Crown This!

On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d have to give the 2001 “King of the Ring” a 6. Jim Ross predicted a 7 and called himself conservative. I call him a moron.

First of all, the “King of the Ring” tournament is supposed to be, well, a tournament. But all the other matches had been fought on weekly television. The point is for one wrestler to have a survived a hellacious night of matches. Last year, Kurt Angle fought three tournament matches to become the 2000 king. This year the commentators made it sound as though to fight three matches in one night was some task Angle has never accomplished before.

But the tournament was already tainted by the inclusion of several already established stars. The King of the Ring tournament is supposed to be a launch pad for an up-and-coming wrestler to make his mark by surviving this tournament in one night. Edge, Christian, Rhyno and especially Kurt Angle had a fruitful career before the pay-per-view was even booked. They never needed this to make a mark; Edge and Christian were seven-time tag title holders, Angle held the WWF Heavy Weight Championship for five months, and Rhyno was in the federation for two months before he robbed Kane of the Hardcore belt.

None of those guys needed it. Unlike 1999’s winner, Billy Gunn, who needed the push but got lost in the shadow of his cohorts, Triple H and Chyna. (Luckily, they made use of that fact on camera, started Gunn’s career as a solo heel).

Besides that, every match but the last two at the pay-per-view was mediocre. With the exception of Angle-versus-Shane McMahon and the Championship match, there wasn’t anything there that was worth $30. And to boot, the endings to the only two good matches were disappointing.

I always give credit to Shane McMahon. He doesn’t wrestle much, but when he does it’s always a great effort. This is likely because he doesn’t fight as much as other wrestlers. He can fight knowing that he has the next few months to take it easy, unlike Angle, who will be back in action later thenext day!

Which is another reason I give lots more credit to Angle. He fought two decent matches and then a third unbelievable fight. Both men got very bloody – and it wasn’t from blading!

Angle and Shane O’Mac did put on a killer fight, but Angle won rather anticlimactically. I realize he retained his WWF Championship at the 2000 “Armageddon” the same way – by rolling over and dropping an arm on a dazed Rocky – but that worked because no one saw it coming. Everyone was caught up with those still standing (remember, that match also featured Undertaker, Austin, Rikishi and Triple H). This was like, “wait, did he just win?”

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