Dark Pegasus Video Review: Rebellion 2001

Rebellion 2001 by J.D. Dunn November 3, 2001 From Manchester, England Your hosts are Jim Ross and Paul Heyman. Opening Match, Intercontinental Title Cage Match: Edge vs. Christian. Christian jumps Edge as he’s getting in the cage. Edge fights back and strangles Christian with his jacket. Christian avoids going into the cage and hits a reverse DDT. Edge yanks him down and goes for a spear, but Christian sidesteps him and sends him into the cage. Paul’s disdain over JR’s trademark “more time on the canvas than Rembrandt” quip is pretty funny. Christian goes for the door, but Edge pulls him back in. Edge gets two off a flying crossbody and blocks a double ax-handle. Christian slows things down with a chinlock. He lets go and goes for the corner pummel. Edge shoves him off and spears him. Christian goes for the Unprettier, but Edge counters to the Edge-o-Matic. Edge goes up, but Christian catches him. He crotches Edge on the top rope and goes up, but Edge yanks his feet through and ties them together with his wrist tape. Christian is tied to the cage, so Edge crawls over the top at 12:48. Smart finish. The match was the usual, solid-but-unspectacular effort for these guys. **1/2 Recap of Kurt Angle defecting to the Alliance. In the back, Chavo Guerrero and Hugh Morrus argue over who gets to interview the WWE Divas. They barge in on a topless Trish Stratus. She offers to set up an interview at a time when she’s fully clothed. Did I mention she had a towel? That kind of took the fun out of it. Scotty 2 Hotty vs. The Hurricane. Molly is preparing for a Divas tag match later on. Hurricane, who is wearing eye makeup in lieu of a mask, backflips out of a backdrop and clotheslines Scotty. He tosses him, but Scotty skins the cat. He goes for the bulldog, but Helms tosses him into the post and hits a neckbreaker. Hurricane puts on the cape, prompting righteous indignation from JR. He comes off, but Scotty hits him in the gut. A thrust kick gets two for Scotty, but he can’t lift Helms for the suplex. Helms tries to mock the Worm, but Scotty recovers. He blocks a chokeslam and avoids a Stinger Splash. Hurricane avoids a charge and rolls Scotty up for two. Scotty reverses the Eye of the Hurricane and hits the bulldog. That sets up the W-O-R-M at 8:54. Good stuff from two guys who were all but forgotten in the Fall. **1/2 Trish promises Chavo and Hugh an exclusive. We get a glimpse of Lita putting on her clothes. Nice. Diamond Dallas Page comes back with his new gimmick – self-help guru Dallas Page. Page actually came up with this idea himself after hearing about Jason Alexander planning a sitcom around a motivational speaker. They were equally successful. He would have been better off as Counter-Terrorist Agent Dallas Page. Diamond Dallas Page vs. The Big Show. Show tosses Page out of the ring and back in the ring. Make up your mind, Show! Page clips his leg several times. He hits a flying clothesline and goes for the figure-four. Riiiiiight. Show tosses him aside and levels him with a clothesline. Page hits the Diamond Cutter to counter the chokeslam, but he can’t cover immediately and only gets two. Show just picks him up and chokeslams him for the win at 3:16. Beats jobbing to Sara. 1/2* Chavo and Hugh bust in on Molly Holly without her cape. Holy Peeping Tom! Somewhere in the back, Kurt Angle irritates the rest of the Alliance brain trust by comparing them to the Knights of the Round Table. Austin, of course, is hilarious. Angle: Since we have good knights, we’ll need bad knights. Austin: I’m havin’ a bad night right now. WCW Tag Team Titles, Elimination Rules: The Dudleyz vs. The APA vs. The Hardy Boyz. No hot chicks at ringside because they’re getting ready for the Diva match. Bubba calls out Matt but gets doubleteamed by Bradshaw and Matt. Bradshaw turns on Matt and DDTs him. The APA goes heel on the Hardyz until D-Von tags himself in. Faaarooq gives him the spinebuster, and Bradshaw adds a Fallaway Slam. Bubba eats a Clothesline from Hell, but Matt tags in and finishes Faarooq with the Twist of Fate at 5:28. Typical Dudleyz vs. Hardyz match follows. D-Von gets the table, but Jeff dropkicks it back in his face. Bubba gives him the Bubbabomb, though. Jeff plays face-in-peril. Bubba ties him in the tree-of-woe for some abuse. Bubba goes up, but Jeff recovers and punches him right in the dick. Seriously. It wasn’t a ballshot; it was a straight punch right to the weenie. Matt gets the hot tag and cleans house, but the D-Von avoids the Swanton, and the Dudz finish Matt with the 3D at 12:01. This combination was played out at this point, and it’s not surprising that the WWE broke up all these teams and focused on thrown-together teams like the UnAmericans and Billy & Chuck. **1/4 In the back, Vince McMahon tries to make Chris Jericho and The Rock play nice. Vince should never, ever go into diplomacy. Rock and Jericho have a pull-apart in the office. William Regal vs. Tajiri. Regal tries to outwrestle Tajiri early, but Tajiri hits a WICKED back thrust kick. He enzuigiris Regal to the floor but gets tossed into the post. Back in, Regal takes over and knees Tajiri in the head. Regal catches him in a crossbody and crotches him. Tajiri slips over the top and catches Regal with a roundhouse kick. The Handspring Elbow sets up the Tarantula. Tajiri goes up but misses a moonsault. That sets up the Regal Stretch at 5:45. This was just an extended Raw match. Tajiri gets a little revenge by misting Regal after the match. *1/4 WCW Heavyweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle. Nice to see the WWF sticking with the old tradition and giving the U.S. Champion a shot at the WCW Champion. Okay, it’s total coincidence, but work with me here. Aggressive start from Jericho. He hits Rolling Verticals for two. Angle catches him with a German Suplex, though. Jericho takes over on the outside and gets two off a flying crossbody. Angle grabs the Anglelock, but Jericho quickly squirms out and posts Angle. Jericho gets a shoulderbreaker and counters a sunset flip to an awkward armbar. Not exactly UFC there. Angle rolls through and hotshots him. Ross says that Angle is “going commando” to win the U.S. Title. Um, okay. If-if he thinks that’ll help. Jericho blocks the Walls of Angle but gets caught with a belly-to-belly. Angle grabs the chinlock, but Jericho fights up and schoolboys him. Jericho gets two off a rana and rolls through a German Suplex into the Anklelock. Angle makes the ropes. Angle hits ROLLING GERMANS for two. He slaps on the Anklelock, but Jericho reverses to the Walls of Jericho. Angle makes the ropes but gets bulldogged. The Lionsault finds Kurt’s knees. That sets up the Angleslam, but Jericho slips over his shoulder into a schoolboy rollup at 14:52. A rare, clean win for Jericho as champion. ***1/2 In the back, The Rock makes fun of Michael Cole’s predilection for strudel. Lita & Torrie Wilson vs. Stacy Keibler & Mighty Molly. Trish Stratus is the special referee. I don’t remember anything specifically, but I’ll assume that there was some intrigue about Trish defecting to the Alliance because there seemed to be some question about *everyone* on the roster. Heyman immediately ruins the match for me by noting that he and Lita share the same style of underwear. ::shudder:: Torrie and Stacy exchange cartwheel counters. Stacy is afraid of Lita, apparently. The heels stretch Torrie Wilson Michinoku Pro style. Molly cuts of Poetry in Motion, but Torrie catapults her into Stacy. That sets up the Twist of Fate at 4:17. Not even much T&A value. 1/2* WWF Heavyweight Title: Steve Austin vs. The Rock. See, this is all the people wanted to see anyway. All that crap with the Alliance and Booker and Angle and Page the Stalker and multiple title switches was just useless. The people wanted Rock and Austin again. Big-ass brawl all over the ringside area to start. Ross calls it a “supreme slobberknocker,” prompting Heyman to query what the difference is between a slobberknocker and a “supreme slobberknocker.” I believe a supreme slobberknocker has more sausage and anchovies. The brawl works its way up to the entrance platform where Rock backdrops out of a piledriver. They work back to the ringside area, and Austin catapults Rock into the post. Finally, they make it to the ring where Austin chokes Rock out on the ropes. He misses the charge and crotches himself, but he’s Austin, so he no-sells it. To the floor, Austin tells Rock to give him a ballshot, and darned if Rock doesn’t go low to counter a piledriver on the announce table. They chop it out at ringside. Austin wins that battle and front suplexes Rock on the table, hurting Rock’s knee. Hebner and Austin get in an argument, and Hebner flips him off. Austin gets Thesz Press and the SUPER FU ELBOW~! Rock fights back and hits his own Thesz Press and SUPER FU ELBOW~! Austin slows things down with a chinlock. Rock slugs out of it and grabs a sleeper. Austin jawbreakers him and turns him over into the Boston Crab. Rock makes the ropes eventually. Rock and Austin reverses whips, and Hebner gets bumped. Rock blocks the Stunner and applies a Sharpshooter. No ref, though. Rock drops it and tries to revive the ref, so Austin takes him down into his own Sharpshooter. Rock powers into a reversal, but Kurt Angle runs in and hits him in the head with a chair. Chris Jericho runs down, steals the chair from Angle, and nails him with it. The Rock thinks Jericho hit him with the chair, though, triggering a slugfest between them. Austin tries to sneak in with the Stunner, but Rock turns it into the Rock Bottom. Still no ref. Angle assaults Rock but gets knocked to the floor. That sets up the spinebuster and People’s Elbow, but Angle trips him up and hits him with the belt. Stunner, and we’re out at 22:09. Angle and Austin embrace in victory. This was just Austin and Rock being Austin and Rock, which is pretty much an automatic ***. Austin let it all hang out here, making this even more fun. ***3/4

The 411: This show had a lot of what the Alliance/WWF feud lacked over the Fall of '01, namely matches people wanted to see, clean finishes, and a minimum of nonsense. Solid recommendation.
Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]