One MIND-BLOWING Secret From EVERY Month Of The WWE Attitude Era
2. March 2001 | This Would Have RULED
While March 2001 saw WCW finally die, the WWF was set for a chaotic period of turnover.
Many WCW talents were set to arrive imminently, but the stars of WCW were another matter. All but two of the major names correctly refused to make the jump, knowing that they could earn the money contractually owed to them by doing absolutely nothing. The other two, Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, were punished for their naivety. Booker T fared a lot better, in that he was only reduced to a punchline, but poor DDP. He was recast as a stalker who wanted the Undertaker to make him famous. DDP had appeared in that awful movie ‘Ready To Rumble’. He never did anything worthy of WWE’s Criterion Collection, featuring ‘No Holds Barred’ and ‘Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia’. Counting the ECW guys, the 2001 WWF roster was stacked with about 400 names, all of whom had to answer to someone with the surname ‘McMahon’ - and they were nearly joined by one of the coolest ass-kickers of all-time.
Don Frye was a feared badass who made his name in the near-lawless early era of the UFC. He had minimal experience in pro wrestling, in that he was basically a harbinger of New Japan’s doom. He was selected as the man to wrestle Antonio Inoki’s last match - before Inoki inevitably reneged on his vow - foreshadowing the reviled era of Inokism.
According to the March 12 Observer, Frye visited a WWF show backstage, seeking work. While he never worked a single date, his influence over WWE is quite sizeable: Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens don’t batter each other at the start of their matches if Frye’s legendary fight with Yoshihiro Takayama doesn’t happen.