|
Great topic, and I'm personally intrigued as to where a show like WrestleMania X-7 falls, because as anticipated as that show was, there was some awful stuff in the build-up, so it will be interesting to see if the greatest Mania of all-time gets any mentions.
For worst, I think I have to go with WrestleMania 18. 2001 was such a weird year (dare you guys to take on rebooking that one for a future podcast), and the downsides to the Austin heel turn and butchered Invasion angle had put everybody in disappointed moods. We also lost a long-time top heel that drew really well against The Rock and was surely about to take off as an amazing babyface...in Chris Benoit. That mood carried into 2002. Their first PPV opened with a Kid Rock song and featured that Vince McMahon tan. Oh, and Triple H was back as a babyface too.
The start of the year showed a bit of promise. Triple H got some interest back. Someone untained by 2001 was back and ready to...feud over a dog? Didn't the WWF learn anything from Kennell from Hell or The British Bulldog in 1999? There's never been a draw in wrestling named Lucy, unless one of the women headlining this year's is named Lucy, in which case we better pretend.
The WWF did a horrible job with Chris Jericho as Undisputed Champion. There are chickenshits in wrestling, but when your top heel is too ineffective, it looks like your champion is undeserving and everybody else is a fool for not being able to kick his ass. It's like that Aussie guy who won Olympic gold because everyone else in his race fell down. Our greatest hero, but certainly not World Champ material. Jericho needed a low blow, an eye rake, an exposed turnbuckle, a roll-up holding the tights with his feet on the ropes, and a semi-trailer to beat The Rock. Well, not the semi-trailer, but that's coming...
What more can be said about the nWo that hasn't already been written about The Death of WCW? Vince McMahon wanted to inject a lethal dose of poison into the company that he tried to save just a few months previous. That's actually fairly consistent storytelling for the time. The WWF Board of Directors would decide that Vince should get to run half the company moving forward about a month later, which makes them look even more inept than Jericho trying to win a match.
The Hogan/Rock staredown with the nWo beat-down was awesome until Hogan drove a truck right through it. No, that's not a euphemism for his creative control clause in WCW, or an overcompensation for Terry Bollea's penis on the stand. They actually had an angle where Hogan tried to commit vehicular manslaughter on the air. Hulk, not Nick. No word on if the WWF actually tried to get Rock to actually be in the car like Sid Vicious in Bret Hart. Jesus, if Sid sucks so much, just stop giving him a million pushes. The state of that. Oh, it's dead?
Speaking of dead, The Undertaker was in a program with Ric Flair heading into this show. I say "dead," not because of The Undertaker's gimmick, but because of my interest in him after his 2001. He was spraying his "Thank fuck I backed the winning horse" insecurity stink all over the place in 2001 and 2002, and although I don't remember hating this program, I do remember it did have David Flair in it. But I do remember him getting killed. That's all a wash really.
You also had Edge and Booker T feuding over a shampoo commercial. This could have been forgiven if we actually got a weird Japanese-style cartoon with Edge's head flying to different continents and shooting eye lasers at world leaders to turn them into panda bears or something (although they might have later regretted this dig), but we didn't even get that Mr. Sparkle rip-off. We didn't even get Booker T in an Edge wig. What the fuck was this, and why the fuck am I even trying to meet it half-way?
Kurt Angle had a match with Kane. Rob Van Dam had a match with William Regal. There was a four-way tag. There was a Women's Title match. There was Austin and Scott Hall built around one storyline alcholic mocking a real-life alcoholic with tiny nets. You had smiling DDP and tantrum-throwing Christian. Stacy in the Dudley Boyz gear was alright though. It's a shame that it was with the Dudley Boyz.
And then there's that main event. The build to Chris Jericho vs. Triple H was basically non-existent, because the build was to Triple H vs. Stephanie. The dog, the divorce, the dildo. Wait, was there an angle with Triple H giving Stephanie a dildo, or am I just misremembering Triple H?
I've never been a big H fan -- he's always a terrible babyface though. Look at him putting his career on the line this year at WrestleMania -- way to babyface Batista, Paul. Interest waned in him as a potential top babyface very quickly in 2002. In defense of Triple H, it was not entirely his fault. They did the No Way Out special, where Triple H lost the shot he earned, ala Rey Mysterio (I hope someone mentions that awful build-up too), and he was moping about his wife lying to him. Triple H trying to act like a cool and funny guy -- a very unnatural and unnecessary departure from the heel persona people cared about at the time -- was not helping. He also looks like a dick picking on a smaller guy that was clueless enough to wear those green tights to WrestleMania and send a a driver to get air freshener in a car he tied a dog to.
God damn it, this fucking sucked. Almost everything was wrong, and the few things that went right on the night were almost accidental. Christian knocking Molly Holly out with a door should not be one of your top three highlights of what is supposed to be your biggest show of the calendar year.
|