WWF King of the Ring 2001 - June 2001

WWF King of the Ring 2001 - June 24th 2001 - East Rutherford, New Jersey

Matches

Kurt Angle defeated Christian (7/10)

Edge defeated Rhyno (7/10)

Dudley Boyz defeated Spike Dudley and Kane {WWF Tag Team Titles Match} (7/10)

Edge defeated Kurt Angle {King of the Ring Final} (8/10)

Jeff Hardy defeated X-Pac {WWF Lightheavyweight Title Match} (7/10)

Kurt Angle defeated Shane McMahon {Street Fight} (9/10)

Steve Austin defeated Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho {WWF World Heavyweight Title Triple Threat Match} (8/10)

Moments - Positives

Edge winning the King of the Ring was an excellent feat and even then the guy was just terrific. Angle's match with Shane McMahon is one of my favourite street fights ever, the only reason I have not given this a 10 is because Angle had a few more matches which were better than this. It was also brilliant to see Benoit and Jericho in the main event and the World title match was long winded and very psychological - a testament to how much the WWF believed in those two. I also loved the DDP / Undertaker storyline and the in-ring confrontation though looking back at it, it totally limited DDP's career in the WWF. This also featured Booker T running in during the Austin match. Between DDP and Booker T appearing at the show, the WCW invasion truly commenced at this show.

Moments - Negatives

I thought that the show focused on Angle a little bit too much, the WWF should have allowed Christian or someone else at least get into the King of the Ring final rather than have Angle wrestle three matches in the night. The lightheavyweight title match was also largely disappointing.

Overall

This was one of the last KOTR PPVs and it was clear that the tournament was becoming less and less important. At the same time, this was another terrific card made by a couple of quite long matches. I also enjoyed the Austin/McMahon psychological battle with Vince not helping Austin when he needed him. It was just a nice edge to the main event match up. The inclusion of DDP and Booker T during the show made this PPV so exciting as we truly did not know who would turn up next from the old WCW.

SCORE = 8.5