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 country. The episode was fueled by the pure essence of American pride, opening with an incredible promo from Vince McMahon, and other than Stephanie referencing the steroid trial, still holds up pretty well to this day. The Federation was fortunate to have the right man at the right time in the form of Kurt Angle, a legit American hero who had just put on an incredible performance at SummerSlam, and conveniently booked to fight "Stone Cold" Steve Austin one more time at Unforgiven, which was taking place in his hometown of Pittsburgh. It all couldn't have lined up more perfectly, setting up what might be the most obvious title switch in the history of wrestling, but one that was sure to be appreciated.
- Unforgiven 2001 comes to you from the defunct Mellon Arena, our third trip to this venue, following SummerSlam 1995 and King of the Ring 1998. Jennifer Holliday opens proceedings with a rendition of "America the Beautiful", and I'm going to be honest, it's not great. Given her incredible performance on that episode of SmackDown, I have no idea how Lilian Garcia didn't get this gig.
- Our opening contest sees the Dudley Boyz defending the WWF tag titles against Lance Storm and The Hurricane(who still has his Helms surname at this point), Big Show and Spike Dudley and the Hardy Boyz. This is a really fun match, featuring some comedy between Matt Hardy and Hurricane, who just took Matt's European title, and some great wrestling, there are a ton of quality workers out there. Even Big Show looks great, as he meshes well with Spike, clears the ring to a big pop and even hints at a top rope dive that surely would've destroyed the entire arena. It comes down to Bubba Ray and D-Von against Matt and Jeff, with the champions scoring a title retention by shenanigans. The final stretch was a bit dull and the crowd didn't really care about seeing these same two teams fighting for the millionth time, but it was still a strong way to open the show.
- The Attitude Era produced some very wacky storylines, but perhaps none were as strange as Perry Saturn's relationship with "Moppy", an actual f***ing mop. Even if the concept is laughable today, Saturn and Moppy were very over during this year, although it didn't result in a higher standing in the company for Saturn. The WWF finally decided to do something with the gimmick over the past few months, as Perry's kayfabe girlfriend Terri Runnels was infuriated when he chose the mop over her, forming an alliance with Raven, who destroyed the janitorial appliance with a woodchipper. Saturn gains a measure of revenge on this night, defeating Raven by countering the Raven Effect into his swinging fisherman suplex. The match is very dull, as Perry hated this storyline and Raven was mentally checked out. The crowd also doesn't care, possibly because this supposedly heated grudge match had absolutely no intensity of any kind, or maybe because they cared more about Moppy than both men. This was a pretty massive failure.
- After a couple months of build, Christian has finally turned heel on Edge, hitting with a Con-chair-to and declaring his intention to take the Intercontinental Championship and step out of his kayfabe brother's shadow. There is slightly more heat to this encounter than the Saturn-Raven match, though it suffers from the same problem, as it's supposed to be a grudge match but is mostly just a standard wrestling match where both men occasionally cheat. Things do start to pick up as they both trade finisher attempts, before Christian grabs a couple chairs. He attempts to hit the Con-chair-to again, but Edge counters and now looks to get revenge. But before he can crush Christian's skull, the referee snatches the chair away, allowing the challenger to use the other one to hit a low blow on the champion. Christian hasn't quite found himself as a heel just yet, but he's now the Intercontinental Champion, setting up another match between the two for next month.
- The WWF was quickly running out of tag teams to face the Brothers of Destruction, who had been booked to be complete killers at SummerSlam. KroniK, the team of former WWF midcarders Brian Adams(Crush) and Bryan Clark(Adam Bomb), were given a chance to see if they could cut it here, challenging for the WCW tag straps. I've heard nothing but bad things about this one, with the Observer naming it the "Worst Worked Match of the Year" and the company releasing Clark and sending Adams to developmental as a result of it. Is this match really that bad? For the most part, I'd say yes, it's not obviously terrible in the sense that it's extremely botchy, although there are some definite botches, but it's really slow and offers very little of interest. I feel like if both of these guys were in their prime today, they could probably hold a spot in the WWE given the state of that tag team division, but in this era, they are so obviously out of their depth. Undertaker doesn't even bother to give us a Last Ride, probably because he couldn't lift either guy, so he just ends it with a Chokeslam to Clark.
- Rob Van Dam versus Chris Jericho could probably qualify as a dream match for quite a few fans, and we get to see what both men could do against each other here in a match for the Hardcore title. They start out with some mat wrestling that isn't completely crisp, but both guys redeem themselves when weapons get involved. In a bit of a contrast to what RVD had done with Jeff Hardy on the past two shows, the weapon spots here are not as unique or as frequent but look brutal. Both guys take a suplex on a ladder, before they climb to the top so Y2J can do the Walls of Jericho on top of the ladder, which always looks great. Jericho gets in some stiff chair shots, working over Van Dam's shoulder after tossing it into the ring post and applying a Fujiwara armbar. Stephanie McMahon, who was once again disrespected by Jericho earlier in the night, runs down, and nearly gets her head taking off by a wild chair shot from Chris. He turns around into the Van Daminator, before RVD nails the Five Star Frog Splash, still selling his shoulder as he retains the title. This was a really good match, less of a stunt show and more of a war in front of a crowd that were really into both guys. Man, Rob Van Dam was just on fire during the first few months of his run.
- After taking the WCW title away from Booker T last month, The Rock now faces off against both the former champion and the owner of WCW, Shane McMahon, in a handicap match. Most of the match is just an elongated beatdown from Booker and Shane, which the crowd is mostly dead for. They do perk up for some sports-entertainment wackiness, as Test interferes and is stopped by Bradshaw. Corrupt official Nick Patrick is stopped from attempting to screw over The Rock by Mike Chioda, as Earl Hebner takes over as referee. Booker tries to hit the Book End, but Rock elbows his way free, and Booker stumbles backwards, rebounding off the ropes perfectly into the Rock Bottom for the win. The finish was slick and Rock and Booker have plenty of chemistry, but the match was nothing special.
- Two weeks ago, Tajiri took the WCW United States title away from Kanyon, and he's also now got Torrie Wilson on his arm, which is a very weird fit. The champion's ribs were injured in dual attacks from Christian and Rhyno, who hit a Gore to set up this title match. Tajiri does get in some offense but this match is built around him selling, so he can't do to much. Rhyno attempts to hit the Gore on Torrie, whom Tajiri saves, but the challenger does manage to connect on Tajiri later on to capture the belt.
- Main event time, as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Kurt Angle meet in a massive SummerSlam rematch, with Angle's friends and family watching on. Again, the result of this match is very obvious, there's no way Angle wasn't winning the belt here, but the journey there was at least somewhat interesting. Both men spend a large portion of the match brawling, with Austin looking for a Piledriver on Angle's previously broken neck. Once they're back into the ring, they each hit the other's finisher for a near fall, as after all the finisher kickouts last month, they both lack confidence in their top move. Austin does finally connect on the Piledriver, which Angle sells beautifully, falling limply to the mat before just barely beating the three count. After hesitating to pull the trigger on the Stunner earlier, Austin finally goes for it here, only to be immediately countered into the Ankle Lock. A brief fight for the ropes ensues, but before Austin can force a break, the pain becomes too much to bear and he taps. A massive throng of humanity enters the ring to celebrate, including Angle's family and the entire WWF locker room, which allows us to see Taka Michinoku on a pay-per-view, as Jim Ross screams himself horse on commentary to see us out. This didn't really stack up against the SummerSlam match, which was more heated and had a significantly stronger story, but it was still a solid main event, and even though it was never in doubt, Angle winning was absolutely the right choice. Of course, he would only hold on to the belt for about two weeks before dropping it back to Austin, but at least we got a nice moment here.
7/10
Unforgiven is not as consistent as SummerSlam, featuring a couple bad matches, with the Brothers of Destruction versus KroniK the obvious lowlight. There's still plenty of good, especially from the opener, Van Dam against Jericho and the main event. I'm not sure this is a must-watch if you're not interested in Angle's triumph, but it's still a quality show.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: No Mercy 2001, where three of the best of the Invasion storyline face off, with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin taking on Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam. See you soon.
- Henry
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