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Survivor Series 2001 was the climax of the failed WWF vs Alliance angle that every real wrestling fan had been waiting and fantasy booking for years, yet had completely bombed once it actually happened. I think the problem was that everybody imagined that both companies would still be alive if this angle ever actually happened and each side would therefore be portrayed as equal, but of course WCW had been sold to the WWF early in 2001, so the entire direction of the angle was under the direction of WWF creative, and as you might imagine given Vince’s track record of booking outside entities, the feud ended up being terribly one-sided.
In fact, the WCW crew ended up getting buried so badly that they kept the feud going by taking name brand WWF guys and having them jump to the “enemy†side, and eventually it was more or less WWF guys fighting WWF guys who were working under the WCW banner, and it never ended up turning into the true WCW vs WWF feud that most everyone actually wanted to see, and the feud climaxed at this show which was held in WCW’s own backyard, Greensboro, North Carolina.
As for the PPV itself, the running theme throughout the show was that they were building dissension within the Alliance as Vince McMahon had said that he had a spy on the Alliance side, and for weeks there had been speculation that Austin was the WWF spy, and throughout the show they ran backstage segments of the Alliance members accusing one another of secretly working for the WWF.
Also of note was that Paul Heyman was on commentary for this show because Jerry Lawler had walked out on the WWF months earlier after his wife, Miss Kitty, was let go by the company and, out of loyalty, Lawler had left with her rather than remaining with the company that fired his wife. Unfortunately for Lawler, Miss Kitty ended up filing for divorce mere weeks later and Lawler was now totally screwed from all angles. In the meantime, ECW was on its deathbed as Heyman took Lawler’s spot on Raw, and I thought it was a refreshing change as Heyman was much better at getting the storylines over rather than concentrating on the puppies and ga-ga as Lawler had.
The Undercard
The opening match on this show was Christian defending the European Title against Al Snow. Christian had turned on his brother Edge a couple months prior to this and they had a short feud in which they traded the Intercontinental Title back and forth, but after losing that title to Edge, Christian turned right around and picked up the European Title by beating Bradshaw on a non-televised match that took place at a Smackdown taping. Christian was officially a member of the Alliance at this point, theoretically because the only way you could be a heel during this whole period was to be a member of the Alliance, though Christian was not very involved with the group’s other anti-WWF activities. Even though Edge was being focused on as the future star of the two, they were really both starting out on their parallel singles careers at the same time, and both would eventually lead to World Titles. Al Snow, on the other hand, had pretty much moved out of regular competition in favor of becoming the head trainer on Tough Enough. From that point on, Al Snow was used almost strictly as enhancement talent whenever he did appear in the ring. Snow hit the Snowplow, but Christian got his foot on the bottom rope and came back with the Unprettier for the win.
Match #2 saw Cruiserweight Champion Tajiri taking on William Regal in a non-title match. Regal had actually brought Tajiri to the WWF as his manservant a few months prior to this, but they ended up splitting when Regal, who was at the time the WWF Commissioner, turned on the WWF and became the Commissioner for the Alliance. This was a pretty good match that got a little stiff, but probably could have stood to have another 10 minutes or so to work with. Regal beat him with the Tiger Driver in about 5 minutes, then gave him another, which drew out Torrie Wilson, who was linked to Tajiri at this point. Just to be a schmuck, Regal gave her a Tiger Driver as well.
Next up was the match to unify the WWF Intercontinental Title, held by Test, and the WCW United States Title, held by Edge. Bit of backstory here, Mick Foley had taken over for Regal as the WWF Commissioner, but ended up resigning his position because, in real life, he didn’t like the direction the company had taken and decided to take a little vacation until things turned up a little more to his liking. Before he left, he decided to book a couple of matches to unify several WWF titles with their WCW counterparts, and this was one of those matches. Test had beaten Edge to win the IC Title, though he needed his feet on the ropes to do so, and then shortly afterward, Edge had beaten Kurt Angle for the US Title, so this was a rematch of sorts between the two.
Now, a lot of people ride on Test for his generally bad work ethic, attitude, and workrate, but years ago when he was younger and motivated before he got the big head, he worked pretty hard and actually had a pretty good showing here. In the meantime, you could tell they had big plans for Edge, but he was still years away from the main event push, but Edge is a good example of how much better it works if you take the time to build a guy up and get him over instead of giving up on him after a few weeks or months like the do with guys like CM Punk. The match hada pretty hot finish where Edge slipped out of the pump handle slam and hit the Edge-O-Matic for 2, then Test came back with a really wicked spear (which was acknowledged as Edge’s move even though it wasn’t his regular finisher at the time) for 2, then Test hit a pump handle slam for 2, and then Edge countered a powerbomb into a Frankensteiner and hit a spear for two, then went for the Edgecution, which Test countered into a full nelson, which Edge then countered into a victory roll for the win. Great finish and great match from two motivated young guys.
That was followed up with the other unification match, as WWF Tag Team Champions the Dudley Boyz took on WCW Tag Team Champions the Hardy Boyz in the latest chapter in the long running series between these two teams. Interesting to note that since the InVasion angle began, there had actually been one or two occasions prior to this when one team held both titles, but this was the first time they would be officially unified. It’s interesting to look back at these matches because even though the Hardyz were the more spectacular team to watch, the Dudleyz were a much better team who had much better continuity, their double team work was smoother, they always knew where to be in relation to one another and when, and while the Hardyz had moves like Poetry In Motion and one or two other good double teams, they just didn’t have the same teamwork the Dudleyz had, and I think splitting Jeff and Matt off into singles was absolutely the best move in retrospect.
Anyway, this wasn’t the best match involving these two teams, but it was still good and had a well booked finish where Matt escaped the cage and Jeff was on top and could have escaped, but instead saw D-Von laying on a table in the ring and couldn’t resist going for the highspot, and went for the Swanton, but D-Von moved and Jeff went through the table, allowing D-Von to cover him for the win. They had been teasing dissension between the Hardyz leading into this, and all the while as the paramedics were checking on Jeff, Matt just stood there with this look on his face like “I can’t believe he just threw away the Tag Team Title because he needed to show off.â€
This was followed by the Immunity Battle Royal featuring a bunch of undercard guys from both sides of the feud, with the winner becoming immune from being fired no matter who won the main event. I remember at the time that people figured that the outcome of this match would telegraph the finish of the main event, and I thought this was silly because I never really had any doubt who was going to win that main event. Anyway, Test attacked Scotty 2 Hotty backstage and took his spot in the battle royal and then pretty much plowed through all the jobbers in the match to pick up the win and officially become immune from termination.
The last match before the main event was a Six Pack Challenge for the WWF Women’s Title, which had been vacated when former champion Chyna’s contract expired and was not renewed, which seems to have become a recurring problem with that title in the 90s. In any event, the participants in this match were Trish Stratus, Lita, Jacqueline, Ivory, Molly Holly (who was doing the Mighty Molly superheroine gimmick where she was Hurricane’s sidekick, for those keeping score, and for those keeping score, Molly is a real cutie and she looked adorable here), and Jazz, who was making her WWF debut in this match. Surprisingly, Trish picked up the win to become Women’s Champion, and this was surprising because even though she would develop into the greatest women’s wrestler of this generation, she had never been portrayed as a serious wrestler prior to this, and most people probably expected Lita or Jazz to walk out with the title. Trish hit the Stratusfaction on Ivory to win the title, which was a big step up from getting down on her hands and knees and barking like a dog.
The Main Event
This all leads into the one match that the entire show was built around, the Winner Take All Survivor Series elimination match between Team WWF of the Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho, Big Show, and WCW World Champion The Rock, and Team Alliance of Rob Van Dam, Shane McMahon, Booker T, Kurt Angle, and WWF World Champion Steve Austin.
This match marked the culmination of the long anticipated, poorly executed WWF vs WCW angle which really marked the beginning of the downward slide of the WWF from a creative perspective, as the angle bombed big time and the WWF’s storytelling really never recovered even to this day. Part of the problem was that none of the WCW or ECW guys were booked to come off like they were the slightest threat to the WWF guys, and you can see what kind of a problem that became when you realize that other than the job crew in the Immunity Battle Royal, Booker and RVD were the only WCW or ECW originals to even appear on the entire show. As I’ve said, the “WCW†side was mostly populated by WWF wrestlers, and you had nonsensical things like Steve Austin joining the Alliance despite the years he had spent bitching about how badly he had been treated while he worked for WCW.
As for the match itself, it went about 45 minutes, making it one of the longest matches in Survivor Series history, and it came down to Austin, Booker, RVD and Angle with a 4-on-2 advantage over the Rock and Chris Jericho. This was a particularly disadvantageous position for the WWF, as Rock and Jericho had been feuding over the WCW Title in prior weeks and still had some residual heat since a chair had gotten involved in the match where Jericho beat Rock for the title. Rock won the title back about two weeks later, but now they seemed to be holding it together well enough to prevail over the Alliance, and they ended up doing a pretty good job, going through Booker, RVD, and Angle all right in a row, giving them a 2-on-1 advantage over Austin, who was now left on his own to carry the name of a company he hated more than anything.
Austin ended up catching Jericho in a quick rollup to eliminated him, at which point Jericho flipped out and went after Rock with a chair and then walked out and left him for dead. At this point, things looked really bleak for the WWF, especially when you consider that Austin had beaten Rock every time they had ever wrestled, and he once again dominated Rock and appeared well on his way to picking up yet another win when Angle came back to ringside. Turns out Angle was the double agent on the Alliance side, as he came in and hit Austin with a chair behind the referee’s back, allowing Rock to hit the Rock Bottom to finally, finally score a pinfall win over Austin and win the match and feud for the WWF in the process. As it turns out, out of all the matches Austin and Rock had against one another, this wound up being one of the only two pinfall wins Rock would ever score over Austin, and it’s funny to think that the series between the two biggest stars of the Attitude Era could end up being so lopsided.
Final Analysis
And so ended the fabled InVasion angle, and it couldn’t go quickly enough. Paul Heyman tried coming out as color commentator again the next night on Raw, only to be fired by Vince McMahon and physically removed as Jerry Lawler once more assumed his spot beside Jim Ross at the announce table. The people loved Lawler and wanted him back, but then once they got him, they realized that Lawler was still doing the puppies routine and the online community got tired of it in record time and started complaining about him again almost immediately. I found this hilarious, and it just goes to show why the companies don’t go out of their way to cater to the internet crowd, because no matter what you give them, they’ll always find some reason to complain.
But in any event, that was the end of the Alliance and the whole angle was almost completely forgotten the next night on Raw as Steve Austin was magically once again a babyface, Paul Heyman was gone and Lawler was back, and Ric Flair came in as the new co-owner of the WWF to start a feud with Vince McMahon, when most people thought having Flair involved could have saved the Alliance angle in the first place. I think they realized how badly astray the Invasion angle had taken them, but by this point the damage had been done and a lot of people had given up on the WWF, and the decline has slowly but steadily continued in the seven years since and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Let this be a lesson that no matter how awesome any promotion is, there’s always some storyline, some angle out there that can come in and screw the whole thing up.
In terms of the wrestling though, this show was great, very solid in-ring stuff and the main event was very well booked, suspenseful, and had a dramatic ending, so you could do worse than this show if you’re a workrate fanatic.
Thanks for sticking with me, we just have six more to go, and I’ll be back before you know it with the 2002 edition. Until then, all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and you can check me out on MySpace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Thanks for reading, and take care.
