No Way Out 2002
Well that was fun!
NWO's opening little promo was interesting, and it seemed to go right over the crowd's head in terms of the subtle little 'We're heels, but we're pretending to be good guys' thing they did. Absolutely sick of the "WHAT?!" chants when it's not directly linked to Stone Cold who plays off them in the right way. McMahon does too, in fairness.
Hall mentions 'getting to drink with the boys' which gets a huge reaction and a snide comment from Lawler, which made me laugh. Jerk Lawler was OK.
Crowd went totally ape for Hogan, he seemed legit shook by it. It was easy to forget he hadn't been in the WWE for nearly a decade at this point. Overall this entire opening speech was pretty surreal and not really what you 'expect' from the NWO. I'm not sure if this was the point or not, as it even ended with Hogan saying 'God Bless America' - Foreshadowing Mr. America!
I want to believe this was working the crowd, but done in such a way that it was obvious... to the point that it made you think it can't be THAT obvious. I don't know, I don't really remember it that well from the first time watching it.
There was a crappy Tag Team Turmoil match, which made me wonder 2 things: How long did WWE milk the entire 2 Cool Dancing Duo angle and they never ever had anything for A-Train/Prince Albert/Giant Bernard to do. Ever. As he's currently Scotty 2 Hotty's latest dancing partner.
Lance Storm is awesome.
2002 and people love Tazz. It's scary.
Edge & William Regal was a fun feud, but the crowd never really seemed into it other than the ladies who absolutely love Edge. Like big time. I think I'd hate him big style if I was to watch all of this live and first time again, he's so 'in your face babyface' it hurts.
What I do like about WWF up until ~2002 is that the top of the card changed a lot and everyone had a few months at the top. Once their turn was over they dropped down to the uppper midcard, and let someone else have their go. They didn't overshadow the people above them during that time either. Everything flowed into each other.
The Undertaker and The Rock don't take the shine away from Austin v Jericho. Yet, you think about the 'Main Event' scene now and it doesn't feel that way at all.
However, having said that like I said the other day I'm just not feeling Jericho's run as Undisputed Champion. It's missing 'something'. I just feel like he should have played up his luck to win the titles due to outside interference in some way. Even in this PPV the NWO attack Austin to stop him from winning the titles and keep them on Jericho.