Unforgivens of the past Sep 21 - 08:08 pm EDT
Review by DrVenkman
WrestlingDB has provided me the opportunity to rant, rave, ramble, and reminisce about sports entertainments past, present, and future, and it’s an opportunity I am more than happy to accept. With that, I recapped the past 12 months of WWE PPV and previewed the upcoming PPV, “Unforgiven”, in an article located here . Today, I will look back at the highs and lows of Unforgivens (and Not Quite Unforgiven, that being PPVs in the month of September not called Unforgiven) gone by. I would like to note that I haven’t seen the pre Ground Zero September PPV’s, and therefore cannot include them in this look back at the month of September. I will, however, look at April 98’s Unforgiven.
Part I: Not Quite Unforgiven
September 1997:Ground Zero
High Points:
- Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker: A good match, but a disappointing main event. It had many run ins, and no real ending. In theory, this was done to lead to the classic Hell in a Cell match the following month, but they still should have put this below Bret Hart vs The Patriot - the shows World Title match, by the way. Still, this match was the high point of the PPV.
Low Points:
- Go find a listing of the card, remove the mini match, the world title match, and the Shawn / Taker match, and those are the low points. The lowest of the low would be Faarooq vs Savio Vega vs Crush in possibly the worst triple threat men's wrestling match in WWE history.
Historical Value: The first 3 hour “In Your House” PPV. Up until this point, only five shows were 3 hours, the other 7 were 2 hours. Steve Austin forfeited his tag title, then gave the Stunner to Jim Ross.
September 1998:Breakdown
High Points:
- Edge vs Owen Hart: Compared to Edge’s work today, this match probably isn’t that good. However, back in 1998, this match was a very good, solid opener to the show. It had no storyline reason to be there, but neither did D`Lo Brown vs Gangrel.
- The Rock vs Mankind vs Ken Shamrock, Steel Cage Match. Back in 1998, this match was considered very good. If it were to happen today, it would probably be considered above average. The main highlights were Mick jumping off the top of the cage (again), Rock doing a double people’s elbow, and the fact the crowd in Hamilton was really into this match. My memory seems to recall Rock as being almost face at this point, but the match commentary makes it sound as if he was not, as Lawler explains how backwards Canada is for chanting “Shamrock Sucks” instead of “Rocky Sucks”.
Low Points:
- Kane vs Undertaker vs Steve Austin, WWE World Title. Very, very boring main event for the show, with the usual heel and heel double team against face but argue over who gets the winning pinfall type match. In the end, Kane and Undertaker both pinned Austin, ending the show with no champion.
Historical Value: The last PPV appearance of the classic cage (though it was black instead of blue). The cage was used once more (I think only once, I could be wrong) for a match on Raw involving Big Bossman beating up Patterson and Brisco until all the goop that was highly visible on the cage blew up in flames for Kane’s interruption. This show also left the world title without a holder for about 8 weeks. First WWE appearance of Christian.
Part II: Past Unforgivens
April 1998
High Points:
- A good world title match between Dude Love and Steve Austin that ended in Dude Love winning via disqualification. This match became overshadowed by the excellent rematch that occurred at the following PPV.
- An ok European title match between Owen Hart and Triple H. Nothing much of note, but it is officially a high point of the show.
Low Points:
- The Legion of Doom vs. New Age Outlaws, WWE Tag Title match: The LOD were never very good to begin with, but I loved them as a kid. By 1998, they had no business being in the ring, though. This match continued the tradition of LOD facing the Outlaws and losing.
- The Rock and Roll Express vs. The New Midnight Express, NWA Tag Title match: The RnR Express used to be great in the ring - hell, the whole tag team match formula comes from their old matches - but much like the LOD, they had no business wrestling for a major promotion in 1998, especially for tag titles. The bogus nWa angle and NEW Midnight Express (Bob Holly and Bart Gunn) didn’t help this match either.
- The Inferno Match, Kane vs Undertaker: Kane vs Undertaker is a very odd feud. In all of their PPV encounters (4 one on one matches and not including the match at Breakdown or Unforgiven 2000 in a 4 way), Undertaker won. There was no “Kane wins this month, Taker wins the next”. WrestleMania 14, this match, Survivor Series 98, and a short scuffle at SummerSlam 2000 were all won by the Dead Man. Another thing about the feud is the matches all sucked. I enjoy the WrestleMania XIV match, but this match was just plain bad. This didn’t stop WWE from booking another inferno match between these two on a 1999 edition of Raw is War, and then again on a September 1999 edition of SmackDown with Kane facing Triple H.
Historical Value: The first Unforgiven Pay-Per-View. The debut of Kane’s “specialty match”, a match in which he is now 0-3.
September 1999
High Points:
- The main event - Triple H vs The Rock vs Mankind vs The British Bulldog vs. Kane vs Big Show. A lot of people at the time considered this match to be a clusterf**k of a match, and many who didn’t back then have since joined that way of thinking. I haven’t seen this show in 3 years, so I still remember enjoying the rapid pace, no break in the action style of match that it was.
Low Points:
- The lowest of the low points for all of PPV: Kennel in a Cell. I give them 5 stars for the thought, but negative 10 stars for the match. The idea was that there was a cage covered by a cell with dogs in between. The highlight of the match was dogs barking at each other, then pissing on the floor. Check out the Mick Foley DVD for some pretty funny commentary done by Mick and Kevin Kelly about this match.
Historical Value: First 6-Pack Challenge match, only one of 3 done so far in WWE. The others were at Armageddon 2000 (in a hell in a cell) and a ladies version of the match at Survivor Series 2001. Only Kennel in a Cell match in history. British Bulldog’s last PPV main event.
September 2000
High Points:
- Benoit in his 2nd main event / world title match of 2000: Sadly, the match will be discussed in “Low Points”.
- Kurt Angle vs HHH: This is here because a show must, by default, have high and low points, no matter how good or bad everything was. This was not a great match by any means, and was quite the let down. However, compared to everything else on the card, it’s a high point.
- WWE Tag Title Match - Edge and Christian vs The Hardyz, Steel Cage Match: See above high point description.
- Austin’s return: The new music was cool, and the segment with Shane McMahon was pretty entertaining. However, that’s the kind of segment that belongs on Raw. Still good, though.
Low Points:
- The Main Event - WWE World Title Match - The Rock (C) vs Chris Benoit vs Kane vs The Undertaker: Two people in this match totally stunk it up. I won’t tell you who, I’ll let you guess. Oh, and if you guess “Rock” or “Benoit”, you’re wrong. Portions involving Rock and Benoit were fine, but this match did the exact same “Benoit wins the title, oh wait no he doesn’t!” ending that they did a Fully Loaded. That sort of repeated angle is fine if it leads somewhere, but I don’t think it did. Benoit eventually decided to reunite the Radicalz, but I remember that happening to help combat Triple H.
- Eddie Guererro vs Rikishi, WWE World Title Match: Possibly the worst IC title match of the modern era, it served no purpose. Rikishi banzai dropped Chyna after the match, which I guess was supposed to show that he is a Bad Man who can do Bad Things when it was revealed a few weeks later he ran over Austin. However, his attack on Chyna was never mentioned again.
Historical Value: 2nd appearance of the Hardcore Title Time Limit Match, which included Funaki as a participant. First PPV use of a tag team cage match.
September 2001
High Points:
- Chris Jericho vs Rob Van Dam, WWE Hardcore title: A really good hardcore match, which borrowed some spots from the Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho ladder match from the Royal Rumble that year.
- Kurt Angle vs Steve Austin, WWE Heavyweight Championship: Not quite SummerSlam 2001 quality, but a good match none the less. Sadly, Angle had lost much of the momentum of popularity he had going into SummerSlam, and the title he won here only lasted 2 weeks. A month later, he was back on the heel side of things, working for the Alliance to destroy them from the inside, which oddly enough made him a heel after Survivor Series as well.
- WWE Tag Title Match - The Hardyz (C) vs Dudleyz vs Storm/Hurricane vs Spike/Big Show. A very fun match, with the highlight being Big Show going to the top rope as if to dive to the outside. He didn’t, of course, as the Dudleyz pushed him back to the mat.
- WCW US Title Match - Tajiri (C) vs Rhyno: Sort of a squash but not really. Quite short as well, but very entertaining for the amount of time given.
Low Points:
- Raven vs Saturn: Nothing technically wrong with the match, but no one in the audience cared. It was only 5 minutes, but it felt much longer. It was also the only match to not be for a title that night.
- WCW World Title Match - The Rock (C) vs Booker T and Shane McMahon: I liked Rock vs Booker at SummerSlam, and I liked the matches they had on TV. I wasn’t big on the fact Booker lost them all, but they were still enjoyable to watch. This match, however, just didn’t click. It was really boring, and my cousin fell asleep during this match.
- WCW Tag Title Match - Undertaker and Kane (C) vs Kronik. This match was really, really terrible. Punches were missing by a mile, no one was selling or working very hard. A total train wreck of a match.
Historical Value: First televised singles match between Edge and Christian, which was purely average and was neither a high nor a low point. First PPV appearance of Kronik, only their 2nd match they in WWE (first against Kaientai on the SmackDown! before the PPV), also the last WWE appearance of Kronik.
Next Month: Looking Back at No Mercy! Yeah, anyway, as I said yesterday, feel free to try out Play-Per-View for Unforgiven 2002 over at www.stablewars.com [stablewars.com]
Stephen “DrVenkman” Gray
