, Perry Saturn is no longer the WWF European Champion. As I touched on in the last review, he recently started up a rivalry with Al Snow, with Snow since winning the title on an episode of Smackdown after SummerSlam. He makes an Italian themed entrance here, playing up the European thing. Anyway, this match essentially stems from the Smackdown before this show where Blackman was defending his title against Snow. Due to the 24/7 rule, Crash, Funaki, Saturn and Test would all interfere attempting to win the title in that match, but Blackman managed to escape unscathed after pinning Funaki. That brings us to this match with the 24/7 rule being waived until the following night by Commissioner Foley. Everyone goes after Blackman to start as we get the standard Hardcore title brawl involving all kinds of weapons. Crash pins Blackman a few minutes and then goes to take off up the aisle. Saturn gives chase and hits the Houdini of Hardcore with a trash can lid and that allows him to win the title moments later. He doesn’t hold it for long though, as Blackman gets out his kend sticks and goes to town on his opponents, getting the title back from Saturn in the process. Blackman fights off his opponents for the remainder of the time limit and escapes with the title around his waist at 10:00 much as he entered it. This was okay for what it was. There were less guys involved and less time than at Mania so it was much easier to keep track of and far less title changes. It was basically a way of showcasing Blackman as the new star player of the Hardcore division. Nothing spectacular though.
Grade: *1/2
Backstage, Kurt Angle runs into Stone Cold Steve Austin for the first time. Of course Angle’s first televised WWF appearance was at the Survivor Series last year when Austin was run down. Angle gives Austin an honorary gold medal. Austin responds by saying he’ll keep it in a very special place – right up Kurt’s ass. He beats Angle up and leaves. Fun moment that would serve as a preview of the great chemistry between Austin and Angle over the next year.
Chris Jericho vs X-Pac
Funnily enough this is a rematch from exactly one year ago, as these two faced off in Jericho’s PPV debut at last year’s Unforgiven. Of course, the roles were reversed back then, with Jericho the cocky heel and X-Pac the plucky underdog. What a difference a year makes. Anyway, the build to this feud was pretty basic, as Jericho defeated X-Pac on an episode of Smackdown a few weeks before this event. On the next episode of Raw is War, Y2J was set to face off with Triple H, but during that match, X-Pac hit the ring and attacked Jericho. The former DX member would follow up the next week laying Jericho out with a pair of nunchucks. That brings us to tonight where Jericho is out for revenge. As X-Pac makes his entrance the announcers mention that he has become quite self-centred in recent weeks following the end of DX. Of course that came about following SummerSlam when Road Dogg grew tired of Pac’s antics and turned face. Jericho starts this one out with momentum, but X-Pac ends up blocking a dropkick and sending the popular Y2J to the outside. Back in the ring, X-Pac now takes control of the match and after locking in a sleeper, he attempts to follow up with the Bronco Buster. Jericho catches him in the process and instead delivers a powerbomb to his opponent. X-Pac ends up going for the nunchucks to cut off Jericho’s momentum. Y2J manages to duck them, but he moves right into the X-Factor. Jericho manages to kick out of the near fall though and ends up trapping Pac in the Walls of Jericho. X-Pac struggles and gets to the ropes, forcing the hold to be broken. Jericho follows up with the Lionsault, only for X-Pac to get his knees up. Nonetheless, Jericho comes back by trapping his opponent in the Walls once again, which leads to X-Pac tapping out at 9:03. He keeps the hold on X-Pac after the match until officials finally break it up. X-Pac recovers and whacks Jericho with the nunchucks to get his heat back. Ironically that was almost the mirror of their encounter last year where X-Pac won the match but was laid out afterwards. Funny how things like that work out. Anyway, this wasn’t as good as the match from a year prior, but it was still very solid. These two had some great chemistry and the feud would continue from here.
Grade: ***
In the back, Kurt Angle is upset about being jumped by Austin earlier so he confronts Commissioner Foley about it. Foley has enough of Angle’s complaining, and makes his match with Triple H later tonight a no disqualification match.
Elsewhere the Rock is in his dressing room when Stone Cold walks in. They have a stare down before shaking hands. Austin says he and Rock are cool, but the man that ran Austin down last year did so using Rock’s rental car. He asks if Rock knows anyone who would have had access to his keys, but Rock says it could have been anyone in the locker room that went through his bags that night. The conversation is interrupted by “Just Joe” and says he has some news for Austin about who ran him down. Austin responds by stomping a mud-hole in Joe and leaves as Rock looks on with a smile.
WWF Tag Team Championship – Steel Cage Match:
Edge & Christian (c) vs Hardy Boyz
After retaining their titles in the first ever TLC match last month, the rivalry between these two teams continued to bring us to this match. The night after SummerSlam, Edge & Christian mocked both the Dudley and Hardy Boyz whom they had defeated the night prior, by having midgets come out impersonating them. The Hardy Boyz would interrupt and brawl with the champs, and earned another shot at the titles a few weeks later on Raw by defeating the Dudley Boyz in a number one contender match. Later that week on Smackdown, Commissioner Foley made the match a steel cage match. The champions were none too happy about this, but they responded by setting a trap for the Hardy Boyz on the Raw before this show by mocking old footage of their backyard wrestling clips. The Hardy Boyz and Lita were lured to the scene, only for E&C to lay them out with chair shots which brings us to this one. Of course the Hardy Boyz get an big pop as the crowd was strongly behind them in their quest for the gold here. All four guys are in the ring at the same time for this one, and you can win by pinfall, submission or escaping the cage. Anyway, the Hardy Boyz build some momentum early on and hit Poetry in Motion. After this, Jeff decides to climb to the top of the cage, intending to do something crazy, but Edge follows and actually pushes him to the floor outside. The announcers are a little surprised at first, but then realise this means Matt is now forced to go at it alone in a handicap match as Jeff has escaped the cage. Matt attempts to hang in there by slingshotting Edge into Christian and then tying Edge in the ropes. He attempts to then escape but E&C come back and hit a suplex on the older Hardy off the cage. Meanwhile Jeff attempts to come back in to his brother’s aid, only for Edge to kick him down. From here, the heels work over Matt alone, but Jeff ends up getting the door open and throwing a chair in to his brother. The plan backfires as Edge & Christian get to it first, lock the door and attempt to deliver a conchairto to Matt. Matt ducks it and takes down his two opponents and attempts to escape over the top once more. Christian follows and the two end up dangling outside the cage. Meanwhile Jeff gets a ladder from under the ring and uses it to hit Christian, sending him down to the floor to make things one on one between Edge and Matt. Christian attempts to get back in using the ladder after Jeff takes himself out with a Whisper in the Wind off the top to both Edge and Matt, but Lita rushes down to ringside and hits a hurricana off the ladder to Christian in an awesome spot. With the Hardy Boyz down, Edge attempts to escape, only for them to recover and catch him with a conchairto at the top of the cage! Edge falls back down to the ring and Matt escapes the cage along with his brother at 13:32. The Hardy Boyz are your new WWF Tag Team Champions! This was a really good match as we have really come to expect between these teams. There was plenty of action, and whilst Jeff getting out of the cage so early was a bit weird, it added a new dynamic to the match. A really good cage match with new champions being crowned.
Grade: ****
Backstage, Stone Cold walks in on Stephanie. Stephanie enthusiastically welcomes Austin back and says she has something for him. She gives him a hat – the hat he was wearing when he was ran down. Stephanie says she has been holding onto it since the accident but Austin is not pleased as it solves nothing. Stephanie then tells him that Shane has answers.
Elsewhere we see Triple H and Mick Foley exchange words about the Game’s upcoming match. They acknowledge that they have had their issues in the past, but they have recently been on the same page following all the Angle stuff. Foley tells Triple H that since it is a no DQ match, he’s only there to count the fall and he will let them do whatever they want to each other.
Back in the arena, Jerry Lawler makes his way back out to the announce position and replaces Cole for the remainder of the show. JR welcomes him back and we go to a video package highlighting the Eddie/Chyna/Rikishi issues prior to the upcoming match.
WWF Intercontinental Championship:
Eddie Guerrero (c) w/Chyna vs Rikishi
At our last PPV, Chyna won the Intercontinental Championship in a tag team match with Eddie by her side. Whilst the lovers seemed on the same page that night, their relationship would quickly deteriorate. Eddie would win the I.C title in a triple threat match on Raw is War which also involved Kurt Angle. During that match, Angle would knock out Chyna, whilst Eddie would accidentally pin her whilst attempting to revive her. The two would argue after the match only to hug, but the issues would grow from there. This occurred when Chyna told Eddie that she would be posing for Playboy Magazine, with Eddie becoming resentful of this. He would even attempt to invade the Playboy Mansion on an episode of Smackdown only to be thrown off the property by security. He would also show signs of a heel turn, attacking Too Cool who were on friendly terms with Chyna. This would lead to Rikishi going after Latino Heat and proclaiming that Chyna was too good for Eddie. Chyna would eventually have enough of Eddie, ready to break up with him on the Smackdown before this show, only for Eddie to spontaneously propose to her, a proposal she would accept. Despite their reconciliation, Eddie is the heel here, although his opponent would have a change in attitude soon enough as well. He’s still the dancing fat guy with the crowd behind him here though. Anyway, Rikishi starts this one in control which leads to Eddie deciding to take a hike and attempt to save the title on a count-out. Chyna stops him by telling him to grow a pair and return to the ring. He doesn’t relent, so Chyna ends up throwing Eddie back into the match. Rikishi continues to control the match from here and attempts to go for the Stinkface, but Chyna pulls her man out of the ring and distracts the ref. This distraction allows Eddie to sneak in and crossbody, but a subsequent frog splash attempt misses and leads to Rikishi hitting the Banzai Drop on the champion. Before the referee can count to three, Chyna comes in and breaks up the pin but Rikishi responds with a vicious thrust kick to the Ninth Wonder of the World which gets him disqualified at 6:03. Eddie retains the title, but Rikishi is pissed and actually hits the Banzai on Chyna before leaving. It was a nice way of foreshadowing his pending heel turn. Meanwhile Eddie checks on Chyna, but not before first making sure he has his I.C title in his possession, something JR is quick to note. This was okay for what it was but really nothing special. It was more about furthering the issues between Eddie and Chyna, whilst also showing a more angry side of Rikishi going forward. By the way, people can say what they will about Chyna, but by this point the woman looked incredible. Just saying. Anyway, fine for what this was.
Grade: **
Backstage, Jonathan Coachman is standing by with the Undertaker. Undertaker talks about humbling his opponents en route to becoming the new WWF Champion tonight. Elsewhere, Kurt Angle is feeling sorry for himself about everything. His match is a no DQ match, Austin jumped him, and Stephanie won’t talk to him. Trish Stratus walks in and offers to cheer Kurt up. Angle, completely missing her offer gets up and thanks her, saying he has an idea. Great stuff.
We now get a video package highlighting the Angle/Triple H/Stephanie drama. Their match is coming up next.
No DQ Match:
Triple H w/Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs Kurt Angle
Special Guest Referee: Mick Foley
This highly personal rivalry became even more intense following the events of SummerSlam. The night after on Raw is War, Kurt Angle came out and accused Triple H of striking his wife the previous night, despite the incident being an inadvertent one being brought about by Angle and Triple H struggling over a sledgehammer. After noticing Stephanie was not by Triple H’s side, he suggested she was scared of her abusive husband, which led to a brawl breaking out between the two. Later that night, Chyna found Triple H backstage, and due to their past gave him an innocent hug out of sympathy for the issues Angle was causing. Later that week on Smackdown however, Angle would play that footage to Stephanie which led to her questioning the Game’s actions. Triple H told her it meant nothing but Stephanie told him the same thing about her and Kurt after preventing her husband from going after Angle again. Later in the night however, Triple H was arrested for spousal abuse and it was revealed on the next episode of Raw is War that Test had made the complaint to get revenge on Trips for a year prior. Triple H would defeat Test that same night, but in the weeks that followed he and Angle would continually get involved in each other’s business. This led to Commissioner Foley making a match for Unforgiven, with himself appointed the guest referee. Of course, it was made a no DQ match by Foley earlier in the night. So now we get the culmination of this incredibly hot rivalry. Steph comes out with her husband after Angle gets on the mic and sings Happy Birthday to Steph. Trips starts out by unloading on Angle and takes the early advantage. He sends Angle to the outside, but Kurt comes back in with a German Suplex but argues with Foley when Trips kicks out. The action goes to the outside once more and the Game attempts to Pedigree Kurt through the announce table like the previous month. This time Angle counters and instead delivers a belly to belly to Triple H through the other announce table. From there Angle goes to work on his adversary, targeting the ribs and locking in and abdominal stretch. The tide turns when Angle goes for a Moonsault but fails to connect, and Triple H follows up with a Pedigree. He only uses one hand due to his injured ribs though, so he doesn’t get all of it and is unable to make the cover. Instead, Stephanie comes in the ring to check on her husband. Triple H tells her she needs to make her decision, so after much hesitation, she delivers a kick to Angle down low. That allows Triple H to hit another Pedigree which gets the win at 17:26. After the match, Stephanie checks on Kurt, which leads to the Game grabbing her and giving his wife a rough kiss, which leads to the announcers feeling not all is well between the married couple despite Stephanie helping Triple H win. As a match itself, this was very good. As the culmination of one of the hottest storylines of the year however, the booking here fell victim to circumstance. This whole storyline was designed to turn Triple H face, and this would have been the perfect time to have Stephanie cost him the match against the quickly rising Kurt Angle. With Austin coming back and Rock as champion however, it was clear that Triple H was more needed on the heel side, so the turn was scrapped soon enough. I think thats part of why this match often isn’t remembered too fondly, but it was still pretty good.
Grade: ***1/2
We now do our monthly cut to WWF New York, where Too Cool are partying with the fans in attendance.
In the arena, Shane McMahon makes his way out to the ring. He says he knows who ran down Stone Cold and has video evidence. He says a certain member of the roster has a history of vehicular assaults and shows footage of Steve Blackman running down Ken Shamrock about a year ago. Talk about lucking into that one. Of course, Shane is trying to frame Blackman due to their ongoing rivalry. At this point, Steve Blackman makes his way back out to confront Shane, but before he can do anything, the glass shatters and out comes Stone Cold Steve Austin, new music and all to a huge pop. The Rattlesnake is back! Blackman tells Austin that Shane is framing him, but Austin drops the Hardcore Champion with a stunner anyway. Shane is ecstatic and throws in some beers to Austin. They drink some beers, but Austin strikes once again after a minute or two and stuns Shane. He drinks some more beer and dishes out two more stunners on Shane for good measure. This would basically be the last we see of Shane until Wrestlemania season, but the mystery as to who ran down Austin remains unsolved. This was a perfect way to bring Austin back into the fold of things though, as there’s nothing better than Austin hitting some stunners. The crowd was going wild for the whole thing.
The main event is up next, so we get a video package highlighting how this one came together. Afterwards, Michael Cole gets a word with the Rock backstage. Rock rips on his opponent and guarantees to leave tonight with the WWF Championship still around his waist.
WWF Championship:
The Rock (c) vs Undertaker vs Kane vs Chris Benoit
Once again the popular WWF Champion finds himself battling the odds against multiple challengers. This began when the Undertaker cost Kane a WWF title match against the Rock on the Raw following SummerSlam, continuing the issues between the Brothers of Destruction. Later that week on Smackdown, Chris Benoit faced off against the Undertaker in a number one contender match, only for Kane to interject himself and go after his older brother to repay him from earlier in the week. Upset at losing his chance for another title shot, Kane faced off with Benoit for the number one contender spot the next week on Raw, but the match again went to a no contest when Benoit took to Kane with a steel chair. A week later, the Rock teamed with the Undertaker to battle Kane & Benoit. After the match, due to all the controversy in the WWF title scene, Commissioner Foley announced that the Rock would defend the title at Unforgiven against all three challengers in a fatal four way, hence where we are now. Anyway, this starts out like your typical fatal four way, with two guys pairing off. In this case Rock and Kane go at it whilst Taker and Benoit do battle. The two faces come out on top and then come to blows before the heels get back in the mix. Rock and Benoit fight to the outside and brawl into the crowd whilst Taker and Kane exchange shots in the ring. Rock and Benoit return to ringside only for Taker to drop Benoit onto the barricade, and we get some more rotating combinations going at it from here. Rock and Taker end up going at it, whilst Kane takes down the referee. This leads to Taker getting a chair and whacking Rock with it. Not that you can get disqualified in a four way anyway. Benoit comes in and gets the chair off the American Bad Ass and whacks him with it as well. Benoit covers Taker, and the referee recovers and makes the count to three, despite Taker getting his leg under the rope. Nonetheless after about seven minutes, Chris Benoit is seemingly the new WWF Champion. Just as he attempts to leave, Commissioner Foley comes out and orders the match to continue – hey its Fully Loaded all over again! Anyway, the three other men come after Benoit in the aisle and we are back under way. The action goes back to ringside where Rock nails Taker with the ring steps, only to suffer a choping frenzy from Benoit. Rock ends up locking Benoit in the Crippler Crossface after countering the Wolverine’s offence, but Taker and Kane stop fighting for a minute to break it up. Rock goes to hit Kane with the People’s Elbow, but Benoit stops it and Taker delivers the Last Ride to the People’s Champion. Taker and Kane go back at it and Benoit eventually gets the crossface on the champion. Again, Taker comes in and breaks it up and chokeslams Benoit, only for Kane to start brawling with his brother back to the outside. With the ring clear, Rock recovers and hits the Rock Bottom on Benoit and scores the pin to retain his championship at 15:18. The Rock has once again overcome the odds to walk out as WWF Champion and the crowd is on its feet as he celebrates to end the show. Overall this was a good match, but a step down from previous main events over the course of the year (aside from the King of the Ring mess). I said back at Fully Loaded that Rock and Benoit had great chemistry, and there were signs of it here, but Taker and Kane brought this one down.
Grade: ***
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Coming off the heels of some very good shows once again, Unforgiven was a bit of a step down. It wasn’t a bad show by any means, just average when compared to what we had seen for most of the other events of the year. That said, it still beats King of the Ring by a mile. The highlight of this night was the steel cage match, which was excellent and saw the Hardy Boyz climb to the top of the tag division over a year after they first won the titles. Elsewhere we had a very good match between Triple H and Kurt Angle that was hampered a little by the outcome not changing anything, a solid forgotten match between Jericho and X-Pac, and I’ve already talked about the main event being decent albeit underwhelming to a degree. The big story is obviously that Stone Cold is back, and with all the top players in the company healthy now, the top of the card is getting very stacked. Despite this we still have someone ready to break through to the next level the following month. A bit of a step back this month, but the future remains bright heading into the fall and the move from USA to TNN the following night.
Three Stars of the Night:
1. Hardy Boyz – on top of the tag division once again. A really good and different type of cage match than we would normally see,
2. Edge & Christian – obviously played a part in the cage match being so good as well. They were really great heels in this stretch and it was nice to see them overthrown from the top of the division they had dominated for most of the year. They were not done by a long shot though.
3. Kurt Angle – I’m giving it to Kurt despite coming up short in his match tonight. His backstage segments were a lot of fun in the goofy Kurt fashion, whilst his performance with Triple H was very good as well.
FINAL GRADE: 6 out of 10
ALL TIME PERFORMANCE TALLY:
What I do here is add the three stars of the night with each review so as to keep track of who we can say overall is the greatest PPV performer to any given time. First place scores 3 points, second 2 and third 1.
Steve Austin = 84
Bret Hart = 83
Shawn Michaels = 67
The Rock = 45
Triple H = 44
Mick Foley = 38
Randy Savage = 28
Undertaker = 25
Owen Hart = 21
Hulk Hogan = 18
X-Pac = 18
Diesel = 15
Ultimate Warrior = 13
Vader = 13
Chris Jericho = 13
Matt Hardy = 13
Jeff Hardy = 13
British Bulldog = 12
Christian = 11
Ted DiBiase = 10
Razor Ramon = 10
Vince McMahon = 10
Edge = 10
Ric Flair = 8
Jim Neidhart = 7
Jerry Lawler = 6
Bubba Ray Dudley = 6
D-Von Dudley = 6
Dynamite Kid = 5
Arn Anderson = 5
Roddy Piper = 5
Mr Perfect = 5
Marty Jannetty = 5
Bob Backlund = 5
Kurt Angle = 5
Ricky Steamboat = 4
Ax = 4
Smash = 4
Bobby Heenan = 4
D’Lo Brown = 4
Chris Benoit = 4
Greg Valentine = 3
Tully Blanchard = 3
Tanaka = 3
Bam Bam Bigelow = 3
Sato = 3
Jake Roberts = 3
Hakushi = 3
Yokozuna = 3
Savio Vega = 3
Ken Shamrock = 3
Shane McMahon = 3
Chyna = 3
Brutus Beefcake = 2
Paul Orndorff = 2
Andre the Giant = 2
Rick Rude = 2
Sgt Slaughter = 2
Jeff Jarrett = 2
Jesse Ventura = 1
Texas Tornado = 1
Tito Santana = 1
Virgil = 1
Scott Steiner = 1
Rick Steiner = 1
Lex Luger = 1
The Roadie = 1
Billy Gunn = 1
Bart Gunn = 1
Marc Mero = 1
Flash Funk = 1
Animal = 1
Hawk = 1
Taka Michinoku = 1
Test = 1
Big Show = 1
Dean Malenko = 1
Scotty 2 Hotty = 1
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