KroniK were actually over and popular during the last year of WCW’s existence! “Giant No-Selling Monster Team” always works. Then they went to the WWF.
ANATOMY OF A DISASTER: KRONIK vs. THE UNDERTAKER & KANE:
* Welcome back to more disastrous matches and the fallouts from them! Where I watch bad matches, try to assign blame, and try to figure out what went wrong and how it could have been mitigated! This week, I take a look at one of the most infamously bad WWF matches ever, as the Brothers of Destruction take on KroniK in a match so awful, it got the hottest team in 2000-era WCW fired instantly! I mean, there’s been ass matches before, but one that nuked the careers of two men at once? Read on!
THE STAGE: WWF Unforgiven 2001 (Sept. 2001)
THE PERFORMERS:
The Undertaker: The most respected man in the WWF locker room, and the one with the most backstage “say” (as Triple H was out injured at this time)- his word went a long way. At this point, he was arguably at his worst as a performer- his mystical character was a thing of the past and he was now just a grizzled, tattooed biker coming down to Limp Bizkit (back when that was cool and not completely embarrassing). His matches were becoming truly awful, full of not selling anything and Taker himself noticeably slowing down.
Kane: Glen Jacobs, after a career playing midcard terrible gimmicks (Isaac Yankem & Fake Diesel) had hit big with this character in 1997 and never looked back. He was an occasional main eventer, off-and-on feuding with Taker, and even had a short run with the WWF World Title or two. By this point, he was largely in the position of “The guy who loses to The Guy”, being used as a temporary heater challenger at best, as his World Title runs were gone. He was a “good worker” in the way wrestlers say guys are good workers- big, safe, dependable and his moves were over. Internet-posting wrestling fans… well, we weren’t a fan of his slow-paced matches made up of 3-4 moves. By this point he was a big subordinate to his storyline brother, just being the second half of “The Undertaker and—“.
Brian Adams: Adams had joined the WWF as “Crush”, the new member of Demolition, when the legendary tag team suddenly turned heel out of nowhere and added an extra guy (to make up for Ax’s health problems). Way too green, he was a failure, despite being huge- Demolition plummeted down the card and were jobbed out to the Legion of Doom. He was later repackaged as “Kona Crush”, a midcard babyface who was ruined by a long feud with Doink the Clown, then turned heel and was mostly a midcard “heater” to guys in need of someone to beat, with matches absolutely chock-full of nerveholds and that thing where they stretch a guy over the knee in backbreaker position.
He rejoined the company as Convict Crush as a Nation of Domination member, led the biker Disciples of Apocalypse in one of the most legendarily-bad feuds in history, and then quit WWF to join WCW out of loyalty to his friend, Bret Hart. WCW, however, was full of way too many guys and so he was just a filler nWo member, heading up the “B-Team” (as they were openly called on TV). But then in the final years of WCW he and Brian Clark were thrown together as a monster team and actually got over because big muscular dudes killing people is always rad. They joined the WCW/ECW Alliance pretty quickly when WCW died, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut Adams was still a pretty horrible wrestler, and was now about 37 years old to boot.
Bryan Clark: Clark started out green as grass in 1989, but joined the WWF as Adam Bomb in the “New Generation” era, usually in a midcard powerhouse role, first as a heel, then as a babyface. With few wins over anyone bigger than Kwang despite being huge, he was cut and ended up in WCW… which of course had a ton of dudes way bigger than himself (curse his luck, he was in the same promotion as Kevin Nash for most of his professional life). He was Wrath, part of the “Blood Runs Cold” feud against Glacier, being mostly a forgotten dude in the massive WCW midcard morass, but suddenly got over as a “Second Goldberg”, beating jobbers and midcarders in quick matches. He was getting increasingly popular with this, but before it could go anywhere (like, to a singles title), he was fed to Nash himself to give him more momentum in his match against Goldberg- beaten in less than five minutes, Wrath was pretty damaged, but the real damage came in the following months where he got forgotten about and was doing things like losing to Disco Inferno. He seemed pretty much toast until the KroniK team renovated his career again. Like Adams, Clark is now 37 years old and probably slowing down physically, having peaked in 1998 or so.
—
So this is right in the middle of the InVasion storyline- the most infamous botched angle of all time. Steven Richards is bitter over the Right To Censor stable being destroyed by the Undertaker (I forgot that), and brings in KroniK, who beat the crap out of Taker, repeatedly using their Double Chokeslam, including through the announce table- taking advantage of Kane currently being hospitalized (they even say “hospital”! Not “Local medical facility”!). Shortly thereafter, Taker & Kane defend their WWF Tag Titles against the Dudley Boyz of the Alliance, and KroniK come out and put Kane through a table and garrote Taker on the top rope, leading to him eating 3D for the loss- the Dudleys win tag gold. But Taker & Kane are still the WCW Tag Champions, and are now set to defend against KroniK on PPV.
WCW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES:
THE UNDERTAKER & KANE vs. KRONIK (w/ Steven Richards):
* The Undertaker cuts a lame-ass promo backstage about how KroniK’s big muscles aren’t going to mean anything because they’ll get knocked in the dirt- Kane says nothing and the brothers come down to Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin”, Taker tatted up and in his leather biker pants and black singlet top (with an American flag in the middle- podcasters have joked he looks like a Care Bear), and Kane in his red & black suit with the see-through chest and the original mask. KroniK are both in black with white highlights, but don’t really “match” beyond that- Adams is borderline in “normal guy clothes” with baggy pants and a tight shirt (with a douchey lil’ chin triangle goatee) and Clark with his “Wrath” singlet. Richards is in all black (looking hilariously like he’s about to go to war with the Socs), and is taller than I remember, not looking that much punier than his team.
KroniK meet the Brothers on the floor and the bell just rings, Clark doing well against Kane but Adams quickly loses against Taker, taking the big boot & legdrop for two. Everyone takes positions for a normal tag match at this point, and Adams gets beat up in the corner, manages an elbow, but charges into a drop toehold (REALLY?) and Taker drops elbows for two. Kane comes in for his strikes, beating Adams down in the corner and hitting a slam & elbow for two. Man, this is one-sided. Adams gets a really weak back-elbow (just reversing a whip and turning around to do it), then the shittiest backbreaker in recorded history, slowwwwwwlllly lifting Kane up and then noticeably slipping Kane off the side of his leg, which isn’t properly planted for the backbreaker spot so it just bends outward. Thankfully he tags out to Clark, who hits his Wrath “martial arts” kick and assorted strikes that look fine. A lumbering whip to the corner and Clark runs in with another kick, then a pretty weak “step-up” roundhouse kick- he’s not quite limber enough anymore to make that look as good, so it lacks “oomph”. A leaping boot gets two, but Kane catches him with a really slow neckbreaker. Man, he’s just going through molasses, even on the sell-jobs. Like he puts some flourish into it, but he’s not bouncing around very well and just going kinda slow.
Clark tries a comeback but charges into a shoulderbreaker (Kane, like Adams, slips up on it), and Taker comes in. He does the Scott Hall “ram into their shoulder on an armlock” spot, intermixing “FEED!” into it as he shouts other things because Clark isn’t pulling back at all to help make it look good, so Taker’s just bumping into him. He hits the Ropewalk and then goes into a cross-armbreaker because he’s a big UFC geek at this point and just wants to try all that stuff, but Clark just awkwardly spins onto his back because the set-up is weird (Taker starts to apply it while Clark is on all fours) and he probably doesn’t watch MMA. Adams boots Taker from the apron to break it up and gets clobbered, but gets a clothesline. Clark puts the boots to Taker while selling the arm and KroniK gives him a big beating and Adams knocks his bandana off and hits a dropkick for two. Taker gets his boot up in the corner, and then they REALLY fuck something up, as Taker ducks down and sorta runs into Adams who was doing something else.
Taker wisely just moves on and throws punches and “knees” (clearly missing by a foot), then does the “puts his head down but no-sells the kick” spot that gets a good reaction and Adams knows how to go from there, clotheslining him over the top. Taker no-sells that and drags him out to the floor, and gives him a post-shot, Adams doing the most lazy bump imaginable, just kinda casually walking by the post. Clark just rampages off the apron to shouldertackle Undertaker (hey! A cool spot!)- he continues the attack, then KroniK double-team Kane on the floor and double-shoulderblock Taker for two. A chinlock slows it down, and Taker fights up with punches but gets slammed. Clark comes in but puts his head down (barely) and takes a DDT for the hot tag! Kane comes in for various shots and his big boots, then the side slam on Clark. He readies the Chokeslam and even grabs Adams as the crowd gets excited, but they manage to beat him out of it as the match is looking like it’s just dudes throwing stuff out and is falling apart.
Kane ducks a weak double-clothesline and takes both guys down (not with his usual leaping variant- I think everyone is getting blown up now). Taker runs in for another hot tag and literally shouts “FEEEEEEED! Come on!” at the guys to feed his comeback, because they’re just doing the SmackDown! Dazed Sell instead of charging at him to make his comeback look cool. KroniK get run into the corners for assisted clotheslines, and Kane tosses Clark into a big boot, gets a Chokeslam attempt, but has to release to slug down Steven Richards. This seems to be hitting a peak (such as it is), but he has to stand there holding Clark’s head before adding a punch, then Adams comes in with a jawjacker to set up their Double Chokeslam finisher as Taker is getting noticeably frustrated (some people hear him curse at this point but I can’t tell on the Dailymotion vid). But Taker fights free while Kane readies a Flying Clothesline on Adams. Taker hits the Chokeslam on Clark and that gets the pin at (10:21).
Taker looks absolutely miserable as Steven comes in with a chair and gets scared off, backing into Kane- his cartoonish overreaction and “oh COME ON!” sell is pretty great, and he eats the Chokeslam and Kane lights up the ring to send the fans away happy. KroniK are nowhere to be seen as Richards lies there dead, and mercifully it’s over.
—
This was… okay, it’s not a DUD, which is unusual for this column as of yet. It’s just your standard kinda-shitty RAW match where everyone’s kinda slugs and they just punch back and forth. Problem being, this is *PPV*. Taker’s aggravation is kind of deserved as KroniK did a super-shitty attempt at cutting off his comeback, leaving him punching two stunned guys instead of people actively fighting back, but that’s not enough to render the match worthless- it just makes it less WWF style and more WCW style, which is probably aggravating to an 11-year WWF guy who’s used to the standard WWF match.
The number of blown spots is still pretty substantial but more along the lines of a bad backbreaker, a bad shoulderbreaker, and whatever the hell that Irish whip spot was supposed to be, but in every case they pretty much recovered. The major issue with the match was that everyone was lumbering around and really not on the same page, turning the match into a mess… not that it ever had any flow from the beginning- Taker & Kane don’t really sell enough to get much heat on the heels, and the heels weren’t doing enough cool power spots to make this reliably Power vs. Power, so it was just some guys having shitty back-and-forth brawling.
Adams seems particularly beat up, but Kane was running through molasses, too, and most of the time nobody was hitting moves “flush” and was instead kind of scrambling their hands around trying to get in position- stuff you can work out with some ring-time working with each other, but 10-year veterans shouldn’t need so much. Like the spot where KroniK fight Kane outside the ring and run him into the ring apron- it’s a pretty basic spot, but they’re both out of position and just kinda jostle him into it instead of getting in front of him and REALLY pushing him in. And I think a lot of that adds to the botches we see, like super-strong dudes who shouldn’t be dropping guys slipping all over the place (Clark might be lead-assed on some of these lifts as he’s in a few of them and has issues bouncing around).
The selling here was pretty off-and-on, which is typical for Taker matches of this era- you’d get him flopping down off of various shots, trying to fight up then getting booted down again, etc., but then it’s just time to not sell anymore and all that accumulated damage means nothing. Granted he’s actually DECENT at doing the “knocked down despite being tough” sell so it’s not that excruciating, never mind that it’s been part of his character since his WWF debut, but it’s the kind of stuff the IWC used to rag on him for all the time. Scott’s review of this match is particularly uncharitable regarding the selling, accusing everyone of ignoring everything (save their own bad cardio), even ragging on the chinlock as a resthold (to be fair it’s only like 30 seconds and is just there to feed a comeback to be cut off).
Rating: 1/2* (it still sucks, but it’s not like I wanted to die while watching it)
The Fallout: HOLLLLLLLLLLLLLY SHIT. So this was such a public disaster, and involving two of the most politically powerful guys in the WWF, that some heads had to roll. And of course the newbies from the Alliance were the scapegoats. KroniK was told to go down to the Heartland Wrestling Association, the WWF’s farm league, for training. They pretty much told the company to kick rocks and never wrestled for them again. To be fair, that’s a GIANT insult to ask of 10+ year veterans and former Tag Champions. Jim Ross explains it on his podcast– “It was a slap in the face!” as they were veterans, but “We expected MORE”, and they were sent for seasoning and to get better team continuity at the same pay. JR admits “I can’t say I blame them”, and even confesses he feels worse for Clark, as he was sidelined alongside Adams, who’d had way more chances and repackaging.
Naturally, the Undertaker & Kane were not punished.
This match had other issues associated with it, too. The match was so horrendous, and Taker so loud with his disapproval, that it kind of poisoned a lot of thought behind the scenes against the WCW guys. Many were thought to “not know how to work”, and this ended up being used as justification to nuke a lot of pushes and make them a “Goon Army” led by WWF-type guys like Steve Austin and other dudes who’d already made their bones in the WWF before the InVasion began.
Mitigating Factors: This one doesn’t really have any- these guys had more than forty years experience combined! Undertaker is the Veteran of Veterans of the WWF at this point, Kane knew better, and both KroniK guys were in the match of their lives- a big PPV match against top dudes where they’re pretty new faces to the company. The only thing really working against the match is that all four dudes were pretty shitty and lazy at this point, which they don’t really have an excuse for. I GUESS you could say that KroniK was more used to the “WCW Style” at this point and were gonna have issues with the WWF cadence (which was more about heels bouncing around for babyface comebacks, often taking multiple “bump and get up and bump again” spots in a row), but Taker & Kane were hardly moving quickly enough to give KroniK an excuse for screwing up spots.
Overall: So this is just your basic mess of a match with no flow, no structure, sloppy offense, and then a fun mix of fucked-up moves that look horrible. Taker being unprofessional (Trish regrets looking miserable after the Gayda Incident; Taker here is noticeably “this match SUCKED” and is openly calling advice in the ring as loud as possible to send a signal to everyone that “it’s not MY fault this match is sucking!”). A Pay-Per-View match this bad is pretty much unacceptable, and the kind of shit WCW used to do by accident. WWF making these kind of public mistakes was a really bad sign, and it just kept happening as time went on.
It’s also an interesting look at the difference between ring veterans and people who don’t know what they’re doing- compare this to the Britt Baker/Anna Jay bout I started this column off with. In that match, they just got more and more flustered, continuing on with stuff and flailing around and looking more and more terrible and lost in a botchfest of a match, while in this one everyone had the experience to settle it back into something. So it was GARBAGE, but it only exposed the business a couple of times (versus Anna doing 100 spinning moves and Britt flailing with limp forearms as they both forget spots repeatedly) before the settled into doing something else that wasn’t horrible. So big chunks of the match are FINE, yet they somehow manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with something else bad.
Long story short, I think KroniK were just not used to the WWF style, and weren’t good at all anymore in the first place. Brian Adams is low-key one of the worst workers to ever hit the Big Two during the 1990s, and him being washed-up at 37 was in no way helping, and Undertaker being slow and at his worst in terms of selling at this point ensured the match wouldn’t even have much proper heat to it in the first place. Repeatedly you saw him & Kane run in there to try and shake things up and get things back on track, and fail. Better workers would have just been throwing in power spots, not “random punching” and 1988’s power moves (a SHOULDERBREAKER?). Or at least not CALL IT IN THE RING and come in with an agented plan (some have joked that Taker, having just come out of his feud with DDP, was like “I’m never looking at another fucking script again”).
Ideally and in retrospect, have KroniK hit their Double Chokeslam to a near-fall, or smash a dude through a table (like what happened in the lead-up to the match), not just fuck around doing “we’re just fucking around” stuff like random punches and whip-reversals into big boots all match long.
So like… KroniK were not good in this match (Adams was more un-good than Clark, who is the only man of the four who looked like he was even trying), Taker and Kane’s selling was crap, and everyone looked clumsy and out of place for everything. KroniK being unused to the style was probably the main factor in this disaster of a match, but experienced guys should have been able to rein this in.
And we’re out! One of the WWF’s worst PPV matches (and one of the few bouts so bad it immediately ruined careers), and a pretty sad display for Taker, who should have known better. I’ll probably go with a shorter/less notable match next time because these turn into giant essays otherwise, lol.