WWE’s 25 Greatest Pay-Per-Views of All Time
By Tim Sherry
credit: wwe.com
24. Summerslam 2001
2001 was a very entertaining and transitional kind of year for the then WWF. In March of that year, the company bought out a long-time rival, World Championship Wrestling, and in doing so, absorbed the contracts of its talent. The roster that was currently in place consisted of established stars like Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Steve Austin, The Rock, Kurt Angle, the list goes on and on. Now added to that were WCW superstars like Booker T, Lance Storm, and Diamond Dallas Page. To say that the roster was stacked at that time is an understatement.
A month before the 2001 Summerslam, the Invasion PPV occurred but it ended with more questions than answers. Steve Austin who, just 4 months earlier, aligned himself with long-time rival Vince McMahon and hijacked the WWF Championship from The Rock in the main event of Wrestlemania XVII, once again turned and joined Shane McMahon’s “Alliance”. So when Summerslam rolled around, a lot of things had to be ironed out. And not only did that happen, the company put on a terrific card that was one of the years best events.
The show kicked off with an exciting scrap for the Intercontinental title between Edge and Lance Storm. Two matches later, X-Pac and Tajiri had a decent tilt to unify the Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight belts. Rob Van Dam and Jeff Hardy went toe to toe in a hard-hitting ladder match for the Hardcore title. The Rock returned and won the WCW title in the main event against Booker T. But the jewel of the night was the 23-minute war between Kurt Angle and Steve Austin for the WWF title. The two went at each other with reckless abandon which really turned up the heat in the Invasion rivalry story line. And although Angle walked out belt-less, it set the stage for his title win a month later over Austin at Unforgiven.
Now there was one bad part. Like criminally bad. And that was the cage match pitting Kane and The Undertaker against DDP and Kanyon to unify the tag titles. Eliminate that one match and we’re talking about a top 10 showing for the 2001 SummerSlam.