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Dark Pegasus Video Review: No Way Out 2001
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| No Way Out 2001 by J.D. Dunn Ninja Tori attacks Big Show during his entrance, but Show makes his own save. Raven attacks, and they brawl all the way down to the ring. Show posts himself but snapmares Raven off his back. A Popcorn Vendor (Crash Holly) attacks Raven and gets two. Show makes the save, but Steve Blackman and Hardcore holly run down and attack him. Billy Gunn sneaks in and hits the Fameasser on Raven for the Hardcore Title at 2:28. The other guys keep him from leaving, though. Holly and Blackman team up for a Sidewinder on Gunn (get it?). Raven sneaks in and gets the pin to reclaim the title at 3:29. Ninja Lady runs down again, but Molly Holly takes her out. Show fends off Raven’s hardcore attack and chokeslams him to pick up the title at 4:21. Silly and fun. *1/2 Quick start with Jericho launching Eddy into the corner. Benoit makes the save and chops it out with Jericho. The Radicalz team up against Jericho. X-Pac comes in and tries the X-Factor on Benoit, but Benoit quickly counters to the Crossface. Jericho breaks it up. Eddy and X-Pac fight on the top rope, and Eddy just shoves him back in and hits the frogsplash. Jericho saves again. Tensions run high between Eddy and Benoit as Eddy saves Jericho from taking the fall. Jericho cuts off the Broncobuster with a missile dropkick, but Benoit hits him with a German Suplex Pin for two. Eddy saves, finally dissolving their implied alliance. Eddy gets two off a backdrop suplex. The brainbuster sets up the frogsplash, but Benoit cuts him off and superplexes him. Jericho and X-Pac both crawl into covers and only get two. Benoit and Jericho chop it out again, prompting Lawler to admit he’d tap out right then and there. Benoit avoids the facebuster and counters to another German Suplex. It only gets two, and Jericho starts firing off the Walls of Jerichos to everybody. Justin Credible runs down and distracts Jericho to ensure X-Pac doesn’t tap out. Jericho is distracted, so Benoit busts out the Dragon Suplex on him. Credible and X-Pac team up to superkick Benoit on the outside. That leads to a Lionsault on Eddy by Jericho. X-Pac makes the save and hits an X-Factor. Benoit returns and knocks Credible to the floor. CROSSFACE TO X-PAC! Eddy makes the save with a sickening neck snap. Benoit hits Eddy with the Swandive Headbutt, but he stands up right into a spinning kick from the Pac. Jericho sneaks in and rolls up X-Pac for the win, though, at 12:18. Wall-to-wall action, and most of it damned stiff compared to today. ***3/4 Steph spears her and yanks Trish off the ropes, slamming her on her head. Steph tosses her by the hair and yanks out some hair. Trish bails and tosses Stephanie into the crowd, but Stephanie comes back with a clothesline off the apron. She tries a suplex on the apron, but Trish snaps her throat on the top rope. The Bulldog gets two. They slug it out (stiffly), and Trish gets two off a DDT. Trish sleeper chokes her in the corner but gets slammed off. To the floor, Steph slams her face into the announce table and soaks her with the water pitcher. ***** Oh, you mean there’s more?!? Back to the ring, Trish tries a huracanrana, but Steph counters to a powerbomb for two and then pulls Trish’s pants down. There goes her shirt. Trish fights her off, and they get that two-male-lions-in-the-wild look on their faces. They charge and take each other down by the hair. William Regal has to ruin things with his Britishness. He trips up the ref and puts Trish on top before deciding better of it and putting Steph’s leg on the rope. Trish slaps him for his insolence, so he gives her the Regal Neckbreaker. Stephanie covers and gets the pin in an amazing women’s WWE match. (8:30) This was the first inkling that Trish might actually be a decent performer rather than just a pair of sweaty tits. *** First Fall, Technical Rules: The build-up package is one of the best they’ve ever done, making the match look like an epic that will define a generation. It’s kind of sad that they can’t seem to replicate that feeling. Slugfest to start, of course, and Hunter avoids the Stunner. Austin goes for the Thesz Press but gets hot shot on the ropes. Austin hits a Single-arm DDT to give us the storyline for the first fall. Austin rams Hunter’s shoulder into the post to work it further, and it pays off as Hunter is unable to hit the Pedigree back inside. Austin takes over again with a spinebuster, but Triple H gets a boot up to block a double ax-handle. Austin starts to slug his way back, so Hunter clips his leg. Another chopblock cripples Austin further, and HHH splashes the leg against the ropes. FIGURE-FOUR LEGLOCK! And he even uses the ropes when Earl Hebner’s not looking. Austin starts ramming his good leg into H’s face to counter another leglock. We hear Hunter call a couple of spots, prompting Ross to cover by saying they’re talking trash. They exchange rollups for a pair of nearfalls. Hunter goes low and comes off the second rope, but Austin catches him with the kick and the STUNNER at 12:21. Second Fall, Street Fight: The rules are out the window, so Austin takes Hunter to the floor and suplexes him on the steel ramp twice! Now, they fight over to the announce table where Austin hits him with the MONITOR SHOT! Hunter tries to run, but Austin tracks him down and tosses him in the ring. Hunter grabs a chair, but Austin steals it and goes absolutely NUTS on him with the chair in a precursor to his actions at WrestleMania X-7. That’s a crazy vicious beatdown. Austin goes back to the announce tables and finds a barbed-wire 2×4! Hunter takes it away from him and busts him open with it. A roundhouse sends Austin spilling over the table. Triple H picks him up and goes for the Pedigree on the announce table, but his arm is still hurt allowing Austin enough time to backdrop him through the Spanish table in a great bump. Hunter crawls into the ring to escape Austin’s wrath, smartly sneaking the ringbell in with him. Austin tries to capitalize, but Hunter pops up and SMASHES him with the ringbell for two. Austin tries a sleeper, but Hunter backdrops him on a nearby chair for two. Hunter goes for yet another Pedigree, but Austin backdrops him to the floor in one of those Randy Savage bumps. Austin finds a chair and absolutely DRILLS Hunter in the face. So sickening! I love it! Hunter slams Austin into the steps and finds a sledgehammer, prompting Lawler to ask whether Ross hid it there for Austin. A sledge shot misses, and they head back in where Austin stomps a mudhole. He goes for the Stunner, but Hunter shoves him away, hits him in between the eyes with the sledgehammer, and finishes with the Pedigree at 28:10. Third Fall, Cage Match: Austin is out of it after the sledge shot, so Hunter tosses him into the cage. The barbed-wire 2×4 is still there, so Hunter shoves it into Austin’s face. Austin reverses things by sending H into the cage and ripping his face open with the barbed-wire. Austin unloads a FLURRY of rights for two, prompting Triple H to try to escape. Ross notes that you can’t win by escaping. Huh? Austin catches him anyway but gets crotched on the top rope. Austin yanks him down anyway and goes for the Stunner. Hunter reverses to the PEDIGREE! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Triple H knocks Austin out with a chair again and goes for another Pedigree, but Austin counters by catapulting Hunter to the cage. STUNNER! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Austin crawls to the barbed-wire 2×4. Hunter grabs the sledge hammer. They both swing and connect! By happenstance, though, Hunter falls on top of Austin and gets the pin at 39:25. Watching this now and seeing what happened to these two from 2002-present is a little disheartening. For the Hunter apologists who keep writing to say he’s as good as he’s ever been, take a look at the snap he puts in his moves here. Observe how quickly he goes from move to move instead of meandering around the ring. This was the HHH of 2000-2001 — the best wrestler of the year. The match is filled with all the things that make a great match: intensity, violence, hatred, and above all – hard work. It’s not flawless. I’m sure there’s a deaf guy in the upper deck who didn’t hear both guys calling spots to each other. But that’s a forgivable sin, given the performance these two turned in. Not quite perfect, but close enough to warrant the full boat. ***** Tazz replaces King on commentary. If Lawler loses, the Kat has to join the RTC. If he wins, Kat gets naked. He sadly decides to show solidarity with her by wearing leopard-print tights. Mostly, this is just a lot of punching. Lawler tosses Richards to the floor and lets Kat slap Ivory around. Richards misses the Ho Train. He introduces a chair to the match, but he looks lost on how to use it. Lawler goes low and DDTs him. Teddy Long is busy with Ivory and then the Kat. King slams Ivory and tries to toss her out, but that allows Richards to recover. Richards misses a beltshot. Kat picks it up but accidentally nails Lawler. Steven covers and gets the win at 5:32. Not much of a match, and, in fact, the angle would lead to Kat walking out after the PPV. Lawler would quit in solidarity, but then Kat reached legal drinking age, and he realized she was too old for him and came crawling back later in the year. 3/4* Kane and Undertaker inexplicably made up during the Royal Rumble, and they’d just as inexplicably break up. Brawl in the aisle to start. Taker tosses D-Von off the ramp, and the Brothers of Destruction turn Edge & Christian into their bitches. The Dudz return with chairs and destroy Taker and Kane. E&C attack the Dudleyz and do the tree-of-woe stomp to Bubba’s nuts. The Conchairto backfires, and Edge gets catapulted into Christian. Edge takes the Wazzup Drop. D-Von goes for the tables and gets attacked by Taker and Kane. I should point out that Kane has a pretty cool all-black outfit on tonight, which is the only time he’s used it, I think. The BOD hit stereo powerslams on E&C. They follow it up with stereo top-rope clotheslines, if the stereo had a blown speaker wire. The Dudleyz return, but Taker cuts off the 3D. He tries to chokeslam Christian, but Bubba goes low on him. The BOD set up for powerbombs through the tables, but Rikishi and Haku storm the ring and attack them. Bubba sends Edge into a table in the corner, but it doesn’t break. Taker and Kane brawl with the Islanders 2K1 back up the ramp. Back in, Christian misses a swing and gets 3D’d through the table at 12:12. **1/2 Kurt Angle’s first title run is proof positive that, just because they put the title on you, it doesn’t mean they’re going to push you. Kurt won the title and immediately became second banana to Triple H after Hunter went back to being a heel. He won the title under screwy circumstances and didn’t have a single decisive win during his reign. Rock pastes him with rights and gets two off a Russian Leg Sweep. Angle comes back and chokes him. Rock hits a surprise belly-to-belly suplex. A flying clothesline sets up the Sharpshooter, but Angle makes the ropes. Angle gets crotched going up and superplexed. Angle desperately tosses Rock to the floor. Back in, Rock drills him with a DDT. The Big Show walks out and chokeslams everyone because he didn’t get to be in the match. That was the most random spot ever because it didn’t amount to anything, nor did it affect the match. Earl Hebner and Tim White come out to check on the first ref. Hebner spies Kurt covering the Rock and just dumps the original ref to make a count. Rock give Angle a shot with the title belt as Hebner checks on the fallen ref again. Hebner returns. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Rock hobbles over and gets caught in the Anklelock. “TAP OUT YOU SON OF A BITCH! I’LL BREAK YOUR FUCKIN’ ANKLE!” Geez. This guy’s hardcore. Rock makes the ropes. Rocky fights back and hits the spinebuster. People’s Elbow! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Rock is shocked. I’m shocked. You’re shocked. Everyone is shocked. Rock shoves the ref for scolding him about letting Kurt out of the corner, so Angle goes low and unties the turnbuckle pad. He elbows out of the Rock Bottom and tosses Rock’s face into the exposed buckle. ANGLESLAM! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Rock kicks out and send Angle into the buckle. ROCK BOTTOM! ONE, TWO, THRE-??? Hebner seems to have screwed up there, and Rock lets him hear about it. Another Rock Bottom gets the win at 17:21. Rock made Angle look better by beating him than the half dozen or so guys that Angle went over. This would also mark the first Anglicized-style (heh) match with lots of reversals of finishers into wrestling holds and back again. **** |
The 411: The WWF got back on track in a big way, putting on a show as good as their early 2000 shows. I'd put this on par with Backlash 2000, Judgment Day 2000, and Fully Loaded 2000, but this show is arguably even better because it fits in so well as part of a larger storyline that runs from the Royal Rumble to the epic WrestleMania X-7. Extremely recommended. |
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| Final Score: 9.5 [ Amazing ] legend |
