Sexy Dad Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 After the great Royal Rumble review thread I thought it’d be worth discussing our favourite ‘last stop before Wrestlemania’ pay per views. Every February WWE hosts an event, far from the grandeur of the Rumble or Wrestlemania; yet the show has huge implications on the Wrestlemania card and sets the direction of the Road to Wrestlemania until the big night itself. No Way Out and the Elimination Chamber event have had countless great moments and have some moments in which I’d rate higher than those delivered at Wrestlemania a month or so later. E.g. Eddie’s title win in, Triple H vs Cactus Jack Hell in a Cell match and Kurt Angle vs Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship, matches far from the forgettable nature of a lot of B-pay per views. So, go ahead and share fond memories from the past events! So, following the same idea as the Rumble thread I thought I’d kick this off by discussing No Way Out 2001. X7 was only the second Mania I had followed the build up to and everything the WWF was delivering at the time was hitting the mark for me, this card looked set to deliver and did hit the mark with some great matches. Harcore action between Big Show and Raven kicked things off. Big Show was a great fit for the Hardcore scene at the time, he hadn’t really hit his stride in the ring after a couple of years with the company but had the intimidation factor that the likes of Blackman, Crash Holly et al lacked thus adding a dimension to these extreme dangerous matches without the need to rely solely on weapons. Big Show and Raven had a scrappy affair here as expected with some interference from the regulars who looked to capitalise on the 24/7 rule but were unsuccessful when it came to taking the title away from Big Show. Show’s involvement here was a nice gateway for other drifting big names to come and have a go at taking the scruffy belt as Kane joined Big Show and Raven to make a triple threat at Wrestlemania, a match given a lot more time than this one which went about five minutes. The second bout of the night was a fantastic fatal four way showcase between Jericho, Benoit, X-Pac and Eddie Guerrero for the Intercontinental Championship. Other than X-Pac, these guys were all on the verge of becoming major players and the crowd loved every second of this one, except when X-Pac was on the offence, cue the ‘X-Pac sucks!’ chants throughout the arena. Chris Benoit had other things on his mind than allegiances with Eddie and the other Radicals at the time and he was busy stealing shows as the crowd lapped up his abilities. This is one month removed from the Chris Jericho vs Chris Benoit ladder match at the Rumble, an absolute classic, far removed from the wreckless TLC multi-team matches and more reminiscent of the Razor-HBK affair. However, it was Chris Jericho that had the crowd in the palm of his hand for this one. The previous year had seen Y2J go from feuding with a woman to sparring with Stephanie, battling Triple H and having all out wars with the Rabid Wolverine. Each of the four guys looked impressive in this one and Y2J left with the gold to head towards an amusing feud with William Regal, yet not overly pleasing in the ring due to time restraints and simply being far too low down the totem pole in importance compared to the likes of Shane vs Vince, TLC2, Taker vs Triple H and Austin vs Rock at Wrestlemania. Next up, Stephanie Mcmahon defeated Trish. Not a good match, but the perfect continuation of the ridiculous Mcmahon family shenanigans. I cannot picture this type of thing in today’s WWE whatsoever, the long lasting soap opera shenanigans are brilliant, well ridiculous viewing and truly of its time…don't revisit if not fully prepared! The middle of the show saw the Royal Rumble winner, Stone Cold Steve Austin take on Triple H in a Three stages of hell match. I won’t talk about this a whole lot as I saw that somebody is looking to review it in the Triple H thread. I felt this was a strange feud at the time, I was pleased something so big was happening i.e. the cage involvement, two major players going at it, yet the feud didn’t really click for me and I thought the match wasn’t all that. Still, Triple H looked good going into Wrestlemania and Stone Cold didn’t suffer from the loss as the two men fell at the same time upon striking each with weapons, Hunter was just lucky enough to land an arm across Stone Cold to get the pin. The match wasn’t as historic as the Hell in a Cell which Triple H was involved in a year prior by any means but still an impressive win to add to The Game’s CV. That damn Right to Censor screwed Jerry Lawler out of his job in the next match as Stevie Richards defeated The King. This led to the King and Cat’s departure. RTC were on their way out at this point but got one last thing accomplished by removing key orchestrators of sleaze during the attitude era…a job well done! The Dudleys successfully retained their tag gold against Edge and Christian as well as the Brothers of Destruction in the next bout. The contest was a tables match which added that danger that had now become associated with the tag team division. Undertaker is not on form during this time, he doesn’t resemble The Undertaker and he doesn’t seem to give a fuck. I was lapping him up at the time though…what a badass coming out to Limp Bizkit on a motorbike! The match was a decent watch, it led the Dudleys and E&C to another risky Wrestlemania TLC affair and Undertaker and Kane were free to go and do things on their own for Wrestlemania after forming a team at some point recently before the event. The Undertaker we see a month later against Triple H at Wrestlemania is capable of a great showing unlike the rather uninteresting scenarios we saw him in teamed with Kane. Finally, the main event saw Kurt Angle who had sneaked past the likes of Undertaker, Triple H and an Armageddon Hell in a Cell with the Gold was forced to face The Rock. The Rock is at his hottest after a great year shining as the number one babyface of the company with Austin’s absence. The match featured Angle getting a good showing, he wasn’t a complete fluke of a champion at this point and he had established he could go…yet he was happy to weasel his way to a victory when things got tough dammit! At this point, I felt that every WWE pay per view main event was a huge deal and this match could have some terrific implications. If Kurt were to retain there was no way he was getting past Stone Cold! Yet, if The Rock won…that could be huge. I wasn’t watching during Mania ’99 season but The Rock was a different phenomenon during this time so I’m sure not many fans would be disappointed at the pair clashing again only two years later on the big stage. Anyway, the main story is The Rock was victorious and yet again, the people’s champion! Rocky was set to begin an intense rivaly with Austin to prove who was now the best…and Debra had something to do with things for a bit too. Angle headed towards a rivalry with Benoit that was a little thrown together for the sake of getting on the show (which was the case with all of Kurt’s Mania bouts until 2003 when he main evented with Brock). Check out this match for excitement, a great champion in Kurt Angle who the crowd were waiting to receive his comeuppance and the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. I’d say it’s the perfect bit of the pre-mania X7 warm up package (this is a thing that only exists in my mind) of Benoit vs Jericho ladder match, the Rumble match, Angle vs Rock, Mcmahon family segments, Triple H choking Taker with a chair claiming that this is now his yard and the Limp Bizkit ‘My Way’ video package. Tremendous stuff. Roll on… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Professor Paul's Bin Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Your post has made me realize how I preferred the WrestleMania build up without the Elimination Chamber Matches. I just think it needs to be somewhere else in the year in October instead of the Hell In A Cell stipulation Pay Per Views. We'd all like to see the entire gimmick pay per view concept thrown out and more emphasis put on feuds rather than a 3 week feud being put in a Hell In A Cell match. The past few years have felt far too similar with the Elimination Chamber matches especially considering there is two put on in the same night. It's ran its course basically as my memory of the recent years Chambers seem to blend into one with the past 5 years of it we've seen. When looking back I view the No Way Out Cards more positively where I enjoyed the Pay Per Views more and felt like they added more to the WrestleMania build up then what the Elimination Chamber Pay Per Views have. In your post the moments you point out are ones which happened without the Elimination Chamber concept which back up my point those being Cactus/Trips, Angle/Taker and Guerrero/Brock. Saying this the Elimination Chamber matches are usually good in quality most of the time and have had some good moments but in some cases they haven't bothered following up on some stand out moments. So basically I'd just like to see the Pay Per View occur during another time of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.PeterVenkman Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Is Elimination Chamber on Sky Sports again this year? I've only ever really enjoyed the first two and last year's one with Bryan and Santino as the last two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexy Dad Posted February 3, 2013 Author Share Posted February 3, 2013 I suppose taking Triple H vs Cactus Jack into account; in the modern era a feud building towards Wrestlemania with a need for a big gimmick such as the cell may now occur in the chamber and if Triple H and Foley were surrounded by four guys that did not need to be there simply taking up time and focus off the two guys that the fans are invested in it may not be remembered so fondly. Another thing I found whilst reflecting over No Way Out 01 was the amount of different things going on for guys like Jericho, Benoit, Big Show, Austin, Triple H etc which were all away from the title...it seems completely counterproductive to have to throw six guys in the same match when they could be competing away from the chamber and not looking like an afterthought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killjoy_Gee Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I actually really like the Stephanie vs Trish match. Considering how limited they both were in the ring (at the time for Trish), they put on a really good match Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
METAL ON METAL Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Is Elimination Chamber on Sky Sports again this year? I've only ever really enjoyed the first two and last year's one with Bryan and Santino as the last two Yeah its on Sky Sports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Joe Joe Jr Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 That Trish/Stephanie had no right to be as good as it was for two non-workers. In fact, that whole PPV was excellent. NWO 2002 is worth a mention just for the brilliant timing of having the NWO come in on that show, with the same initials. I think it was the 2008 PPV when they first had the two chamber matches on the show, and I thought it was really interesting as far as keeping everyone guessing at to what title match combinations we might end up with come Mania. But in recent years, it just seems like another hurdle and a bit more of a hindrance in some cases. You'll get a good match or a memorable sequence (like Bryan/Santino, Edge/Rey and the one where Cena was shockinglythe first guy eliminated early on) but other times it all feels a bit overblown. I think it was 2010 when they had a chamber match where Cena won the belt (or retained possibly), and then Vince booked him in an impromptu match straight after to put it on Batista which felt overdone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stephens Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 I liked it when they had the chamber at Survivor Series in 2002. They should have kept it then. No Way Out was a great PPV in the early 2000's as the final stop before Wrestlemania. Cactus/HHH Hell in a cell and HHH/Austin 3 stages of hell were both brilliant matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 For me, the early Elimination Chambers all had their own unique story (Goldberg mowing everyone down, Carlito and Masters teaming up etc, Heyman trying to stop Lashley from winning the title) but by the time it had become customary to have 2 Chamber matches on the February PPV, they just turned into normal matches with not much narrative running through them anymore, a bit like how Hell In A Cell used to be a fued-ender, Elimintaion Chambers generally had a reason and were still a marquee match but not so much these days. Are we counting St. Valentine's Day Massacre amongst these PPVs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexy Dad Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 Are we counting St. Valentine's Day Massacre amongst these PPVs? Yeah, I'm assuming it was the last show before Mania? You've got a point about the chamber matches, I remember the first few quite well and I'd be inclined to go back and watch them a lot more than the more recent ones. Another chamber that deserves a mention fornfantastic storytelling throughout has to be the NYR 2005 one featuring Triple H, Batista, Orton, Benoit, Jericho and Edge. The fine work of Y2J and Benoit trying to prove they could beat Triple H, even at one point applying a Cross face-Walls double whammy to Hunter. I was engrossed! Also Orton was in feud with Evolution, Edge had business with the special guest referee HBK and Batista was rising as the next breakout star and the fans were chomping at the bit to Big Dave leave Triple H and Flair's side. I'd say that last year's Smackdown Chamber match was reminiscent of previous matches as all the participants put in a good showing...apart from Khali. Big Show looked dangerous, Cody ensured that he would try and embarrass his soon to be Mania opponent too. Barrett looked at home and was trying to his damnedest to take the World title to Wrestlemania and then there was the fantastic Bryan-Santino exchange to finish the match. Raw's chamber match lacked any of this drama and is the type of match that inspires apathy to see these overplayed gimmick matches nowadays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted February 4, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted February 4, 2013 Are we counting St. Valentine's Day Massacre amongst these PPVs? Still a big fan of that show, and the brilliant poster. The last man standing match between Rock and Mankind is never mentioned, which is a shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reznor Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 No Way Out 2000 is my fave WWF Feb. show. It was class all over; HIAC was epic, Big Show shocked everyone with a massive upset which was great to me as I hated the Rock. Hardys and E&C put on what was probably their first great match that didn't rely on stunts. The Radicalz debut on PPV in a cracking 6 man. Angle and Jericho had a fun opener, 2 fat fucks went at it, we saw the end of the Outlaws, another chapter in the Kane/Xpac saga, title changes, and some gratuitous underboob. The only negative for me was that Tazz/Bossman shit which would have been ok as a tv segment but had no right being on PPV. And as good as that show was, the B PPV the other side of Wrestlemania was even better. The WWF was ace in 2000. Other than that, I liked the first 3 from the show with owen/HBK andthe Razor/Kid nappy match, through Final 4 and onto the first No Way Out in 1998 which I still have a soft spot for despite the disappointment of the infamous mystery opponent. It was still a really entertaining show with loads of variety. Helps a bit that i'm probably the only person on the planet to have enjoyed the Quebecers match too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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