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Dark Pegasus Video Review: The Best of King of the Ring (Disc Three)
December 26, 2011 | Posted by
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| The Best of King of the Ring by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 The Undertaker attacks the ref because he can. Rock immediately hits the Rock Bottom, but there’s no referee. A second ref comes in and counts two before Paul Bearer yanks him out. Taker responds with a chokeslam, and the first referee recovers and counts two. Rocky clotheslines him over the top, and they fight up to the entrance area. The champ takes over from there beating the holy crap out of the former Hurricane. Back to the ring, Taker continues the punishment by stepping on the back of Rock’s neck. Rock breaks up the Ropewalk Forearm and sprays him with Evian. Did you know that Evian is naive spelt backwards? Take that, bottled water drinkers. Now it’s the Rock’s turn to take the Undertaker up into the crowd for the traditional beating of the ass. Rock tries a chairshot, but Taker uses the ringbell to block. Bearer sneaks in a cheapshot with hi shoe. Who uses a shoe? Honestly. Back inside, Taker drops Rock with a flying DDT for two. The match slows down as Taker goes with a rear chinlock. Rock comes back with a Samoan Drop for two. A double clothesline sends both men down. Rock counters a Tombstone to a DDT. That gets two. Taker reverses a whip, sending Rock into the referee. Rock hits the People’s Elbow, but the referee is out. Taker lowblows the Rock while Paul Bearer pours ether all over a rag. You know it’s ether because the bottle has “ETHER” written on it in big black letters. It backfires, though, as Rock takes it away from the Taker and smothers him out with it. Triple H suddenly runs down and Pedigrees the Rock. The Undertaker falls over, allegedly covering the Rock. Rock kicks out at the last second but falls victim to the Tombstone at 19:16. Typical 1999 main event where they go all over the arena in a wild brawl in lieu of wrestling. Rock would get much better by the end of the year. **1/2 See, defending the World Title in a tag match wasn’t TNA’s idea. That doesn’t make it a *good* idea, mind you. Whoever gets the fall wins the title. Simba attacks Kane from behind, so Kane puts his hands behind his back and offers Shane a free shot. Kane destroys McMahons until Rock blind tags himself in. Shane gets systematically destroyed by all three babyfaces. Undertaker chokeslams him, but Rock makes the save. See, Rock has to work against his team or else he loses the title. That’s the genius of Vince’s plan. They brawl on the outside, and Rock sets up the table. It doesn’t get used right away, though. Back inside, Hunter Pedigrees Rock, but Taker makes the save. Rock plays face-in-peril before hitting a Samoan Drop for two. Kane suddenly turns on the Undertaker and then cuts off the People’s Elbow. Hunter gives Kane the “thumbs up,” but Kane picks him up and gives him the Tombstone. ONE, TWO, THR-Undertaker makes the save. Finally, something really interesting happens as Shane gets caught going up, and the Undertaker chokeslams him off the top through the table. Crazy visual there. Vince tries a People’s Elbow, but Rock pops up and finishes him with a Rock Bottom at 17:55. Hunter is pissed because Vince just lost his WWF Title for him. The stipulations kept this from being any kind of good. *3/4 They try to sell Rikishi’s arm injury as a big minus, and that might mean something if he had more than seven minutes of total action in the first two rounds. Kurt whips Rikishi’s shoulder into the steps. Back in, Rikishi comes back with a Samoan Drop and an Ace Crusher (with his bad shoulder). Stinkface, but Angle gets pissed and hits an Angleslam for two. Angle tries a sunset flip but gets squashed. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! I should point out that, only eight months into his career, Kurt was the master of the last millisecond kickout. Angle catches Rikishi on top and delivers the belly-to-belly superplex. ONE, TWO, THREE! Kurt is your King of the Ring at 5:58. Impressive finisher aside, the win was rather anticlimactic. The seven matches in the tournament averaged a little over five minutes. Not exactly an epic tournament, and once Jericho, Eddy and Benoit were eliminated in the first round, everyone knew who was going over. 3/4* Pac takes him down and slaps him in the head a few times just to be an asswipe. Jeff comes back with an armdrag and a headscissors. He hits the rail-running clothesline but misses the Whisper in the Wind. The ref catches X-Pac using the ropes on an abdominal stretch, so X-Pac hiptosses Hardy to the floor and follows him out with a springboard somersault plancha. A leg lariat leads to a Broncobuster attempt, but Hardy rolls out of the way. X-Pac tries to leapfrog Hardy and gives him a dick to the face instead. Hardy hits the Whisper in the Wind but takes an X-Factor. ONE, TWO, THREE! Oh, but the ref sees Jeff’s foot on the ropes. That leads to Jeff hitting a jawbreaker and the Swanton at 7:11. X-Pac would go on to win the title the following night, so this was filler. ** Before the match, Kurt offers Edge an opportunity to avoid humiliation by forfeiting the match. After all, Edge has no chance of winning, and it’s only fair that Edge allow Kurt to face Shane McMahon at his best. Edge knocks him on his ass, cementing Edge’s face turn. Kurt belly-to-bellies him over the top to the floor. Back in, a chinlock bores the crowd. To the floor, Kurt drops Edge ribs-first on the barrier. Back in, Kurt gets crotched and superplexed for two. Edge catapults him into the buckle for two, and reverses the Anklelock to a rollup for two. The Edge-o-Matic puts Kurt down, but Christian runs out and distracts the ref. Oops. Angle rolls up Edge for two. The ref gets bumped and doesn’t see Edge tap out to the Anklelock. Shane McMahon runs in and spears Kurt. That sets up the Edgecution at 10:20. This continued the trend of horribly booked tournaments to the point where they lost all meaning and were discontinued after 2002. The whole thing was just a backdrop to set up the Street Fight later in the night. In fact, Kurt came out with a bigger babyface push in the loss than Edge did, and it would take Edge another year to get over as a singles star. In retrospect, they probably should have just taken Benoit out of the main event and put him in the tournament instead of Angle, which would have been addition by subtraction from the main event and freed up Angle so he wouldn’t have to take it easy in the tournament matches. Even Test would have made more sense. **1/4 I had forgotten about this match until I started recapping this show. Kurt hits some knees early but takes an armdrag. He offers Shane the dominant position for an amateur sequence and then he winds up pounding Shane on the mat. Mucho suplexery, and Kurt offers him another amateur sequence. Shane double-crosses him and punts him in the gut. To the floor, Shane flies off the barricade a few times to take Kurt down. Back in, Shane goes for pinfalls, but Kurt is able to bridge out. Shane tosses some plunder in and puts Angle in the Anklelock. Angle kicks him away, so Shane DDTs him and applies a Sharpshooter. Angle grabs an errant kendo stick and smashes it into Shane’s back to break the pin. Shane avoids a few more shots and slugs Angle for two. Shane goes up and tries a Shooting Star Press but winds up eating a garbage can on the landing. Angle tosses Shane to the floor, and they brawl up to the entrance. Angle tosses him into a “thing” (thanks, JR) near the entrance. That leads to a SICKENING belly-to-belly suplex into the “KOR” staging partition. Unfortunately for Shane, it doesn’t break, and Shane bounces off and lands on his head, smacking it on the concrete. Angle tries it again, and this time the glass breaks. They’re under the staging area, so Angle wants to put Shane through the other façade. Shane bounces off and again falls on his head. And again! Finally, Kurt just picks up the bloody pulp that was once Shane McMahon and tosses him through the partition. Kurt tries to cover, but the ref informs him it’s not Falls Count Anywhere. Kurt puts him on a production cart and wheels him down to the ring. Back in, ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Shane goes low and hits the Angleslam. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Angle recovers and catapults Shane to the top rope. He grabs a piece of plywood and pummels Shane with it. He sets the wood on top and uses it as a platform to deliver a SUPER ANGLESLAM! That’s enough for the win at 26:00. A lot of people remember the suplexes through the glass and think of this as one of the best matches of 2001, but there’s a good 10 minutes of meandering and botched spots before that, and even *those* spots were botched several times. It’s still a fun, sick match, with a lot of spots that make you cover your eyes, but it’s not quite the classic people tout it as. ***1/2 See, this is just silly because the tournament final could have been an AFC vs. NFC or National League vs. American League-style final with brand supremacy on the line as well. Instead, they divided up the wrestlers between the brands so Raw and Smackdown wrestlers were meeting in the semis. Rob tries a smart strategy – kicking Brock’s legs out from under him. Brock catches him with a powerbomb, though, and spends the next few minutes feasting on Van Dam’s jugular. Lesnar misses a charge and posts his shoulder, so Rob Van Dam, Super Gee-nee-uss, goes back to the legs. Van Dam hits the Five-Star Frogsplash, but Heyman snaps his throat on the top rope. It nearly backfires as Van Dam lands on Lesnar for two. Van Dam comes off the top, but Brock catches him in mid-air and finishes with the F5 at 5:43. Well, this was just a squash to put Lesnar over as the “next big thing.” Van Dam barely even got in his usual spots. He did have a decent strategy early on, though. ** Angle still has his Buddy Roberts amateur headgear and wig on. See, he didn’t want anyone else seeing that he was bald. Speaking of which, Hogan is wearing a red ‘do rag. Hogan tosses Angle from pillar-to-post early and threatens to rip off Angle’s headgear. Angle goes after his legs and grounds him with a chinlock. He hits the Angleslam, but Hogan hulks up and rips off his headgear, revealing Kurt’s bald head. Angle avoids the big boot but gets pissed off at Hogan mocking his bald head (oh, how’s that for chutzpah?!). He charges with a chair but misses and smashes himself in the head as the chair bounces off the ropes. That sets up the big boot and the legdrop, but Angle grabs Hogan’s leg and turns it into the Anklelock. Hogan tries to hold out, but he has to tap at 12:09. Hogan tapping was pretty shocking for the time. The Hogan miracle comeback formula was wasted on Kurt. **1/4 Lashley shoves Booker down and gets a corner clothesline early. Booker can’t get him up, but Lashley switches and just dumps him with a waistlock takedown. Booker knocks him to the floor and tries to take a countout victory. What a proud king he’ll make. Lashley makes it back in anyway, and Booker goes after the arm. Lashley makes the big comeback with a series of clotheslines, but Sharmell grabs his leg. Booker hits the thrust kick and the Book End, but Lashley kicks out at two. Lashley catches him trying to slip over his shoulder and powerslams him for two. Booker comes back with the Scissors Kick, but it only gets two. Booker misses an Axe Kick and gets speared. Sharmell hops up and distracts the ref long enough for Fit Finlay to run down and hit Lashley with the shillelagh. Booker hits another Scissors Kick to finish Lashley off and win the King of the Ring at 9:16. Lashley gets revenge by spearing Booker on his throne. Booker still manages to keep the crown on, though. Huge heel heat on Booker for his “coronation.” **1/4 Punk was the Money in the Bank holder here and was just “pretty over” instead of where is now. He’s coming in with damaged ribs thanks to matches with Matt Hardy and Chris Jericho. Regal had a considerably easier time, defeating Hornswoggle and then Finlay. After a brief flurry that sees Punk hit the flying knee in the corner, Regal takes over and works his back. Punk powers out and kicks Regal silly. The crowd is not sufficiently impressed by the roundhouse kick for my liking. RESPECT, ASSHOLES! Regal slips out of the Go2Sleep and applies the Go2Sleep at 4:05. IIRC, Regal got Wellnessed or something right after this. ** This was one of those great out-of-nowhere feuds. Sheamus is one of those cases where he was pushed too high too fast and it just felt artificial, but once they put him in with midcarders he really had a chance to show what he could do without the cumbersome, over-choreographed “epicness” of WWE main events. Sheamus blocks the Flying Chuck and knocks Morrison to the floor. He works Morrison’s arm quite a bit. PSYCHOLOGY~! Morrison fights back and mounts Sheamus in the corner. Sheamus pushes him off the ropes, and Morrison sells it by bouncing a good two feet off the mat. See above, re: Lashley. Morrison reverses a tilt-o-whirl powerslam to a DDT. ONE, TWO, THR-Sheamus gets his hand on the ropes. Sheamus catches Morrison going up and slings him off by the arm. That sets up a Fujiwara Armbar. Morrison flips out of it, but Starship Pain finds Sheamus’s knees. That sets up the Brogue Kick and the Irish Car Bomb at 8:32. ALL HAIL RON WEASLEY! The match had some good psychology from Sheamus and great bumping. Not on the level of their PPV battle, but damn these guys had great chemistry. *** |
The 411: You'd think with three discs to work with, they could have gotten some higher quality matches on here. That's not to say the matches here are bad, but there are better options (Mero vs. Austin? Bret vs. Perfect? Kid vs. Owen?).Instead, they relied heavily on non-tournament matches to fill out the set, and while I appreciate having Hell in a Cell '98 on DVD for the fifteenth goddamn time, I'd be perfectly happy with a good match that has never seen DVD. Probably not worth your purchase if you've seen the matches before, but a handful of gems make this a mild recommendation for newbies. Mild thumbs up. |
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| Final Score: 7.0 [ Good ] legend |
