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[2001-10-21-WWF-No Mercy] The Rock vs Chris Jericho


Superstar Sleeze

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WCW World Heavyweight Champion The Rock vs Chris Jericho - WWF No Mercy '01

 

I am still sad that Big Goldy has been retired. As a part of the botched WWF run, we end up with two WWF wrestlers wrestling for the WCW World Championship. JR makes sure to get in early that Jericho never wrestled for the heavyweight championship in WCW despite working there from 96-99. The video package made the build look good, Jericho has got the choker label on him, they are both technically faces, but an errant chairshot by Jericho has tempers flaring and of course some good trash talk.

 

The novelty of the match is that they attempted to work a traditional championship match build in 2001. It did get rave reviews and finished #27 in Smarkschoice greatest WWF matches of all time in 2007. I appreciated the sentiment and there was very good work in the match, but I did not feel a real sense of escalation. I am not one to shy away from a face vs face match as I think those can be very intriguing. They started with the typical symmetrical face vs face segment trading armdrags in this case. Then all of sudden Jericho just unloads with a right hand. I feel like a closed fist could have meant a lot more if they really played up the cleaness more in this match. They tease finishers, which I think should happen more today before Jericho nails a springboard dropkick. The turning points of this match came from the ropes. The story was that these two were very even. If one man gained an advantage, it was very hard for the other to comeback because the man in control would cut off so quickly. I thought Jericho working cutoffs was great in this match with his hotshot and spinwheel kick. The Rock is able to level the playing field with a superplex so again use of the ropes to definitively take control. The Rock was very explosive at the beginning, but then it almost settled into a Rock heat segment with Jericho playing face. The chinlock was a bad choice in my opinion. Jericho's comeback was initiated by a missile dropkick, which again plays into the idea since these two are even they need that extra oomph to turn the tide. Jericho busts out a hurricanarana and then a Rock Bottom. Finisher stealing was envogue, but never did much for me. Lionsault gets two and now Jericho goes for the People's Elbow. Now that type of stealing is bit more heat-seeking so I can get behind it. So far Jericho has not really done anything all that heelish besides that. It just really has not felt like the match has progressed. It feels like a sports game where both teams are playing well, but there is no real story. The transitions are well worked and there are clear shifts in momentum so it is not spotty. There is just no cohesive narrative. After Jericho misses the People's Elbow, the match goes to shit. First, we get The Rock's shitty Sharpshooter. Then he decides to Rock Bottom Jericho on the announce table, which is crazy escalation. Like the match is just humming a long and then there is a crazy overkill highspot and this leads to Rock wanting to hit the Rock Bottom again just in the ring??? The announce table makes a lot more sense if Jericho was being a prick all match, but he really wasn't. Now the match is moving in reverse and Jericho fights out of that Rock Bottom. Rock goes for the People's Elbow, but that leads to the Walls and here comes Stephanie. Stephanie hates both these guys and they both hate her. She just throws a chair in the ring. What the fuck? Rock Bottom to Stephanie, but Y2J hits the Skull Crushing Finale on the chair. What? Everybody is cheering wildly for the newly minted heel Jericho.

 

The finish stretch sucks. Why couldn't Jericho just turn heel where he has a crisis of confidence where he realizes he cant keep Rocky down so he has to resort to a chair shot to win? Where was that drama? Jericho is being labeled as a choker, but there was no sense of drama or frustration that he could not keep Rocky down. Jericho doing his crybaby routine from WCW on each Rocky kickout would have been fantastic. There was really no drama whatsoever in the match. The story should have been about Jericho overcoming the choker label either valiantly or being a shithead about it. Jericho really did not foreshadow the heel turn in the match at all. The work in the body was very good, but really did not hook me in.

 

So somebody sell me on this match being a top 30 match in WWE history because I can name 30 better WWF matches from the 80s alone. ***1/2

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Here's the review I wrote of it for my blog...

 

"The WCW World Championship is on the line in our next bout - reigning champion The Rock defending against Chris Jericho. Coming into the match, both guys are babyfaces, though Jericho would tease his heelish nature in small bits throughout the contest. Unlike The Rock's matches with Booker T at the previous two shows, The Rock looks a bit more comfortable working with Y2J. Meanwhile, Jericho comes into the match, built on the idea that he couldn't win "The Big One," energetic and eager for the spotlight. Aside from his clashes with Shawn Michaels in 2009, I'm not sure there was ever a time Jericho was as confident as he appears here - you really get the feeling that, at this time, he believed he was the best wrestler in the world. As for the match itself, it's hard fought and well-paced, a good example of WWE "main event style" but with significantly more athleticism than The Rock or Austin would have been doing two years prior. While the finish is a bit cheap, everything leading up to it and after packs an emotional punch that's impossible to ignore. Very, very good match. (4/5)"

 

I don't think its a Top 30 of all time and, as a matter of fact, I gave the show's actual main event (Austin/RVD/Angle) an equal score of 4/5.

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I watched this recently after posting in Rock's thread, and broadly speaking I agree with Sleaze's take. It's a good match, and I like how they work it with quick bursts of offense and lots of momentum shifts and cutoffs. It created something that felt a lot shorter than it was because the pace was so snappy. But at the same time, like you say there's not much drama or narrative to the match. It's just...a bunch of stuff happens, there's a big table spot, and an Attitude Era interference finish, and this one doesn't even seem to be for any discernible reason.

 

It is one of those Attitude Era matches that was probably a lot of fun at the time, but doesn't have the depth to it that lends itself to a cold re-watch years down the line.

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  • GSR changed the title to [2001-10-21-WWF-No Mercy] The Rock vs Chris Jericho
  • 2 years later...

This was a surprisingly great match. If I was going to choose a match to watch, Chris Jericho vs. The Rock wouldn't be my first pick, but they were able to work an awesome face vs. face match. And a technical match too, for the most part. I got hooked on the intensity and even found myself rooting for Jericho to win the big one, which is weird because they're fighting for the WCW title in a WWF ring. I honestly can't think of too many better Chris Jericho matches (at least up until this point), or better face vs. face matches in the WWF. It was definitely one of the best matches of the year -- that is, until the finish. The finish should have been Rock tapping to the Walls of Jericho. It would have been perfect and cemented Jericho as a huge babyface star. All they had to do was have Rock submit after failing to make the ropes. The pop would have been phenomenal and I would have come into this thread singing this match's praises to the heavens. But they had to involve Stephanie because she was part of the storyline. They just had to. Can't not involve Stephanie. The finish was one of the worst pieces of crap ever. I'm serious. They pissed in my cornflakes with that finish. Jericho liked like a prize dick afterward holding the title and the chair. Jesus Christ. What a way to ruin a moment. I am tired of crappy 2001 finishes in general, but this one takes the cake. Great match that I can't ever recall again without thinking of the finish. 

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