Tuesday, August 13, 2019

WWF Summerslam 2001



So this is Summerslam... the first show after July's invasion PPV that the two big rivals of the Monday Night Wars go head to head at last... except in reality, it was a bunch of WWF guys against more WWF guys, along with WCW and ECW refugees tossed in for good measure. Not a ve

A quick note: even though this whole "Invasion" storyline is ongoing, I'm not going to bother with the identifiers denoting which guy is fighting for which side. It really doesn't matter in the long run and also I don't feel like typing out ALLIANCE for every random jabroni out there.



Edge defeated WWF Intercontinental champion Lance Storm in a pretty solid match to win the title. I guess Lance isn't getting the big push he got in WCW... oh well.

Test & The Dudley Boyz defeated Spike Dudley and the APA with a chairshot assist from Shane McMahon in a six-man tag-team match that was a thing that happened.

WCW Cruiserweight champion X-Pac defeated WWF Light Heavyweight Champion Tajiri to unify both championships... well, good. It's nice to see less titles in this cluttered mess. The match itself was nothing special and not something that has me excited.

Chris Jericho defeated Rhyno via liontamer submission in what I thought was a pretty good match despite the involvement of "ECW Owner" Stephanie McMahon, who is just as shill and as bad of an actress as she ever was.

WWF Hardcore Champion ROB VAN DAM defeated Jeff Hardy in a ladder match involving lots of high-risk and high altitude action to retain the title. Both guys were in their element here and that resulted in a match that was fun to watch.

WCW Tag-Team Champions Undertaker and Kane (no, that is not a typo) defeated WWF Tag-Team Champions Diamond Dallas Page & Chris Kanyon (no, that is also not a typo) in a Steel Cage glorified squash match to unify both titles (for the short term, at least). So the deal here is that DDP is apparently infatuated with Undertaker's then-wife Sara... which was odd because DDP had a then-wife named Kimberly who was, all due respect, way the fuck much hotter. But it's not about giving fans what they want; it's about WWF vets teaching WCW vets their place and giving us a shitty match as a result. And then Vince wonders why people stopped watching his shows all those years ago.

Kurt Angle defeated WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin via DQ due to Nick Patrick calling for the DQ after Austin took out a ref... or was it a double DQ due to Kurt also taking out a ref? All I know is that Nick Patrick (a WCW ref, in case anyone cares) called for the DQ that prevented Angle from winning the title and Angle was pissed. Goofy Kurt Angle is funny and amusing, but when Angle is presented as an unstoppable wrestling machine who takes no shits from anyone, that's when shit GITS GUD. And that's what we got here; a really fucking good match where a desperate Austin pulled all the stops to take down Angle and save his title to no avail, with outside interference being the thing that saves the reign. It's perhaps the closest thing to this whole Austin heel turn thing showing signs of being something special... except it never really happened. Still, Austin manages to hold onto the title for another month before losing it to Kurt at the following PPV before getting back a couple weeks afterwards and holding onto it until okay, I'll shut up now.

Rock beat WCW Champ Booker to win the title in the main event... one of these days, Booker T will have a World title reign worth remembering... and the guy desperately needed that because his time as WCW Champion was more sad than anything. Then again, anything involving the invading WCW guys was sad around this time.

There were probably two or three truly stand-outs matches on this Summerslam card while the rest of it were things that happened and clearly forgotten about soon after. To its credit, outside of the steel cage burial, I don't think there's anything on this show that I would consider terrible, so on that count, it's a show that's worth checking out because there's some good stuff in there.

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