The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)
26. 2001 | YEAH!
2001 was the year the good times died and, if you’re prone to a bout of hysteria, the year that mainstream pro wrestling died in the United States.
The closure of WCW and ECW, and their subsequent needle-dicked invasion of the WWF, was bleak. Everything was bleak. The build to WrestleMania 17 was bleak, the main event scene in particular. Mr. McMahon forced Debra to manage the Rock in an infamously bad plot development. Debra was an exceptionally poor performer, so on one level, inserting her into a major Steve Austin storyline did count as Mr. McMahon getting one over on his archnemesis - but that hardly counts.
All these years later, the 2001 chapter of the Rock Vs. Steve Austin feud is remembered as iconic, when much of it was actively bad, and when Austin felt far more like a moody and ruthless careerist than a fun working class hero.
Yes, the WWF did hastily make the match feel massive and personal with a cracking last-minute sit-down Jim Ross interview, but it wasn’t an instant classic - until Fred Durst gave you motherf*ckers a reason to jump.
The ‘My Way’ video package was the best moment of 2001, and by some distance. The package is a capsule of what was a bone-headed time, but there’s something about the histrionic element of the song, the beers toasting the end of an era, that lends something genuinely profound to it. There's beauty in something so dumb like wrestling. Trust Fred Durst to articulate it.
A great video package is the ultimate turd-polishing device. When people ask for AEW to produce them for something good, it’s because they work to incredibly moving effect.