How would you rate the year 2001?

[RedRegan1005]

Thanks to the New WWE Network I've been on a PPV binger for the last few days. I decided to pick a random year and watch all the PPV's that year. Not in normal calendar order but WWE calendar order so starting at the first PPV after Mania and going to the next Mania. I started with the year 2001, many say it was the first after the attitude era cause people believe the attitude era ended when Austin turned heel. I'm almost done watching survivor series so I'm about at the half way point. So far I've really enjoyed it from a match quality standpoint. Storyline wise it's ho hum. Some good, some bad, and some right in the middle. A lot of people hear or see 2001 and immediately start griping over how the Invasion angle but as I'm sure many of you have seen there have been more than enough forums about that. I researched the Invasion PPV itself for the first time in forever and actually really enjoyed it The main event was awesome and I feel that PPV sometimes gets a bad rap. One thing I noticed that I really wanted to mention was the matches that Rvd and Jeff hardy had against each other, a hardcore match at invasion and a ladder match at summer slam. Blew me away! Holy crap I have no clue how those guys didn't leave those matches without serious injuries. Anyways I could've waited to post this till I got to WM18 but I have only four PPV's left to watch. I've seen the 02 royal rumble and WM18 more times than I can count so I don't really need to rewatch those, so all I have left that's not fresh in my mind is the December PPV and no way out. They both are gonna have to be really bad to change my opinion of the year.

To sum it up, I would give the 2001/2002 WrestleMania calendar year 4 stars out of 5. What would you guys rate it?

As a side note one thing that did have me staring at the TV saying "da f**k?" Was Perry Saturn and his angle with his gf moppy. He actually got on a PPV for a match that had to due with that storyline. I found it ...... Um ... Well ..... Interesting

 

[enviousdominous]

2001 was a wild year for me as a pro-wrestling fan. I remember WCW in their last throes as a company still produce shows that acted as if there was a future for them. They had just made Rey and Kidman the Cruiserweight tag champs, they were doing some kind of weird "funeral" angle pretty much every single week on Nitro. Nitro was airing in some pretty tiny arenas as well.

It was surreal to see a company that was at one time bigger than the WWF trying desperately to maintain a presence in the pro-wrestling world, but still failing miserably mainly because they were trying so damn hard. Either way, for me it was entertaining for being so dramatic.

I think my only gripe with the Invasion angle was that it seemed to have been re-written too many times. I wasn't all up in the dirt sheets back then, so what the tv gave me was what I got.

I got Vince and the WWF being portrayed as villains and WCW being portrayed as an underdog company that wanted to be recognized. I was cool with that, Shane apparently owns WCW now and his leap from the top of the titan-tron was pretty epic.

Then out of nowhere WCW started playing the villains, with Stone Cold playing a traitor unto the WWF. Alright fine, I suppose that works.

Then ECW made their presence known, and promptly allied with WCW after an apparent brain dump of all the angst they've felt toward WCW during the mid 90's. It was all an apparent effort to take down the WWF, alright I guess.

Match-wise, 2001 was better than most. Storyline-wise it was really fucking confusing. The Invasion angle only ended because Vince wrestled Shane and won in a match that was basically just a desperate attempt at ending it. Then the tragedy of 9-11 happened, so they ran with a program where Stone Cold dropped the belt to Kurt Angle only to have the belt go back to Stone Cold when the novelty of our increased patriotism seemed to ware off.

I think the year was outstanding in terms of the content of the actual matches, it seemed like the WWF was getting progressively better with each PPV throughout the year. I think the year was fucking confusing in terms of creative direction for the story-lines. "Oh look, Kurt Angle is spraying milk at Steve Austin. I don't want to cheer, but I feel like I'm supposed to".

 

[The Jeff]

I'll go 9/10. It had the BEST WrestleMania, the best SummerSlam and the best Survivor Series. People don't like the SCSA heel turn or the Invasion, but I love all of it. 2000 is my favorite year, but 2001 was an AMAZING followup

 

[#MrScissorsKick]

To me, when thinking about the 2001 year in professional wrestling, I have mixed opinions. I think the WWE was at it's best in years from January to April 2001. After that was pretty much a mess. For the rest of the year, the Invasion Angle took over the WWE and left a pretty empty feeling for most fans. On one hand, you were missing some of the WWE's top talents in Rock, Benoit, HHH. The Alliance had Angle, Shane, and Austin who jumped ship from the WWE. I think the feeling that if WCW had their main guys in the Invasion Angle, things would be much different.

Although the Invasion was a success for the WWE, it didn't stack up to what the first 4 months of the year accomplished to where it was then. The Royal Rumble, No Way Out, and WrestleMania were some of the best Pay-Per-Views that the WWE had for some time and really were on fire for the remainder of the year. Even though the Invasion Angle didn't go as many as us hoped for, we still got some quality Pay-Per-Views outside of it. Invasion, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series were very, very good. The "Winner Take All" Survivor Series match was very entertaining and a good fitting end to the Invasion Angle. It also had that "Big Fight" feeling that was in the atmosphere that night.

All in all, like I said, I have mixed opinions on 2001. Like any other year there were some high points and some not so high points. The former being more important than the latter in this case. It was a good time and good feeling to be a wrestling fan in 2001. I haven't felt that way in a long time since about 2012 to now. Things were different then, but like in all things in life, everything changes. Time changes.

 

[Eyebrows]

2001 was the year I got into wrestling and it's completely mind boggling to me that it is already 13 years ago.

It's my favourite year in wrestling. I know the Invasion angle gets a lot of flak but as a kid who had never watched WCW I was hooked. I wish I was that age again, where you know in your head that it's clearly not real, but part of you really wants to believe that it is. Without any knowledge of WCW's main eventers I wasn't disappointed for what we didn't get. However, it's the first five or six months that really caught my imagination.

Royal Rumble 2001 will always be my favourite event. I think it was the perfect example of both booking and execution. The roster was deep with talent throughout the mid-card. The comedy back then was genuinely entertaining with E&C and Angle. No doubt my mind is filtering out the crap. I remember moppy being a punishment for Saturn I think for working stiff on some jobber on Heat.

I think Backlash 2001 is a really underrated event. Rhyno/Raven, Regal/Jericho, Benoit/Angle, Shane/Big Show and the European Title triple-threat match made for a great undercard and the tag-match main event was great.

 

[JMD]

When I think of 2001, I think of WCW and ECW going belly-up within a month of each other, WrestleMania X-Seven, and Chris Jericho becoming the first-ever Undisputed Champion at Vengeance.

It was an awesome year to be honest.

 

[relentless1]

2001 sucked, WCW went down and that was it for the wrestling community. WWF could have, should have dug deep into their pockets and gotten Flair, nWo, Goldberg, Steiners, Sting, Luger etc and pushed the WCW invasion to the moon, they could have had the thing last or two or three years if they played it right...such a shame

 

[Emmet]

You can divide 2001 into 2 categories: before Vince bought WCW and after he bought WCW.

Before he bought WCW, it was the last days of the AE, the product was brilliant, good storylines and great matches across the board.

Then he buys WCW, brought in a lot of mediocre talent and flopped the Invasion angle.

So I would sum up 2001 as this: A very good 5 months, a poor to terrible next seven months.

 

[thebarber]

Vince bought WCW in Match 2001, thus 3 months of WCW being owned by Turner, and 9 months owned by Vince in 2001.
He brought in talent who were contracted to WCW, he acquired them with the buyout.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

THE most important year for professional wrestling in modern times. 3 national promotions suddenly becoming one, all within the first 3 months of the year. The last time WWE had any competition from the same genre, and a huge reason the product has suffered over the last decade, only recently picking up IMO.

Taking 2001 as a calendar year, a phenomenal year for in-ring action. Of the 12 WWE ppvs, only one was below average (Backlash), and even that had its share of moments (the highlight being Rhyno goring a shopping trolley in his match of the night against Raven - that must have hurt!!) Each and every other WWE ppv IMO was a minimum of 6/10, but mostly 8s.

The year began with the best Royal Rumble ever - a fantastic undercard including another great match in the Benoit-Jericho series, and a Triple H v Kurt Angle title match that was FAR superior to their match the previous September at Unforgiven. The Rumble itself was the best Rumble match ever - well paced, and a build that saw 5 or 6 legitimate winners (as opposed to the usual 1 or 2 if we are lucky) which meant you genuinely didn't know who was going to win. Even the addition of Drew Carey didn't spoil it for me!

From there we had the last embers of the Attitude Era, with a brilliant No Way Out (that particular show rarely disappointed) with two cracking main events, and the best card ever, Wrestlemania X-Seven. If this was to be considered the end of the Era, what more suitable card: a return to the stadium venues of old, for the first time since 1992, and a time increase to 4 hours. I doubt we we ever see a better Wrestlemania than this.

Post-Wrestlemania, the focus shifted onto the Invasion storyline - a slow build, begun by a creepy stalker storyline involving the Undertaker's wife. It was a bit strange, and disappointing it never really went anywhere, but it was a different start, and got people talking. Once the invasion began, the cards were by-and-large awesome, and every tv show remained must-watch to see what 'dream' matches were next. The only disappointment was the rushed ending - WWE was always going to win, it's just a shame it didn't run until Wrestlemania. But the ppvs it did run for were amongst WWE's best, especially the first and last, Invasion and Survivor Series. Other highlights of the Invasion storyline were the ECW reformation - "live this moment, JR!" - the words spoken by Paul Heyman as he left the desk to join the wrestlers in the ring; the Rock's promo on Smackdown! just after his return where he first interacts with Booker T, and the build up of Chris Jericho into a believable main eventer. Perhaps it's a shame the WWE didn't get many WCW top liners signed, but the story worked well enough without them. I feel there is an overlooked reason why they didn't, though, and it's not just down to money:

The worst match of the year: Booker T v Buff Bagwell, a WCW match on Raw for the first time, and a title match at that. This match is cited as the reason WCW was 'turned heel', due to negative fan reaction. Bagwell lasted no longer than another week before getting fired. As someone close to the upper echelons of WCW talent - a group which largely had reputations of being difficult - is it perhaps also possible that Bagwell's performance here made the WWE's decision for them not to chase the likes of the Outsiders, etc? A truly awful match.

Other than all that, ECW closed after a solid Guilty as Charged ppv, and I didn't personally watch the last 3 WCW ppvs (Sin, Superbrawl and Greed) but by all accounts the in-ring product from Atlanta was beginning to show a sharp upturn before they were bought out.

But if one memory remains from 2001 when all others fade, it will forever be the single most shocking, exciting image in wrestling history: Shane McMahon appearing on Monday Nitro, in a Nitro ring. The face of wrestling changed forever.

 

[AnthonyM4]

The first few months of 2001 were great, but then it went downhill after ecw went under and wcw was bought out. Once wwe had no competition they started getting lazy creatively and have been for the most part since. I'm not going to go over the horrible Invasion angle. Everybody knows how bad that was. That killed 2001 for me. So I say it was a bad year.

 

[Mac]

I hated 2001. For me 1995 and 2001 were neck and neck as my two least favorite years in wrestling. The first few months of the year was good. I thought WCW was putting on some solid shows. Scott Steiner was awesome as the World Champion and Lance Storm was a hot act in the mid card scene. If WCW survived he might've been World Champion later that year. As for the WWF the product was strong as ever. Then WCW gets bought by Vince. Then ECW gets bought. And everything went downhill afterwards. The invasion angle was poorly booked. The majority of the top guys from WCW weren't around so it was a failure. I felt the booking went to shit that year. And pro wrestling hasn't quite recovered from losing WCW.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Very confusing year, storline nonsense in WWE that was hard to follow, especially the extremely un popular Steve Austin heel turn, one of the worst received turns of all time aligning him with Vince.

The end of WCW was very sad, especially for fans who traced their relationship to they heyday of the NWA and Jim Crockett Promotions when the company was producing the most entertaining wrestling anywhere in the US.

For Vince McMahon though it was a great year, he FINALLY vanquished WCW after a two decades long war, first with Crockettt Promotions in the 80s and then with the revamped WCW under Eric Bischoff's control in the 90s. Upstart ECW was gone too. Vince was able to buy the video library of WCW, a veritable multi million dollar goldmine that he could sell for pure profit (no production costs) for less than half what it was worth, and did so without acquiring any of the contracts of wrestlers (Time Warner kept them all). You can argue the Invasion Angle would have been better with big name WCW guys (DDP was the only legit main eventer who was part of the initial invasion) and I believe that is true, certainly there wasn't as much interest seeing the mid carders and unknown guys challenge the WWE Stars, it would be like seeing the 3rd string of New England play the 1st string of Seattle, not much competition. Still, while it may have been disappointing for fans, it was a money making goldmine for Vince. Even today, 13 years later, he is still making money off the WCW Video Library, he's made countless milllions by getting Flair & Hogan back in the fold and selling every bit of merchandise related to their legacies as he can, and 13 years later no one has stepped up and mounted a serious challenge as a rival promotion, TNA tried but after a fast start faded fast.

For Vince Id say 2001 was the best year ever.

 

[Cub McCallister]

I thought that 2001 was a good year in wrestling had some real good matches and the Royal Rumble ppv was good and the build up to mania was great as well as the ppv. I thought the invasion angle was great at the time but looking back at it now it could of been done much much better if they would of pushed certain guys such as Van Dam and Lance Storm put on better matches and not buried wrestlers such as DDP and Booker T, Survivor Series could of been better by having more elimination matches in my personal opinion.

Such a shame that WCW and ECW went out of business in 2001 I think that they could of done much more if they stayed in business.

 

[Ubermensch]

2001 was great for Vince because he eliminated the competition and could now produce the half assed product you watch on TV now and spend 30 minutes talking about a smartphone app, because whatever, you'll still watch it.

The other thing that I feel like started the trend of watering down wrestling was when 9/11 happened. TV in general started getting much more light hearted.