Henry's World

 We now move into 2002, where by far the biggest story to start the year in wrestling was the return of Triple H. "The Game", who had frequently turned in the best match on the card all throughout 2001 and the start of 2001 before tearing his quad in a tag match on Raw was back, and gunning for the Undisputed title. Hunter has never been at his best as a face, but the fans were just so happy to see him back that it made no difference, with his return on the January 7th edition of Raw resulting in one of the loudest pops in WWE history. Even with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker and Kurt Angle all declaring for the Rumble, in addition to the announced returns of fan favorites like Goldust, The Godfather and Mr. Perfect, it was blatantly obvious that Triple H was winning this match. In hindsight, most Rumble winners tend to be obvious, the company doesn't want to trust a featured match at WrestleMania to either a complete afterthought or an inexperienced ...

 The most lasting impact of the Invasion was the elevation of some of the best midcard acts in the WWF, most notably Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. Technically, both men had already become a world champion prior to the start of the storyline(although Jericho was only champ for about an hour and his reign is not officially recognized), but they both took major steps towards becoming two of the biggest stars in the business from SummerSlam to Survivor Series. Now we arrive at Vengeance, where both men, alongside the two established top names in "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock, compete in a one night mini-tournament to unify the WWF and WCW titles. This is a huge chance to make either Jericho or Angle the true face of the company, with both Austin and Rock nearing the end of their full-time runs. While history has shown us that that never really happened, it's nice to believe this could be the truly historic night the company was promising. Who will be the first to con...

 As Boyz II Men would say, we've come to the end of the road, a massive showdown between the WWF and the Alliance here at the Survivor Series. Tonight's outing is headlined by the Winner Take All main event, where the two sides meet in a match where the loser must disband. That stipulation was a dead giveaway for the result of the match, as no one in their right mind thought there was any chance Vince would allow WCW and ECW to take over his entire programming, even if they were bastardized versions of his former competitors. Considering the astronomical amount of hype the WWF put into selling this show, the card is surprisingly weak, so that's another major warning sign. It seemed like after months of effort, the company was dropping the ball at the worst possible time. The Invasion angle had been a very mixed bag for months, and now it was time to provide closure. Let's see if one of the biggest storylines in company history would end with a bang or a whimper.  - Surv...

 I'm not really sure how I feel about "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's heel run, even after getting the opportunity to see plenty of his work from this year. On one hand, it does feel a bit strange, and the lack of established top faces for him to fight resulted in declining business and a general lack of interest from the fanbase. On the other hand, he's still incredible entertaining regardless of disposition, as evidenced by the build to the main event of this show. Austin won the WWF title back from Kurt Angle on an episode of SmackDown about two weeks after Unforgiven thanks to a betrayal from William Regal, who had jumped ship to The Alliance. Mick Foley was reinstated to his post as WWF Commissioner, quickly announcing a triple threat title match for No Mercy, with Austin defending against Angle and one of Steve's fellow Alliance members, perhaps the hottest rising star in the company, Rob Van Dam. This allowed the booking team to go back to what worked earli...

 I rarely mention the date of the pay-per-view I'm reviewing, partly because that's information that any reader can easily find on their own, mostly because it just never matters. I mean, the difference between a show taking place on, say, July 2nd versus July 18th would be pretty minimal, right? Unforgiven is an exception to the norm, as it's important for me to tell you that it took place on September 23rd, 2001. You probably know exactly where this is going. 12 days prior, the United States of America were devastated when two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, resulting in the single deadliest terrorist attack in the history of humankind. The impact of life both in the US and across the world was significant, but I'm just going to focus on the impact of 9/11 on the WWF. An episode of SmackDown was initially scheduled to be taped on that day, before being aired live two days later in one of the first major public gatherings across the cou...

 It's probably not good when the biggest storyline in company history has reached it's peak less than three months in, but SummerSlam is definitely the best pay-per-view for the Invasion story arc. Now, me saying that does sound a bit snarky, however that assertion is not at all to the detriment of this show itself, because it's pretty great. The card is headlined by the return of The Rock, who had been on hiatus since the Raw after WrestleMania X-Seven, which was due to his role in The Scorpion King. Dwayne is immediately launched right into the world title picture, but instead of fighting "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the man who turned heel on him earlier in the year and drove him out of the company in kayfabe, he's going after Booker T and the WCW Championship instead. Kurt Angle is given the honor of fighting Austin, gunning for revenge on behalf of Mr. McMahon for Austin's betrayal of the WWF at InVasion. It may not make much sense for Austin and Rock t...

 I have very mixed feelings about the entire Invasion/Alliance storyline, which I'm sure will be very clear in my next few reviews as I cover it. On one hand, the whole was really just a giant Vince McMahon ego trip, dancing on the grave of two fallen competitors, making it abundantly clear that his guys were the only true stars in the business. On the other hand, that is literally true, just look at WCW and ECW's main event scene by the time they folded, neither company could match the WWF for starpower. Maybe the gap could've been a bit closer if Vince had been willing to buyout some of WCW's bigger names from their Time Warner contracts, but it just made more sense financially to use the roster he already had, and I get it. By early 2001, the WWF had pretty much completely cornered the market, they had the strongest roster in the world and the best in the history of the company, in my opinion. Why bother spending potentially millions of dollars just to sign guys like...

 We now move forward to June in 2001, where the Invasion is just about to get underway. While Backlash and Judgment Day were more so transitional shows to cover the aftermath of WrestleMania X-Seven, King of the Ring has the future firmly in sight, with many of the most prominent figures of the months to come featuring heavily on this night. The build to this show sees "Stone Cold" Steve Austin doing perhaps the best character work of his career, as he has begun to grow more and more paranoid after Linda McMahon announced he would be defending his WWF title against both Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit. After Austin blamed Vince for his wife's decision, Mr. McMahon upped the ante, declaring that he and Austin would be through if Steve failed to walk out of King of the Ring still as champion. With everything he had worked so hard to cultivate on the line, going into a seemingly no-win situation against two of the best the WWF has to offer, Austin has spiraled out of control,...