2001 - year in review

2001 was a really mixed bag of a year and despite Vince Russo now being long gone and the booking being handled by Stephanie McMahon, the tone remained consistent - everything happened at breakneck speed so that by December, the company felt like an entirely different place.

I’ve written a lot about the Invasion already - it lasted five months, and it even has a dedicated article about it elsewhere on this site. I don’t need to hash it out again but I will add that I believe the Invasion storyline (and its failure) was the biggest turning point for the company.

From 1998 the WWF could do no wrong. The booking was often spotty, didn’t make sense or even offensive but the fans tuned in in their millions anyway and turned Vince McMahon from an eccentric millionaire who kept mostly to himself into a fully fledged evil billionaire. The company was just too popular to fail.

By 2001, that was starting to wear off - fans had had their fill and after three solid years of watching religiously were bored. That meant that in 2001 when the booking of Stone Cold’s heel turn and the Invasion were poorly received, the fans actually stopped watching.

The company was still enormously popular in 2001 but by 2002, people had moved on and by early 2003 it was fully into “you still watch that? Huh” territory with your friends. That downfall began with the Invasion and was made worse by increasingly desperate attempts to recapture the attitude era for the next few years.

But enough fortune telling, let's talk about 2001!

Stone Cold turned heel. That, to me, is the biggest part of 2001 and the one that stands out. It wasn’t a success. By June, fans were back to cheering him on and laughing at his antics but the WWF continued to swim upstream and doubled down on his heel turn with him as Alliance leader. That didn’t work so by December he was just a beloved babyface again with little to no explanation. What a waste of a year.

BUT, in 2001 the biggest star in wrestling history did have some of his greatest matches with The Rock, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and - my personal favourite - Kurt Angle.

The in-ring renaissance continued in 2001 too as the influx of talented workers in 2000 which moved the Attitude era from “all gimmick and story” to “actually quite good wrestling” continued their work and were joined by even more from WCW and ECW. Rob Van Dam elevated the Hardcore title to being arguably more prestigious than the Intercontinental title, Kurt Angle had amazing matches with everyone from Shane McMahon to Kane, Edge, Christian, Matt and Jeff Hardy all enjoyed singles success and their stars rose and the WWF pulled Booker T’s body from the WCW wreckage and got a solid upper midcarder for years to come.

Yes there was plenty of good to go along with the bad but much as the Attitude Era - the most sensationally hot period in wrestling history - ended in April 2001, the company itself’s fortunes also seem to have ended by the end of the year.

So what matches make up the best of 2001? Here is a selection of my personal favourites. There were a lot of good matches on Raw and Smackdown, especially in the later half of the year and usually involving Rob Van Dam and/or Kurt Angle but I’ve tried to stick to the easy to track down and particularly historic ones or this list could have been 100 matches long!