WWE Tagged Classics: King of the Ring 2001 & Invasion 2001

The Invasion. No other angle has failed so much in wrestling. Not the nWo, not Katie Vick, not even David Arquette winning the World Title. This was an angle that didn't need to fail. In fact it shouldn't have failed. It was simple. WCW vs. WWF. That's it. The story writes itself. In fact for the two decades before it people have written dream matches and here we were going to get them. Well, actually no we are not. When people think of a WCW vs. WWF match we think Stone Cold vs. Goldberg or Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair. Except Vince McMahon did not want to buy out Goldberg's contract, same with Ric Flair, Hogan, Sting and many others. Those that were left were a who's... who? I mean you really would have to have been a WCW fan to know who Chuck Palumbo, Lance Storm or even Booker T even were.

King of the Ring 2001 is actually a pretty good PPV and I think the reason is that the horrible meddling of the Invasion hadn't exactly taken effect yet. Those of you who love Kurt Angle will get an overdose of him on this disk as he wrestles in three matches including his amazing Streetfight against Shane McMahon. This PPV also includes a great triple threat between Stone Cold Steve Austin, Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. The added element was that if Benoit or Jericho won, they may be taking the title to WCW.

The only issue I have with this PPV was the DDP vs Undertaker feud. This was all because DDP (who was married to the insanely hot Kimberly Page) who was stalking Undertaker's wife, the less than smoking hot Sara. Why would he do this? This would have also been fine if DDP had been made to be a threat at any point during the feud, but from beginning to end he was made to be a chump. Here was no different.

An interesting extra is included that looks into the Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle match which is an interview with Shane as he goes through the match. This may have been better as an alternative commentary, but it was still a great way to experience the match again, though as it is kayfabed, still takes an interesting look into how a match develops.

Invasion 2001 is one of the most successful PPVs WWE ever had and also the worst booked thing too. By this point ECW had been brought into the mix and it almost worked. Except for one thing: It was no longer about WCW/ECW vs WWF instead it was about Vince vs Shane and Stephanie.

The PPV has a very solid main event WWF vs WCW/ECW in a 10-man tag match. This pitted WWF's Stone Cold, Kane, Undertaker, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle against WCW/ECW's Dudley Boyz, Rhyno, Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page. Now, if I discount the awful ending to the match, this was solidly booked and at times it was a great example of a multi-man tag match.

Throughout the PPV there are glimpses of greatness with the Hardcore match between Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam simply amazing and the tag team bra and panties match between Torrie Wilson, Stacy Keibler and Trish Stratus and Lita is worth watching the PPV for alone. However, the rest of the show is filled with matches that I did not care about and also matches that should have held some significance such as the WWF and WCW tag champions facing wasn't even booked as such and the WCW and ECW guys were all made to once again be chumps. If this was the final PPV with WWF winning I could understand it, but this was technically the first PPV and there was still a few more months of wrestlecrap to get through before the company finally realised how badly they had screwed this up! (Though, no doubt they would never admit to that!)

The thing that bugged me most about this is you would think that WWE would include a few extras regarding the competition. A short history of WCW and ECW? Have a look at a few key players and make us aware of who they are and what they actually mean (though they do showcase Rob Van Dam which is good). Nope. Nothing. It is bizarre at how bad this all is.

Both PPVs at times work well, but surrounded with the whole Invasion angle I just can't go into how bad it is to relive this stuff. As I said at the beginning, this storyline shouldn't have failed, but somehow they managed to WW-F this one up!