We kick off with clips of the Chris variety packs battles with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon from Raw, including THAT latest re-hash of the Montreal Screwjob ending. The show proper kicks off with Chris Jericho making his way to the ring and he is followed up by Chris Benoit. Both get great pops from the Canadian fans.
Skyreach Centre – Edmonton ALB – TV Rating – 4.2
Jericho starts off by telling the world that they both enjoyed beating up Austin and McMahon on Monday night and as they’ve been tag team champions for 10 days but can’t give the former champions a rematch (we have to be reminded at all times that HHH is in the wars after all) they will challenge Austin & McMahon to a title match tonight. Benoit reels off a whole host of Canadian sports names just for the cheap pop seemingly before Vince comes out and declares that he wouldn’t want to embarrass the Canadians by taking their titles off them in front of their home country plans. Maybe he’s forgotten that embarrassing wrestlers in their hometown is an often seen trope from his booking.
Regardless, he has other plans for the two tonight. Canada has never had an Olympic Hero according to Vince so as a result, Chris Jericho will be taking on Kurt Angle. Vince tells Benoit he’d have pinned him if there had been a tag title match tonight. Benoit responds by threatening to do great harm to Vince. Vince says he knows Benoit wants another title match with Austin but he’s not getting one. This brings Austin out who says he does not want the night off and is sick of hearing people say he didn’t really beat Benoit on Raw. To that end, he accepts Benoit’s challenge and the two will meet tonight. It took us around twenty minutes to get to this point.
Kane Vs Edge – Intercontinental Title
Another title defence for Kane and with Christian out selling injuries from the TLC match last week (at least according to Michael Cole) things don’t seem all that good for Edge in terms of his chances of a win. It’s 2001 though, so even though you know this is going to go sub-5 minutes and there’s no earthly reason why Edge could win there is still the possibility of some hot-shot booking. What we get is a solid enough three and half minutes that tries to tell some sort of story from a psychology point of view. Kane gets a solid win that at least is another in a series of wins that threatens to give his Intercontinental Title reign some credibility.
Before we get to the Bubba/Hardcore match, the Dudley’s are backstage. Spike Dudley expects to be at ringside but D’Von orders him to steer clear. Bubba says that ever since he’s being hanging around with Molly Holly there has been nothing but problems caused. Spike is upset as his brothers storm off.
Bubba Ray Dudley Vs Hardcore Holly
A convincing Tables Match win on Raw doesn’t see the end of this feud so we get more Dudley’s/Holly’s interaction with this singles match. It’s exactly what you’d expect from these two, a hard-hitting sprint with some stiff back and forth. Given the on-going feud it’s also what you’d expect in terms of a less than clear finish as Crash trips Bubba as he’s going for a suplex and then holds the foot down whilst Hardcore covers for the win.
Vince is backstage reading a magazine when a flustered William Regal storms in. For some reason, Vince offers Regal a raw carrot which our Commissioner refuses before telling Vince that security has told him a limo has been circling the arena all night long. Vince isn’t worried until Regal tells him that the licence plate is apparently “WCW 1”. Vince thinks this means Shane is up to something and orders Regal to tell security to be on the lookout. Which ignores the fact that they must have been to know about the limo anyway. And that they will likely fail to stop something later in the evening.
Jonathan Coachman has Spike Dudley backstage, who says the whole thing between the Dudley’s and Molly Holly is just one big misunderstanding. He says that Molly is at home recovering from her neck injury but that she will be back soon. He then breaks the fourth wall to look into the camera to tell Molly he really likes her.
We get the footage from Raw that had been surreptitiously taken by someone stalking the Undertaker’s wife, Sara. We then get Lillian Garcia backstage and she is with Kurt Angle. Angle wants to face a Canadian Olympic hero instead of Jericho but the only one they ever had was Ben Johnson. We’ll leave that one there. Angle says he will win tonight, rename Gretsky Blvd Angle Blvd and dares Shane McMahon to interfere tonight. I wonder…
Chris Jericho Vs Kurt Angle
Not a new match by any means even in 2001 but by the same token, it’s not an un-enticing prospect by any means. Chris Jericho vs Kurt Angle is guaranteed to entertain in some capacity. There’s extra security at ringside which kind of again telegraphs what’s coming. The two lock up and trade some moves in the early going before taking it out to the floor. Back inside the ring both Chris and Kurt tease their respective finishers before Shane McMahon runs in through the crowd, in a move which is helpfully spotted by the camera’s but not by security. Belatedly security grabs Shane but not before he’s distracted Angle enough for Spike Dudley (?) to run in, hit the Dudley Dawg and Chris Jericho hits the lionsault for the 1-2-3. As he’s dragged away Shane is celebrating the loss. It was a decent little TV match but even allowing for Angle’s issues with Spike surely we’d have been better served by a WCW guy doing the interfering. This might just suggest they are making this up as they go along…
Commissioner Regal is backstage and he and Tajiri can’t believe what they’ve just seen. Neither can Kurt Angle, who storms in and DEMANDS he gets Shane in a match at King of The Ring. Regal says he will do what he needs to to make it happen but when Tajiri bows to Angle, our Olympic Hero batters him.
Rhyno Vs Raven – Hardcore Title
They had one of the finest Hardcore Title matches of the era at Backlash 2001 a couple of months ago so hopes are relatively high here. Instead, it lacks the intensity of the PPV encounter, all feels a little like going through the foreign object/household item motions and merely has to settle for being ok. Rhyno wins and retains.
Stone Cold and his wife Debra are backstage chatting when Vince comes in and begs Austin to reconsider giving Benoit a title match tonight. Vince, it seems, has a funny feeling about it. So does Austin, it turns out…a funny feeling he’s going to kick Benoit’s hide. Vince says not to do it in Benoit’s hometown but Austin seems to believe that Vince doesn’t think he can win. And he doesn’t think Debra believes he can win either. Well, he’s going to prove them all wrong.
As Triple H is the only wrestler in history to get injured and finish a match we get the video of his surgery again. If that’s not bad enough we get exclusive comments from Stephanie, recorded the day earlier. It grates on two notes. Firstly whilst Steph would become a great promo in time, this is 2001 is she’s far from that. Secondly, the “out of character” video package for Hunter is rendered pointless by Steph screeching out an in-character promo straight afterwards.
Next we’re in The Hardy’s dressing room where Matt’s idea of warming up for his match next is to be snogging Lita. Jeff is in the background somewhat impassively when Eddie Guerrero walks in. He tells the loving couple to get a room, Matt says it’s their dressing room and he didn’t hear Eddie knock. Lita plays peacemaker.
The Hardy’s & Eddie Guerrero Vs X-Factor
The two trios have been having issues with each other for a little while so why not settle it in a six-man. X-Factor gets some bad press, least of all from me, but in the ring, they are a decent enough unit in terms of churning out five-minute matches (or less) on TV and the four minutes we get are perfectly acceptable for what they are. Of course, this match is really designed to further the intrigue of the Matt/Eddie/Lita storyline. As such Matt loses the match for his team when he is distracted by Lita tending to an apparently injured Eddie and this allows Albert to hit the BaldoBomb for the win. Of course, for a number of reasons really, Eddie disappears from WWE shortly after this so any storyline resolution that we might have seen forever remains a mystery.
Austin is admiring his World Title backstage, but could it be for the final time? Before we can get to that though we have another video of Sara Undertaker being stalked by our mystery man. This time Sara and her husband are in their garage before driving off. Gripping stuff.
Stone Cold Steve Austin Vs Chris Benoit – World Heavyweight Title
So after being screwed out of the title on Raw, Chris Benoit gets another shot but this time in his hometown. He has a shock before the match though as Vince walks out in ref stripes and announces he has appointed himself as Ringside Enforcer. What follows is classic WWE main event action of this era, with the added bonus that the two can work a “proper” match too amongst all the shenanigans. If Raw was good, this is absolutely great.
The two go back and forth battering each other as well as indulging in some technical wrestling. The ref bumps and interference merely heighten the tension and excitement for once and the white-hot crowd firmly behind their hometown boy helps no end too. Of course, there’s the creative ending. This time, Benoit seemingly has Austin beat after TEN suplexes and locking on the Crossface but Vince makes the save even though he ends up being kicked firmly in the lower regions by Benoit in the process. Benoit unloads with a number of chair shots to Vince but this means he fails to see Austin sneaking up behind him for the roll-up and the winning pinfall. Austin doesn’t look like much of a winner though as he wearily stumbles up the rampway before collapsing.
This is really fantastic stuff. It had action, drama, high spots, WWE attitude nonsense, technical wrestling…the whole lot. Perhaps understandably it’s a forgotten match for a number of reasons, not least because it was tucked away on a random episode of Smackdown but it really is brilliant stuff.
The show overall is obviously raised about ten notches by virtue of the main event. But the underneath stuff is solid enough (and never boring or offensive) and there’s a fast pace to it that means nothing lingers too long. A very enjoyable show.