No Way Out - Bradley Centre, Milwaukee WI, February 17th, 2002

My version of this show is missing an opening video package which is very disappointing. I suspect it’s because they’ve had to edit the event’s theme song - “Feel so Numb” by Rob Zombie - off the show. That’s weird as on the Raw and Smackdown leading into the event the song was still there and even promoted by the commentators.

The stage looks really cool for this event too. It’s two huge 18-wheeler trailers side by side to form the titantron, with the cab of one of those trucks parked in the middle looking down the ramp, with a huge diamond shaped PPV logo above, with an ever changing pattern of yellow and black. This is the best picture I could get of it, but I loved it.

We waste no time and the show begins with the infamous “Rockhouse” theme song and the WWF arrival of the New World Order. Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are back and the build to this event has painted them as the three men responsible for the death of WCW - a poison who will infect and kill the WWF, brought in by Vince McMahon out of spite because Ric Flair won’t give up his 50% ownership of the company. 

Before I get to what they say, let’s look at these three men and why it’s a big deal that they’re here;

Kevin Nash: Nash was WWF Champion for most of 1995 as Diesel. He is the worst drawing champion in the company’s history which isn’t totally his fault as they were transitioning to the dire New Generation period and fan interest was at an all time low. I’m actually not totally sure why he jumped ship to WCW in 1996 but based on the rest of his career “for the money” is a safe assumption. In WCW he was put in charge of booking the show for a while and, shockingly, that meant him winning all of his matches. 

Scott Hall: Scott never made it to the World title in either company thanks, mostly, to his “demons” by which I mean he was an alcoholic and drug addict for his whole adult life. He racked up five Intercontinental title reigns before leaving for WCW in 1996. Famously, he told Vince that he was leaving and so was immediately suspended so that he’d miss Wrestlemania 12 and lose out on a big pay day. He was actually gone from WCW for the bulk of their final two years due to the same “demons” - getting drunk and stoned in public and causing fights and bringing shame on the company. He and Nash as The Outsiders were the genesis of the New World Order - a gimmick so good and impressive that WCW rehashed it relentlessly for four years and ran it into the ground.

Hulk Hogan: I’m not sure I need to explain who Hulk Hogan is and what he means to wrestling but he’d been gone from the WWF since 1993. He planned to retire and focus on acting however there was a flaw in that plan - he can’t act. With Thunder in Paradise a failure, the Hulkster signed with WCW and spent the next six years abusing the “creative control” clause in his contract to never lose, to keep himself on TV at all times, and to make sure no one ever even approached his “spot” on the card. His return to the WWF had people rolling their eyes as due to his massive ego, refusal to put people over and close, personal friendship with Vince McMahon most assumed it was only a matter of time before he was up to his old politicking ways. They were right, as it happens but we’ll get to that later.

Kevin Nash starts off and comes across as very sincere and emotional, talking about the heat they have in the back and how unfair it is. Calling them poison and cancer hurts their feelings! They just want to make things better for the great fans of the WWF. Scott Hall is next and echoes his sentiments, adding that they want to work with all the great WWF Superstars and might even get some autographs and take some pictures. Hall adds that he’d like to have a beer with them and Nash and Hogan wave that off, which is a joke about Scott’s real life alcoholism which WCW made a storyline more than once. 

Finally the mic is handed to Hollywood Hulk Hogan, who pauses and lets the fans go nuts for a bit and soaks in the moment here - his return to the WWF after 9 years was a big deal in 2002. To everyone’s shock, he doesn’t get all “Let me tell ya somethin’ brother!” about it and much like Hall and Nash politely praises the fans, the WWF and the superstars and asks for a chance. This is bizarre and while the fans are happy to see them, the commentators aren’t buying it. Hogan gives a shout out to Vince McMahon specifically for bringing them back and ends on “God Bless America” which JR scoffs at. He and King argue about whether they might have changed and Jim makes a good point - Hogan saying God Bless America is a cheap way to get the fans on his side, and it worked on King already.

Why is the nWo coming in such a big deal? Well the way it was portrayed on TV was, fittingly for them coming in from 2000’s WCW, a mix of work and shoot. “These men only care about themselves, they think they’re above the WWF, they only want to put money in their pockets at the expense of the company”. All comments made about them on WWF TV in the run up to this event and honestly? All true. 

This isn’t the last we’ll see of them tonight and I’ll discuss the group more later, but for now into the first match.

Tag Team Turmoil to determine the number one contenders for the WWF Tag Team Championships at Wrestlemania

Lance Storm and Christian vs. Scotty 2 Hotty and Albert vs. Billy and Chuck vs. The APA (Bradshaw and Faarooq) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Matt and Jeff Hardy w/Lita) vs. The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley w/Stacy Keibler)

The opening teams are Scotty 2 Hotty and Albert, and Lance Storm and Christian. While making a joke about Storm needing a “charisma bypass” surgery, JR tells King that Canada has free public healthcare. He’s surprised and says that's a good thing, which is only really noteworthy as I would have assumed that Southern boy and obnoxiously Republican Lawler with his constant burial of Bill Clinton and praise of George Bush would be against that. 

After a short back and forth, Scotty sets up the Worm on Christian but is stopped by Lance Storm. He doesn’t connect with a superkick but it allows Christian to connect with the Unprettier to eliminate Scotty and Albert.

Team number three is the returning Hardy Boyz and the fans are very happy to see Matt, Jeff and Lita. These two teams rush through spots as Matt and Jeff hit a bunch of tandem moves, Storm and Christian shut down Matt and work him over with quick tags and then Matt comes back and gets a hot tag to Jeff, all within about three minutes. The match breaks down after the tag and Storm misses a jumping heel kick on Matt, hitting Christian instead. Matt uses the Twist of Fate, Jeff follows with a Swanton Bomb and Christian and Lance Storm are eliminated. Christian throws another temper tantrum after the loss too.

The fourth team is Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley. I don’t even need to point out how many times these two teams have clashed on TV and PPV in the past two years. Bubba and D-Von waste no time isolating Jeff Hardy, working on his leg. Outside of the Rumble match, this is the first time we’ve seen Matt or Jeff in a couple of months. The fans aren’t super hot for this - I think because we’ve seen it so many times - and after Jeff’s hot tag to Matt they take out Bubba and D-Von with a string of double teams. Stacy gets in the ring to try and help and is tackled by Lita. She follows up with a diving hurricanrana on Bubba, Jeff dives from the top rope to the outside, wiping him out and in the ring Matt rolls up D-Von to steal a quick win and eliminate The Dudleyz! That’s a shocker.

They’re sore losers and before they leave they give Jeff Hardy a 3D on the outside of the ring. That leaves easy pickings for team number five, Billy and Chuck, complete with their awesome new theme song. This doesn’t last long and with two on one odds, Billy lays out Matt with a Fameasser to eliminate The Hardyz.The fans loudly booed that. The sixth and final team is Bradshaw and Faarooq, the APA. Bradshaw fights with Billy on the outside as Faarooq and Chuck get it on in the ring and this is immediately physical. The brutality of Bradshaw and Faarooq’s attack can be, and should be, construed as deeply homophobic. This breaks down into a pretty standard tag team match but much like the opening exchange they rush through spots and pretty much out of nowhere, Bradshaw clobbers Billy with a Clothesline from Hell, turning him inside out and giving the APA the victory. With this win, Bradshaw and Faarooq will now challenge the WWF Tag Team Champions at Wrestlemania X8. Don’t worry if you’re thinking that doesn’t sound very exciting - there’s more twists and turns between now and then. Thankfully. Bradshaw sucks. 

Backstage, Michael Cole interviews Ric Flair about the arrival of the nWo. He passionately says that he doesn’t believe a word Hogan, Hall or Nash said. The whole dressing room is watching them like hawks. He's interrupted by The Undertaker. He had a run in with him on Raw and Smackdown last week. Taker tells him to worry less about the nWo and who might be keeping an eye on him.

Rob Van Dam vs. Goldust

No one seems to know why Goldust singled out RVD but after a couple of weeks of cryptic threats at no one in particular, he attacked Van Dam and they’ve traded run-ins on each other’s matches since then. Goldust’s gimmick is “crazy” which is as good a gimmick as any I suppose. 

RVD’s awesome Breaking Point theme is edited off my copy of this show so here it is for you to enjoy!

Dustin Runnels has had lots of well documented issues with substance abuse. He also might hold the record for the person fired, brought back and fired again from the WWF. This is his third separate run with the company, and it isn’t the last. 

RVD is too quick for Dust so he bails out of the ring and takes a walk, but then comes back. He’s playing “mind games” with RVD y’see. 

King talks about movies a lot during this match, including the reveal that his favourite movie quote of all time is Alyson Hannigan’s line about a flute at band camp from American Pie. You know the one.

This is quite heated and after trading dives to the outside, Goldust hammers Rob with stiff punches and controls the match at a slow tempo. Set your phasers to “methodical”. 

After a long period of Goldust working on Van Dam’s back, he comes back with a thrust kick to the chest and gets back in the fight. He strings together a series of spinning heel kicks and even hops to the top rope and comes off with one from there which looked great. RVD runs through all of his trademark moves - Rolling Thunder and a big monkey flip out of the corner - but misses the Five Star Frog Splash and gets spiked with a beautiful DDT. RVD sells a landing on his head better than anyone, standing straight up in the air on his head before collapsing. 

This is a surprisingly good match and with a string of heel kicks RVD finally connects with his Five Star Frog Splash to pick up the victory! Really good showing for both men, and it’s important to see what RVD can do in a longer, PPV match without the crutch of it being Hardcore rules. 

Backstage, Stone Cold Steve Austin runs into the nWo. In real life he’s good friends with Hall and Nash, but he and Hogan do not get along and never have. It’s wild having Hulk Hogan even say his name on TV to be honest. They present the Rattlesnake with a six pack of beer as a token of friendship. He tosses it over his shoulder and wants no part of them. This isn’t funny, or them trying to be entertaining and comes across as a real, tense showdown between men who do not like each other which I thought was effective for this storyline they’re telling. Do YOU trust the nWo? 

WWF Tag Team Championships

Tazz and Spike Dudley © vs. Test and Booker T

Booker and Test are former WWF and WCW Tag Team Champions during the Invasion but this match kind of came out of nowhere. Spike picked up a huge upset singles win over Booker on Smackdown which adds some fuel to the fire I guess.

The champions move fast and strike hard with Spike wriggling out of both a powerbomb attempt and a gorilla press slam attempt both into roll ups for near falls before Test and Booker shut him down and start to pick apart the little guy. Or y’know, standard WWF tag team match psychology. 

Spike tries to fight but Test and Booker continue to taunt him, knocking Tazz off the apron every time he gets even close to a tag. Booker even gets a beating in on him at ringside behind the referee’s back.

After countering into a tornado DDT Spike does finally get the tag but sadly the crowd barely makes any noise for Tazz throwing around Booker and Test with suplexes. I’m sure they thought by this point the fans would be red hot for the little underdog team.

Spike gives Test a Dudley Dog and takes out Booker with a dive to the outside. Test almost steals a win with his feet on the ropes during a roll up but Tazz kicks out anyway and Test’s argument with the ref leads to a Tazzmission! Test taps out and Tazz and Spike win again. That was Test’s own fault. Not a great match and I think the novelty of this underdog odd couple tag team has worn off and fans are ready for something new.

Jonathan Coachman interviews The Rock backstage and asks about his health after taking a tombstone onto the roof of a limo ten days ago on Smackdown. It’s a short punchy promo - I’ll show you what disrespect from The Rock really feels like, tonight you’re a deadman walking, If Ya Smell etc. I suppose him not busting out the comedy adds a certain seriousness to the match later.

Brass Knuckles on a Pole match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship

William Regal © vs. Edge

Regal has used the brass knuckles (or knucks, as JR and King keep calling them) to great effect, winning most of his matches since December with them. Edge has shown a lot more personality since losing the title in his heated pursuit of Regal. The referee does still pat down the champion to make sure he doesn’t have a second pair of knuckles on him but stupidly Edge attacks before he’s finished. I’d have let the referee finish the search first, personally. 

Edge’s hubris is his downfall as he continually keeps trying to get the knuckles from the pole which easily allows Regal to shove him from the top rope all the way to the floor and then follow up with a powerbomb on the mats at ringside which causes Edge to bleed from the mouth, just as he did on Raw after some shots to the ribs from the knuckles.

Regal works on Edge’s midsection and locks him in the Regal Stretch but the challenger makes it to the ropes. This is really physical but the crowd sadly aren’t that into it - the show is in Milwaukee which historically is a terrible crowd. You can go back through my various Previews and PPV coverage but this isn’t the first time I’ve commented multiple times on how dead a crowd is during a show in this state. Maybe it's a coincidence? 

Regal tries to climb for the knuckles but Edge stops him with a dropkick to the legs, bringing him down crotch first onto the top rope. Regal isn’t in trouble for long and more shots to the ribs allows him to climb up and get the knuckles at last. Edge brings him down with a back suplex off the top rope which puts the knuckles in play but not in anyone’s possession.

Edge hits the Spear and might have it won but goes for the knuckles, wanting revenge. He pays for it as Regal gives him a low blow and then drops Edge with a second pair of knuckles he must have had hidden in his tights! I knew Edge shouldn’t have stopped the referee’s pre-match search.

William Regal retains the Intercontinental title in a match that is surely the end of this feud. It was fine - not as good as their Royal Rumble match - and I think the pole gimmick was too much of a distraction. Should have just made it a street fight.

Lillian Garcia interviews Kurt Angle and suggests his confidence tonight is because Stephanie McMahon is the special referee for his match with Triple H. He takes offence - he is an Olympic Gold Medalist and BETTER than Triple H and that’s why he’s so confident. He looks into the camera and tells Triple H he’s glad Steph lied about being pregnant because he’d be a TERRIBLE father. If you haven’t read my Preview (and why not?) I’ll talk more about that later.

The Rock vs. The Undertaker

In a lot of ways, I wish they’d left the Hardcore title on Undertaker so this match could be for it - the most high profile match in history for my favourite championship. Plus I think these two need the crutch of Hardcore rules to have a better match.

The Rock sprints to the ring and hammers Undertaker with punches and a big flying clothesline but while Undertaker doesn’t manage an early chokeslam, manages to drop Rocky with a big boot to the face for a breather and to slow things down a little.

Undertaker must have gone to the Goldust school of wrestling as he is methodical with lots of punches, chokes, elbows and so on. 

He hammers The Rock and on the outside bounces him around on the announce table and lifts him, planting him crotch first hard onto the security wall. What a villain. 

The fight goes out into the crowd with Undertaker still fully in control (see, this should have been a Hardcore title match!) but The Rock finally comes back, reversing a whip into some doors and fighting back to the ring through the people. 

I’m struggling to say much more about this match without just describing what's happening - it’s pretty dull so far. Undertaker takes control back at ringside and drops a couple of big elbows across Rocky’s throat. 

In the ring, Undertaker really brings the crowd to their feet with….a long bearhug spot. Come on man. The Rock finally fights out of it and builds some momentum with a spinebuster and sets up for a People’s Elbow. He’s stopped in his tracks with a hand around the throat and a chokeslam but he’s too worn out from The Rock’s flurry and a well placed low blow to make it into a cover and The Rock kicks out.

A frustrated Undertaker goes out to his motorbike and after shoving the referee into the ring steps, knocking him out, retrieves the same pipe he used to hit The Rock on Smackdown. Before he can use it, Ric Flair runs down and actually attacks The Undertaker with chops! He no-sells it and kicks Ric square in the face.

The Rock ducks the pipe shot and takes down Undertaker into a sharpshooter. Tjat brings Ric’s business partner Vince down to the ring to argue with the referee. Rocky pulls Vince into the ring and lights him up with punches. The Undertaker gets the Rock into a tombstone but with the referee distracted with Vince, Flair hits him in the head with the pipe! Undertaker stumbles into a Rock Bottom and The Rock wins what was a very dull match with an exciting final three minutes. 

Moving on, tonight’s guest live at WWF New York is Mr. Perfect! He starts by talking about how much he loves New York but then starts making fun of the crowd’s teeth and hair. Honestly, he looks and sounds like he’s off his face on pills or something. This is his final PPV appearance and Curt Hennig was released from this WWF contract in May 2002 (for reasons I’ll talk about when we get to it) and sadly passed away of an accidental overdose in February 2003.

I want to mention here that in the lead up to this event, the promotion of the show came across as…somewhat desperate. In 1998 when I started watching these old shows there was always heavy promotion of PPVs and JR shilling when tickets go on sale for various upcoming events. By 1999, that had all stopped. The company was selling record numbers of PPVs and tickets without even trying. In 2002, they started with the hard sell for everything again. I commented on them not saving Triple H’s return for the Royal Rumble as a surprise before, and that was so they could promote him ahead of time to help the PPV buys. This PPV has even more of that with the nWo return, and JR and others on commentary flat out calling this the “biggest and most important show of all time”. The whole thing had a real “buy it, buy it, buy it! Now! Please!” stench about it and while that’s fine - they’re a company that needs to make money after all - it’s so unusual compared to the previous couple of years when the WWF was more “effortlessly successful”. 

Number One Contendership for the Undisputed WWF Championship at Wrestlemania

Triple H vs. Kurt Angle 

Special Guest Referee: Stephanie McMahon

Yeah the video package is needed for this one, recapping Triple H’s journey from the Royal Rumble and the dramatic, soap opera developments between Triple H and his wife Stephanie - fake pregnancies and all. 

Stephanie and Kurt look really friendly and when Triple H gets in his estranged wife’s face, Kurt rolls him up and Stephanie counts a close near fall before the bell has even rung! With Triple H way too focused on the referee Kurt dominates and stomps him down in the corner as Stephanie blatantly cheers him on. The crowd is all over her chanting “slut”. You have to wonder about the logic in Triple H just wrestling as normal as if the referee is going to actually let him win.

Triple H ducks a Kurt Angle referee and the crowd explodes as he nails Steph, knocking her out of the ring! She’s down and out and that leads to a replacement referee and suddenly Triple H has a chance in this one.

The Game is all smiles at seeing his wife knocked on her ass and the match reverts to what you’d expect from there.

Kurt throws Triple H around with some beautiful belly to belly suplexes, Triple H reverts to his trademark big clubbing punches and wants to brawl. It’s funny that’s become his trademark after spending the first couple of years of his career being known as a technical wrestler. He’s so big and musicular by 2002 all he can do is brawl. Kurt runs away from Triple H and knocks out the replacement referee Tim White from behind which allows him to use a low blow and an Angle Slam! There’s no referee to count until Stephanie McMahon returns, holding her neck and apparently too hurt to count quickly. Triple H kicks out but he is once again at a huge disadvantage. Kurt goes for an ankle lock but Triple H kicks him off and Stephanie is once again accidentally taken out by Kurt Angle! He stumbles into a DDT by Triple H but we’re now referee-less once again.

Kurt takes advantage by geting a steel chair but misses his swing and eats a Pedigree! Tim White wakes up and starts to count but Stephanie drops an elbow on him to stop it and then kicks him low for good measure.

Triple H prepares to knock out his estranged wife and sets up for a Pedigree but a steel chair shot to the back and then the head from Kurt, followed by an Angle Slam gives Kurt Angle the victory! With a lot of help from Stephanie McMahon, Triple H loses his Wrestlemania title shot to Kurt Angle. 

This was an ok match but these two had much better previously and all the referee drama was definitely a distraction. Also, I have to mention that with The Game being significantly more muscular than he was pre-injury he is far less mobile than he once was and it’s hurt his in-ring performance. He is sadly now having much worse matches with people who he had great matches with previously.

In the parking lot, Kurt Angle doesn’t hang around and still in his ring gear, wrapped in a towel leaves the arena not wanting to risk a pissed off Triple H tracking him down backstage.

Elsewhere, the nWo drop in to see The Rock! Hogan gets Scott Hall to take a picture of Hogan with “his son’s favourite wrestler” The Rock! As they leave, Hogan says under his breath that there’s no accounting for the People’s taste. The Rock hears them and in a famous segment, makes fun of them all.

In fact, I enjoyed this so much here’s the segment in full.

Undisputed WWF Championship

Chris Jericho © vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Chris Jericho gets the dramatic “walking to the ring backstage” segment as JR hammers home that this may be his last title defence. Much like at the Royal Rumble, Chris Jericho is being painted as the underdog with no chance of keeping his titles here.

Sadly on the actual PPV I’m sure this video package was set to the event’s theme song which has been edited out. It’s still pretty good, I just wish they’d picked a harder song for the montage part.

With the outcome of this match, the winner here will (in theory at least) now meet Kurt Angle in the main event of Wrestlemania. If you’re thinking that guarantees a victory for the Rattlesnake, I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re going for. Jericho is the Underdog Undisputed Champion. 

Stone Cold gets in Jericho’s face and wastes no time in trying to psyche him out and play mind games and they exchange middle fingers before locking up and beginning with a wrestling exchange, which Jericho actually wins.

That doesn’t last long and Stone Cold takes over with brawling - punches and ramming Jericho’s head into the top turnbuckle - with a loud WHAT from the crowd with each shot. It’s been a while since I complained about Earl Hebner and he gets in the way here, trying to stop Austin and having to be told to get out of the way because it’s a fan interaction spot and that's more important than sticking to the made up rules of this fake fight. 

Tellingly, JR says that he thinks if someone told Stone Cold that he’d never be WWF Champion again he’d get in his truck, drive back to Texas and we’d never see him again. Maybe try to remember he said that for when we get to April/May. 

Stone Cold pummels Jericho until he finally escapes, avoiding a shoulder charge and Austin drives his own arm into the ring post.

Stone Cold takes a breather and walks up the ramp. The champion foolishly follows right into Austin’s wheelhouse - a brawl at the top of the ramp during a main event WWF title match. He hammers Jericho into the big 18-wheeler trailers that form the bulk of the set and they brawl back down to ringside. 

Jericho gets hammered back in the ring too until he manages to give Stone Cold a sneaky low blow after the referee is shoved out of the way. His Walls of Jericho attempt doesn’t work but he maintains control with stiff chops to the chest. Those seem to have become far more common and popular to use since Ric Flair debuted in the WWF. 

Jericho gets frustrated and tries to get himself disqualified with a steel chair but Austin stops that, but his attempt to use a Walls of Jericho of his own is blocked by Jericho who drops Austin with a running bulldog and not one but two Lionsaults. The fans are absolutely silent as Austin kicks out of back to back finishers which I’m sure was supposed to get a big pop. The fans don’t feel the tension because no one thinks Jericho is winning this.

Austin refuses to submit to the Walls of Jericho so the champion goes and gets the WWF title belt. The referee is squashed in the corner but wakes up in time to count after Stone Cold gives him a spinebuster onto the belt. Jericho kicks out. Jericho counters a Stunner into a Breakdown facebuster - also onto the title belt - but Austin kicks out of that! You can feel we’re in the closing stretch here. Jericho accidentally runs into the ref, knocking him out of the ring and Stone Cold puts him in the Walls of Jericho. He taps out to his own move but there’s no referee to count.

Austin drops Jericho with a Stone Cold Stunner but with no referee to count, the nWo rush the ring! 

Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash swarm the Rattlesnake and beat the hell out of him with Hall actually giving him a Stone Cold Stunner! Jericho revives the referee and crawls into the pin and just like that, he steals yet another win and keeps his Undisputed WWF Championship.