2001: A Wrestling Odyssey

[theironshake]

My favourite promo that year was Heyman's against Vince just before the Survivors Series. Absolutely unbelievable

[The Gaffer]

9 hours ago, theironshake said:

My favourite promo that year was Heyman's against Vince just before the Survivors Series. Absolutely unbelievable

It will never be topped as a worked shoot, as far as I'm concerned. 

"You took Hulk Hogan’s blood and you built Titan Towers. You stole Bret Hart’s dream, and with that money, bought yourself an airplane with WWF all over it. You did that and you know it, you son of a bitch!"

I might give Survivor Series 2001 a watch today, now. I think as a standalone show - if you remove it from the context of what a disappointment the invasion angle has been - it's great fun. Survivor Series was almost always superb for about ten years in a row. 

When "Yo' you dealing with da X-Factor!" hits is still one of wrestling's funniest ever moments as well. 

2001 rules. It's way more of a joyride to watch back than 2000. I've said it before but much of 2000 is almost too well written to be much fun to go back and dissect. It's just wall to wall consistency until Austin returns and shits the bed. 

[Sphinx]

No Way Out 2001 really got me into wrestling. I'd played the games and watched Survivor Series 99 but that event was the start of my consistent watching. I loved the Three Stages of Hell match at the time as a 10 year old. I watched it back again a few years back and it was a right slog. 

I didn't understand why Stone Cold was facing The Rock at Wrestlemania when I'd just seen Triple H beat him.

Also remember being well excited by Just Bring It and being let down as most of the Invasion roster wasn't there. Couldn't believe the graphics on the Shut Your Mouth trailer the following year. 

[Liam O'Rourke]

I've just this past week watched the month of TV leading to Mania X7...I think the most frustrating thing about the Austin turn might be that, if that was considered a necessary move because Austin felt stale...then why the fuck are they putting him in a feud with Undertaker again as his first program? THAT was stale two years ago. Austin Vs. HHH was stale because it felt like old news. Austin needed to feud with new people, the people that had come in since his absence, then he wouldn't have been feeling stagnant anyway. Worse, when the Hardyz and Lita do the six-person tag, the crowd is going fucking nuts. They wanted that story and push because it was new, then they kill it dead in one night and pivot to Taker, the useless old fucker. 

Also, you really can see the booking cracks in that final month to Mania. A lot of little things that stink of WCW 98. And they all get far worse when they aren't falling back on Austin and Rock's guaranteed windfall.

[HarmonicGenerator]

10 minutes ago, Sphinx said:

No Way Out 2001 really got me into wrestling. I'd played the games and watched Survivor Series 99 but that event was the start of my consistent watching. I loved the Three Stages of Hell match at the time as a 10 year old. I watched it back again a few years back and it was a right slog. 

I didn't understand why Stone Cold was facing The Rock at Wrestlemania when I'd just seen Triple H beat him.

Also remember being well excited by Just Bring It and being let down as most of the Invasion roster wasn't there. Couldn't believe the graphics on the Shut Your Mouth trailer the following year. 

I vividly remember watching No Way Out 2001. I wasn’t too fussed about seeing any particular match but my friend David had lent me the tape he’d recorded off Sky on the Tuesday afterwards, and school got cancelled at about 10am because of snow. So I got to go home early and spend the day watching the PPV. I really liked the fatal four way for the IC title but haven’t seen it probably since that day.

Edited August 13, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator

[Tommy!]

35 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

Survivor Series was almost always superb for about ten years in a row.

Which 10 years, because 99 & 2000 were bollocks, and 04 was the shits. 

[simonworden]

I find 2001 an interesting year outside of WWF as by the middle of 2002 the new indies that would come to be the only alternative in America for the next few years were being formed and TNA was set up. So outside of the WWF there was an absolute wasteland of places to work that probably hasn't been seen since. Who would have been the number 2 promotion then? XPW or XWF the latter was a glorified pilot and the less said about the former the better. I remember seeing tape traders with videos of little independent shows with people like Rey, Eddie, RVD and other pretty big names for sale and wondering WTF why were these guys working for those 2 bit promotions in front of 5 people. 

How many ridiculous attempts were announced but never went anywhere both in the USA and UK for the next 'big competition' or promotion to be set up.

All the while as well OVW was putting the finishing touches on the golden boys for what would be the next 10-20 years in Cena, Batista, Lesnar and Orton. Can you imagine telling someone in 2001 that those 4 rookies would be the backbone of Wrestlemania 30 and 3 of the Wrestlemania 35 with one being an important special appearance. Absolutely ludicrous. 

I didn't know about many of these things at the time as I don't think my family had the internet. Even if it did I think my main google search was probably 'Trish Stratus tits' at 14. 

[Tommy!]

@simonwordenhave you ever seen any of the WWA shows they were doing in late 2001?

Looking back it's a proto TNA with Jeff and some of his mates getting a holiday to Oz for few week. The most memorable part is Disco vs bananas in pajamas (IIRC there's a video on YouTube of a banana taking a bump off a cage to the floor and missing the table) but I'm sure they had Bret and Lawler in non wrestling roles over there too.

[DavidB6937]

3 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

@simonwordenhave you ever seen any of the WWA shows they were doing in late 2001?

Looking back it's a proto TNA with Jeff and some of his mates getting a holiday to Oz for few week. The most memorable part is Disco vs bananas in pajamas (IIRC there's a video on YouTube of a banana taking a bump off a cage to the floor and missing the table) but I'm sure they had Bret and Lawler in non wrestling roles over there too.

WWA shows with live commentary were the best.

[Infinity Land]

The back half of 2001 World Wrestling All-Stars would have been the #2 promotion in terms of scale for an English speaking audience. As they had the Australian and UK tours booked by that point. TNA before TNA.

Jersey All Pro carried a certain level of profile until RoH claimed that spot.

XPW were still just trying to be West Coast ECW. It wouldn't be until 2002 when they went to Philly. Main Event Championship Wrestling were the one event wonder wannabe ECW. MLW would have that spot come 2002-03.

 

 

 

[BomberPat]

15 minutes ago, Liam O'Rourke said:

Also, you really can see the booking cracks in that final month to Mania. A lot of little things that stink of WCW 98. And they all get far worse when they aren't falling back on Austin and Rock's guaranteed windfall.

As great as Wrestlemania 2001 was, when you remember that a significant part of the build to The Rock vs. Steve Austin was around fucking Debra being made The Rock's manager, you realise that the wheels were starting to fall off a little earlier than you might otherwise think.

2001 is really when my fandom started in earnest. I've talked on here before about how I'd been into wrestling as a kid, but missed most of the Attitude Era, then came back in around Summerslam 2000 thanks to Smackdown on the PS1. I'd say early 2001 is probably when I moved from just catching PPVs, Smackdown and Heat to recording RAW every week, following online, and generally getting obsessed, so it's a period that I have a lot of fond memories of.

I often wonder what would have happened without the WCW buy-out. As someone who had missed out on Austin being the hottest star in the business, he felt like a bit of a relic coming back and smashing up people that felt like a bigger part of the company than him. 

[Factotum]

Austin's initial heel turn is fine, the issue was the SECOND heel turn putting him in the bloody Alliance.

By the way that episode of RAW where ECW came back and Heyman cut that promo on Jr and WWF is a helluva episode.

Booker T showing up in MSG was fantastic as well.

[The Gaffer]

1 hour ago, Tommy! said:

Which 10 years, because 99 & 2000 were bollocks, and 04 was the shits. 

95, 96, 98, 01, 02 and 05 all either had great cards or something noteworthy going on that made it feel like a big event, or something that could only happen at Survivor Series. Okay so six out of ten, but not bad by WWE standards compared to the tripe Survivor Series has been for ages now. They were going to bin it at one point about ten years ago, weren't they? 

[Devon Malcolm]

That Heyman promo sounded great at the time but loses a lot of its sheen when you remember he was taking WWE money in ECW.

[BomberPat]

1 minute ago, Devon Malcolm said:

That Heyman promo sounded great at the time but loses a lot of its sheen when you remember he was taking WWE money in ECW.

Perhaps, though he was a heel at the time, so I don't think being a hypocrite is something to mark him down for. It was interesting at the live show he did a while back hearing the rationale behind doing that promo, about how shoot promos for shoot promos' sake are always terrible, but that structuring it in such a way that it still promoted the PPV and the big match meant it carried more weight. It really showed how wasted he was as a bit player in The Alliance while Stephanie was the "owner of ECW", though, even if he was still superb on commentary.

The main thing about that promo that I remember at the time was that it felt genuinely taboo to mention people like Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan, and even Shawn Michaels, who weren't around any more. With WCW no longer around you started to get far more reference to wrestlers who didn't work for the WWF - JR saying that Booker T was "no Sting" as WCW Champion, for example - and for a while it really did feel like we were entering a bit of a brave new world, in terms of what was possible.

Even as much as the Invasion was a washout, I think it was how quickly they started to hit the reset button afterwards that made it clear that no matter who they brought in or what they did, it would never feel properly special again. There were still great moments to come, but it really seems like everything after 2001 had a bit of a fug over it, that it was never quite what it could have been. I know it was 2002, but I think they fucked up the nWo even worse than the Invasion.

 

Back to 2001 and the reset button - Survivor Series 2001 was a pretty dismal show, especially the main event. We rewatched it recently, and there are points where it just seems to break down entirely - something, I'm not sure what, definitely goes wrong, because there are extended periods of awkward movement, purposefully avoiding running the ropes, and talking to each other. That's before you even consider the damp squib of the Invasion story, and how it came down to a basically all-WWF affair.

That they turn Steve Austin babyface and go right back to Austin vs. Vince the next day was baffling. They wouldn't turn him face for a WWF vs. WCW feud, but were happy to go right back to the same old shit once they'd got done washing their hands of what could have been the biggest angle of all time?