Forgotten Favorites 01.09.09: SummerSlam 2001 - Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle

Posted by Jim Grimm on 01.09.2009

Heel Stone Cold. Kurt Angle, pre-mental breakdown. Lots of blood. Need I say more?

It's the holiday season. The happiest time of the year for some, and financially overwhelming for others. I won't say which category I fall under, but gift-shopping has reduced me to just one meal a day for the next three months. People do tend to magically become nicer this time of year though, so I guess it's a fair trade of serious debt for the warmth and compassion of your fellow man. If you're reading this then you have somehow managed to find a break from the hectic insanity of the season, so hopefully I can help take your mind off of the unbearably awkward conversations at the family gatherings of your recent past/near future. I'm a new guy here, so bear with me. I'm going to do my damndest to make this worth your time. That having been said ...

Some matches just don't get the historical recognition they deserve. The large majority of matches deemed classics live on and find their way onto somebody's DVD set at some point, but others end up lost in time, known only to the fans who witnessed them as they transpired. With the rise of John Cena, Batista, and Randy Orton, the wrestling product has received a surge of new fans over the last few years, many of them unfamiliar with some classic confrontations that occurred as recently as five or six years ago. The easiest place to lay blame would be at the feet of the mighty Vince McMahon, whose stranglehold on the industry -- seven years and counting -- has led to parts of history being rewritten, changed dramatically, and or even erased entirely. If a newer fan viewed history through McMahon-colored glasses, he'd see that Randy Savage never had a significant match, The Ultimate Warrior was never a draw, and Hulk Hogan ... well, it depends on which petal Vince last pulled from his "Hulkster loves me, Hulkster loves me not" flower.

But we can't lay all the blame on Vince McMahon. While it's true that Savage/Steamboat at WrestleMania 3 may never get its true just deserts, there are some matches featuring non-blackballed wrestlers that for one reason or another have slipped through the cracks. Today's fans have been beaten over the head with the legend of Mankind/Undertaker at King of the Ring '98. But what about Foley and Triple H's Hell in a Cell match at No Way Out '01? Foley's in the WWE doghouse at the moment, but even when he was in Vince's good graces this match never got its proper time of day. What about the series of matches between Chris Jericho and The Rock at the end of 2001? Or Jericho-Michaels at WrestleMania 19? What about any match featuring the SmackDown Six in the Fall/Winter of '02/'03? Some of the SmackDown Six matches have popped up on DVD sets, but with two dead and one a certifiable lunatic you can count on this all-star cast getting pushed back into the shadows again.

WWE is usually good about putting out quality DVDs that are worthy of their price tag. But oftentimes a career retrospective will feature a bizarre choice or two that misrepresents or understates a portion of a wrestler's career. The recent Steve Austin DVD features seven minutes of irrelevance in the form of a 2000 televised match with Eddie Guerrero. These are the kinds of matches that make fans do a double take when reviewing DVD match listings. While seven minutes of Austin and Eddie is entertaining stuff, the match's placement on the DVD is almost disrespectful to Austin's career, as it's undeniable that the man had more important matches. Such is the case for many other oddball match choices for retrospective DVDs.

So since we're on the topic of Stone Cold, let's take a look at a match of his that doesn't quite get the credit it deserves. 2001, post-WrestleMania 17, is frequently shunned on DVD sets due to the Invasion's perceived failure. There's no denying the Alliance storyline failed to live up to expectations, but the matches and storylines we got weren't really all that bad, aside from DDP's stalker-cam and Intercontinental Champion Albert. A WCW/ECW "invasion" didn't garner as much attention as WWE might have hoped, but there was still plenty of quality stuff going on between the bells. To prove my point let's take a look at a hell of a match that took place in the summer of 2001 at, uh, SummerSlam 2001.



SummerSlam 2001
World Wrestling Federation Championship
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle

HOW IT WENT DOWN

WrestleMania 17 is the show that, when brought up in smark conversation, has a tendency to cause drooling. With an UNDERcard of Angle/Benoit, TLC II, and HHH/Undertaker, the show was headlined by the second WrestleMania showdown between WWE Champion The Rock and Royal Rumble winner Stone Cold Steve Austin. At the end of the night, the company had a new champion AND a new top heel in Austin, who had done the unthinkable in siding with longtime foe Vince McMahon. The next night on Raw the wrestling world turned upside down yet again when Stone Cold's other nemesis Triple H joined forces with him to form the Two Man Power Trip. But when the H's went down with a quad injury, the show lost its most interesting and important storyline. Left with nothing else, WWE pulled the trigger on the Invasion storyline, making it the focal point of the entire show. Shane and Stephanine McMahon, along with Paul Heyman, led an Alliance of WCW and ECW wrestlers that were intent on putting Vince McMahon out of business. The Invasion July PPV featured a card made up entirely of WWE vs. Alliance matches, headlined by a ten-man tag team match. The Alliance's Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno (when "y" was cooler than "i"), and the Dudley Boyz took on WWE's Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, and Kane (when masks were cooler than halfway buzzcuts). Austin's mini-face turn in the buildup to Invasion was cut short when he turned on Team WWE and cost them the match, establishing his position as the new leader of the Alliance. With the WWE Champion now on the side of the Alliance, the balance of power had shifted dramatically in favor of WCW/ECW. So the WWE commissioned the only man capable of righting the world's wrongs and saving the day. No, not John Rambo. Kurt freakin' Angle.

Over the course of the summer of 2001, Kurt Angle had undergone a transformation, both in terms of his in-ring action and his crowd perception. He had started the year as a heel WWE Champion, but he had yet to cement his eventual spot as one of the best all-around performers in the world. When he dropped the title to The Rock at No Way Out in February, Angle had been a solid technician inside the ring, but he hadn't been able to tap his complete potential. That changed when he moved into a feud with That Canadian Dude that spanned three Pay-Per-Views and produced some of the year's best matches. At King of the Ring in June, Angle had another Match of the Year candidate in a Street Fight with Shane McMahon of all people. By this time, the crowd had started reacting a little differently to the Olympic Champion. He would come out to strong boos, but midway through his matches he was getting stronger face heat than his opponents. The man was just too good to boo. Even more fan support came his way as a result of the COMEDY GOLD of his backstage skits with Stone Cold, where each man would try to one-up the other in their pursuit of Vince McMahon's favor. When Invasion was nearing and Austin's status as Team WWE's leader was questionable, Angle was ready to step up for McMahon and do his duty. So when Austin showed his true colors and joined the Alliance, no man was hit harder by the swerve than Kurt Angle. Ready to do what he felt was his duty from the beginning, Angle challenged the Rattlesnake to a match for the WWE Title at SummerSlam.

The match itself was all kinds of awesome. When two guys have to charge at each other on the ramp before the bell even rings, you know you're about to watch a hell of a fight. The two men start off slowly, pacing themselves for match that will last for over twenty minutes. Austin takes a page out of Angle's playbook by putting his wrestling boots on and taking Kurt to school. Except for Angle finding the strength to pop off SEVEN consecutive German Suplexes, Austin manages to dominate the majority of the early-going. After a top rope Superplex, Austin connects with the first STONE COLD STUNNER of the match. A shocked crowd pops for the Stunner, but their fears of an early ending are put to rest by an Angle kickout. Dissatisfied with the count, Austin voices his concerns to the ref in as polite a manner as possible for an alcohol-fueled, ass-kicking machine. When Angle is finally back on his feet, Austin hits a boot to the gut and then STUNNER DOS! Angle ends up going through the ropes and out to the floor, and this man is dazed and confused.

Here is where shit gets real, kids. Austin's in hot pursuit of Angle outside the ring, and after a close-up look at the ring post, Angle is sporting the CRIMSON MASK!


I dare you to say this isn't badass.

Austin is relentless in his beatdown outside the ring, and Angle appears near death. But when Austin rolls him back inside the ring and makes the cover, Angle -- much like the King of the Emo Blogs -- WILL NOT DIE! The fight again spills to the floor and then out into the crowd, with Austin firmly in control. At one point, Austin is climbing over the barricade from the crowd when Angle dives for his leg, Ankle Locking him right there. With blood pouring down his face, Angle cries out, wrenching on Austin's ankle as the Champion dangles halfway into the crowd. Angle then literally drags Austin into the ring by his leg, Ankle Locking him in the center of the ring. After a rope break, Austin surprises the fans by connecting with ANOTHER STUNNER! All seems lost until Angle kicks out at two! Someone dig up Gorilla Monsoon because this crowd has gone BANANAS.

Austin tries for another Stunner but gets rocked by an ANGLE SLAM! Austin kicks out at two, and he is clearly not a happy camper. So he decides to fulfill the dream of every Canadian wrestling fan and punches out referee Earl Hebner. Austin's smiling because he's an evil son of a bitch, at least until he walks right into a DDT from Kurt Angle. Referee Mike Chioda slides into the ring to make the count, but Austin gets out at two. One low blow later to Angle and Austin decides he might as well take out Chioda too, giving the poor bastard a STUNNER just for doing his job. Stone Cold's got the crazy eyes now. He grabs the WWE Title and prepares to rock Angle's world, but now we have referee NUMERO TRES in the form of Tim White. The official tries to unhand Austin but just ends up getting his face rearranged by a shot with the belt. The crowd is losing its mind, even moreso when Angle suddenly connects with an ANGLE SLAM and goes for the cover. WCW referee Nick Patrick comes running down the aisle, seemingly to seal the deal on a new champion. But instead of making the count, Patrick calls for the bell. Stone Cold is DISQUALIFIED for his abuse of the officials, and while Angle is declared the winner, he is NOT the new champion. The crowd is a mix of cheers, boos, and hysteria. Austin quickly escapes with his title, while a blood-soaked Kurt Angle takes his frustrations out on the crooked WCW referee, doing his damndest to snap his ankle.


WHY IT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

Well obviously the first reason is that this is a badass match from beginning to end. From the rolling German Suplexes to Angle's crimson-faced screams to the closest nearfalls this side of a match not featuring Ric Flair. This match was -- and is, thanks to that crazy new DVD technology -- pure excitement from bell to bell. And call it a bullshit swerve ending all you want, but the fact remains that the DQ finish was the right move at the time. Angle had just begun to be booked as the good guy, and WWE would understandably be shaky about making him the top babyface with a title win. Austin couldn't lose the belt just yet, and Angle couldn't be soundly defeated in their first confrontation. WWE had no intention of ending the feud on this match. Their goal was to strengthen Austin's status as a dastardly son of a bitch and to see what Angle could do as a babyface in the main event. They succeeded way beyond anyone's expectations, as Austin's heel heat was suddenly off the charts and Angle was OVER like ROVER.

The transformation that Angle had started in his series with Some Canadian Wrestler was complete by the time SummerSlam came to a close. He was an established babyface with the crowd clearly on his side. Angle's run as a face may have only lasted a couple of months after this -- brought to an abrupt halt by the questionably-booked finish to the Alliance angle -- but the fact remains that he was damned over for those couple of months. So over that he won the WWE Title from Stone Cold in a rematch one month later at Unforgiven in his hometown of Pittsburgh. His first title win in 2000 put him on the map, but it was the victory over Austin that solidified Angle's status as a major player in the industry. By the time 2002 rolled around, the whole "This guy really could be the greatest of all time" talk started to surface here and there. He had a strong showing as the runner-up in the Royal Rumble, made Hulk Hogan TAP OUT, was the stuff of legend as one of the SmackDown Six, and closed the year with another WWE Title victory. Angle's meteoric rise to greatness may have been inevitable, but I feel like it wouldn't have happened when it did if not for his SummerSlam match against Austin.

Besides the greatness of a babyface Kurt Angle, let's not forget the supreme awesomeness of a heel Steve Austin. When Austin turned heel at WrestleMania 17, the wrestling world shit its collective "Grab the Bull by the Horn" Rock boxers. While some people refused to boo him at first -- I mean, he is Stone Cold Steve Austin -- his defection to the Alliance is what finally put him over the top as the bad guy. It seemed unfathomable that a man as babyface-over as Austin was could actually be the strongest heel in the company, but by the end of SummerSlam this dude was straight up hated.

Another reason we should thank the wrestling gods for this match is that it gave us the Alliance's Austin Appreciation Night on the following Raw, which featured an all-star cast of Band-Aid proportions singing "Wind Beneath My Wings."


Any match that leads to Raven, Hugh Morrus, and Shawn Stasiak singing Bette Midler is okay in my book.

And to top that all off, at the end of the Austin Appreciation ceremony we got the Olympic Dairyman driving to the ring in a milk truck, throwing cartons and hosing down the entire Alliance. Why this moment is never revisited is beyond me, considering it rocked the party that rocks the body.

The match itself was a brilliant emotional roller-coaster, and the payoff was even better. Both Austin and Angle were insanely over as a result of it, and it made fans salivate for their eventual rematch. It was a classic that did wonders for both men's careers.


WHY IT ISN'T REMEMBERED

Heel Steve Austin in a WCW shirt? Who would want to relive that? Apparently not Vince McMahon. Whenever Austin's career is revisited for whatever reasons, WWE almost never references his 2001 heel run. It could be that we're only supposed to remember Stone Cold as that anti-authority, McMahon-hating S.O.B. of the late '90s. Or that WWE would rather we forget anything having to do with the Alliance angle. Or maybe a time when Justin Credible received a WWE paycheck was a dark time in wrestling that's not worth revisiting. Whatever the reasons, Vince McMahon does not want you to remember this period of time.

There are a number of factors working against this match's rightful placement in wrestling history. The big one is the disappointment of the Alliance angle. When Vince McMahon bought out WCW, the possibilities for dream matches seemed endless. With Ric Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Booker T, Scott Steiner, and Rey Mysterio all seemingly up for grabs, wrestling fans were abuzz with potential first-time confrontations. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome making surprise "invasion" run-ins on Raw were among the most exciting moments of the year. The WWE vs. WCW showdown that fans had craved for the past five years had finally arrived.

The only problem was that the dream matches fans had hoped for were simply not going to happen. Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page were the only WCW headliners (I used that term loosely) to take part in the Invasion storyline. The hopes for Sting vs. Undertaker or Stone Cold vs. Goldberg were quickly destroyed. But even then all was not lost. On one of Raw's most memorable episodes, Paul Heyman united WWE's former ECW wrestlers, including a freshly debuted Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer, and the Hardcore Mad Scientist proclaimed that the Invasion had been taken "to the extreme." Although there wasn't huge star power to back it up, the thought of a WWE vs. WCW/ECW rivalry was enough to excite the pants off of any wrestling fan at the time. On paper it sounds like a great idea, and when the angle first started, it seemed to be just that. But when the Invasion PPV came around, it was clear that this wasn't an "invasion" at all. The Alliance's five-man team at Invasion was only two parts "invaders." Booker and DDP were new faces on WWE television, but "ECW" representatives Rhyno and the Dudleys had already been regulars on WWE programming. Even when the angle ended at Survivor Series with another ten-man-tag, the Alliance's team was STILL only two parts "invaders," as Booker and Rob Van Dam teamed with Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, and Shane fucking McMahon. The blame might be on WWE for not pushing the WCW talent they actually purchased, but can you really blame them? Fans were expecting Sting and Goldberg, but they got Billy Kidman and Chavo Guerrero. Could these guys really have been taken seriously against WWE's top stars?

So you have the traditionally babyface Steve Austin serving as the heel leader of one of the most disappointing stables (if you'd even call it that) in wrestling history. It doesn't matter that Austin was insanely over or that his blood feud with Kurt Angle was one of the hottest of the year. This hot blood feud took place during what was generally a booking nightmare. Let's not forget that this match didn't even close SummerSlam, as it went on before the main event of WCW Champion Booker T defending against a returning Rock. So you've got a semi-main event in the middle of a disastrous angle that features a pro-WCW heel Steve Austin. Regardless of how good the match was or what it did for the competitor's careers, these flaws are likely the only thing Vince McMahon sees when looking back at SummerSlam 2001's WWE Title match, and that's a damn shame.


WILL IT BE REMEMBERED?

Time's only going to tell. Austin's "WHAT?" still consumes WWE audiences even now, so it's only fitting that WWE should look back to its origins once in a while. And while the Invasion angle was a flop, this match can easily be removed from it and looked at on its own. The only other roadblock at this point is Kurt Angle's recent descent into madness. But even that seems to be growing weaker as time passes, considering he isn't as frequently claiming he's going to take over MMA or cure cancer or go to the moon. I see a return to WWE in Kurt Angle's future, and when this happens all will be right in wrestling history. Angle can only be black balled for so long. The same goes for the memory of the Alliance's failure. This SummerSlam classic may be kept in the dark for the time being, but there's no way it'll be permanent. A match like this is too good to slip through the historical cracks.

Well, that's only my opinion. But I want to know what you guys think. Will this match eventually get the credit it deserves, or will it continue to be passed over? Does it even deserve the praise I've heaped on it?

That's all I've got for the first time around. Hopefully you guys have enjoyed a look back at one of my personal Forgotten Favorites. Remember I'm a work in progress here, so any and all feedback is appreciated. If you think this format needs changing or there's a particular match you want highlighted, let your voice be heard. Until next time, have a safe and enjoyable holiday (or whatever's left of it). Try not to drunkenly embarrass yourself too much in front of your family. Oh, and don't get arrested. Happy Holidays everybody.