Mike Reviews WWE No Mercy 2002

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We continue our journey through 2002 WWE today, by looking at No Mercy 2002. This event came at a time where the WWE’s product was cooling off significantly following the Attitude Era, with WWE desperately trying to get people to re-engage with the product by going for a more “edgy” presentation.

We’ll get into WWE’s attempts at that as the review goes on. No Mercy did feel like it would have some historical significance going in at least, as we’ll be unifying the World and IC Titles, as well as crowning SmackDown Tag Champs for the first time. We’ve also got a Hell in a Cell match to close things out, so there should be enough gore and violence in that one to keep fans of that genre happy,

You can view the full card for No Mercy 2002 by clicking the link below;

WWE No Mercy 2002 Card

No Mercy is emanating from North Little Rock, Arkansas on the 20th of October 2002

Calling the action for Raw are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, whilst Michael Cole and Taz call the Smackdown matches

I believe this is the first time we’ve ever heard the iconic No Mercy theme, although I don’t know if they actually use it anymore whenever the No Mercy name gets used for an event these days

Undertaker and Kane have both had bad weeks, so Kane decides to make a joke about it in a cute moment.

We get the usual opening video package with the dramatic music, focusing on the two Main Events tonight. The Hell in a Cell one has Paul Heyman doing some cool narration at least.

Opening Match
Raw Tag Team Titles
Champs: “The Highlight of the Night” Chris Jericho and Christian Vs Book-Dust (Booker T and Goldust)

Jericho and Christian had dethroned Hurricane and Kane, both as a way to get heat on the HHH/Kane feud but also as a way to get the belts on some Heels so that Book-Dust could eventually win them at the end of the year in a nice babyface moment. Jericho had been World Champ earlier in the year, so him going for the tag belts here made them feel a little bit more important. Jericho doesn’t want to fight Booker in the early stages, which is a standard way of drawing Heel heat by making the villain look cowardly. The opening exchanges are really good here, as all four of these wrestlers know how to have a good match and they do a solid job of having the babyface tandem shine on the Heel Champions. Eventually though; Christian gets a cheap shot on Goldust, and that leads to the cut off and heat segment.

Goldust sells that well, with Jericho and Christian both entering strong Heel performances as they work The Golden One over. The crowd is into the idea of Booker getting the hot tag, so the three guys in the ring do a solid job of teasing it when they can in order to rile the crowd up. Goldust eventually manages to catch Christian with a Powerslam and follows up with a Neck Breaker to Jericho before getting the hot tag to Booker. Booker runs wild on both Champions and the crowd is into it, with Booker getting the 100th Street Slam on Jericho for two before getting a roll-up out of the corner for another two.

Things break down a bit following that, with all four wrestlers going at it and the crowd continuing to enjoy the action, especially when Goldust manages to kick Christian right in the Reso’s when the referee is distracted with Jericho. Sadly the ring ends up going into business for itself, as the middle rope dislocates and that means that things fall apart a bit. The finish of the match is supposed to be Jericho giving Goldust the Lionsault after a bulldog onto a Title belt, but obviously he can’t do that due to the middle rope being out, so Jericho has to improvise with a Moonsault off the top for three in a good save to the situation.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: JERICHO & CHRISTIAN
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: A decent opener, and they did well to cover for the ropes going awry in the closing stages. Not a classic or anything, but it was a solid effort

Sho Funaki tries to interview Al Wilson, and he shows us footage of Wilson getting into sticky situations with Dawn Marie. Wilson doesn’t have a lot to say for himself, mostly stammering through the whole thing. It’s of course building to Al Wilson doing the Bill Clinton impression about how he had no sexual relations with Dawn. This was really stilted and awful, but in a way that was somewhat entertaining at least.

Match Two
Dawn Marie Vs Torrie Wilson

This was one of the angles where WWE was trying to be a bit more edgy and soap opera-like in an effort to recapture the magic of the Attitude Era. Marie and Wilson had been feuding, so Dawn decided to take it to the next level by shacking up with Torrie’s father, Al, in an effort to really get under her rival’s skin. This meant that Al, who really was Torrie’s dad, ended up becoming a regular TV character for a while, despite him having the acting ability of a shoe.

Wilson actually tries to be all fired up and angry here, and it kind of works to a certain degree, with Dawn actually taking quite a few big bumps in an effort to get it over. It’s a lot snugger than some of the other women’s matches from this timeframe, which gives it a slightly different feel. I wonder if that was down to the influence of Fit Finlay working with the ladies on their matches? Wilson runs wild for a bit at the start, but Dawn eventually manages to cut Wilson off and work her over with some rest holds.

Wilson ends up fighting back, giving us our contractually mandated CAT FIGHT spot of the night, which gets Dawn all offended when the referee gets dragged into it. Wilson actually kicks Dawn so hard at one stage that the crowd actually “Ohhhhs” to it, which is pretty impressive. Wilson gets a few near falls before catching Dawn with a Swinging Neck Breaker for three.

WINNER: TORRIE WILSON
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: The effort levels from both wrestlers were undeniable here, as they were genuinely working very hard in an effort to have a “real” match and not just the standard “divas” outing. The crowd kind of responded to it at points as well, although you’d think that Dawn getting a crappy win of some kind would have made more sense if they were continuing the feud. This one felt like it could be the blow off match, and that wasn’t coming until January

Jonathon Coachman is backstage with Rob Van Dam. RVD gives a really terrible promo where he impersonates Ric Flair, which just goes to show that the people writing his promos had no idea how to write for him. RVD looked like he was having fun at least, so there’s that…

Following that promo, Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar and Tracey The Adulterer show up, with the first two not being interested in speaking to Coach, whilst Tracey cuts a horrible promo about how much she hates Undertaker. If that was a paid actor they brought in then I’d hate to see her Gonerill…

Match Three
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs “The Whole Dam Show” Rob Van Dam

Flair had cost RVD the Raw World Title back at Unforgiven, so RVD is out for revenge here at No Mercy. They start this one as a brawl, with RVD getting some high flying offence out on the floor, including his twisting leg drop off the apron whilst Flair is laid out on the ringside barricades. RVD continues to control things in the ring, with Flair bumping around as best he can for RVD’s wacky offence. Flair eventually manages to catch RVD with a low blow though, and that gives us our heat segment, with Flair doing the usual stuff of chops, cheating and attacking the legs. That all looks fine and RVD does a decent job selling it all, so it’s a serviceable heat segment, if not an especially thrilling one. RVD eventually makes the comeback, getting a near fall with a Rolling Thunder before coming off the top with the Five Star Frogsplash for the win.

WINNER: ROB VAN DAM
RATING: **1/4

Thoughts: To call this a styles clash would be the understatement of the century. It was still reasonably watchable despite that though, and it was a clean win for RVD in an effort to get him back on track after getting crushed by HHH the previous month

Big Show is complaining to Stephanie McMahon, which leads to Eric Bischoff storming over, angry that Big Show is talking to the SmackDown GM when he’s a Raw guy. Big Show tells Sleazy E that he’s annoyed at missing out on pay per views, which leads to Bischoff getting gobby and Big Show getting fired up and throttling Bischoff. Sadly Big Show calms himself down before ending Bischoff right there.

We get a video package looking at former Intercontinental Champions, seeing as the belt is getting killed off tonight for a bit. Wrestlers such as Pat Patterson, Pedro Morales, Randy Savage, The Hart Brothers, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Razor Ramon, The Rock and Goldust are all prominently featured. This was a great video, that made you wonder why they were getting rid of the belt seeing as it had so much history attached to it and getting rid of it left the folks in the mid-card with little to be doing.

Match Four
WWE Cruiserweight Title
Champ: Jamie “Bah Gud” Noble w/ Nidia Vs “The Japanese Buzz-saw” Yoshihiro Tajiri

Noble and Tajiri had been allies, which had led to Noble hilariously referring to his Japanese chum as “TIE-JEEERI” on many an occasion, but now they’ve split and are feuding. Noble was actually a good example of Paul Heyman working within the system in order to get a talented person an opportunity. Noble was a great wrestler, but he was small and it was unlikely that he’d get much of a look from big man obsessed Vince McMahon. Heyman thus helped cultivate an over the top comedy redneck character for Noble, which was something that Vince was sure to love because presenting southerners as idiots was always something he enjoyed doing. Thus Vince was happy because he got a silly character that he could stick on his shows, Noble got a push he might not previously had gotten, and we wrestling fans got to see some good wrestling matches almost through stealth and subterfuge. If Heyman could have just continued walking that line successfully then the glory period of “SmackDown Six” Era might have lasted a bit longer.

This is the third match in a row where they start it quickly with an attack, as Tajiri gets a baseball slide on Noble and follows with an Asai Moonsault, which gets the challenger a two count back inside the ring. Noble quickly fights back though, leading to the two trading kicks, but Tajiri gets the better of the strike exchange and works Noble over. The crowd doesn’t really care, but the action has been very good in this one thus far, as these two work well together. Noble eventually manages to catch Tajiri with a slam counter and that leads to the heat segment, with Noble talking smack and working holds until the crowd starts to clap for Tajiri. I wonder if the crowd wasn’t aware of Tajiri’s babyface turn and that’s why they’ve been a bit quiet? Tajiri sells really well whilst getting worked over, and eventually the challenger manages to catch the Champ with a Tornado DDT for the double down.

Tajiri makes the full comeback following that, getting some more kicks and throwing in some punches for good measure, which finally gets the crowd a bit excited. We get some near falls following that, with Tajiri getting a lovely German Suplex for two at one stage. The Tarantula follows; as things look bleak for our gallant white trash Champion, but Nidia distracts the ref in order to prevent Tajiri from getting the pin following a big kick. This gives Noble a chance to get an underhook Powerbomb for two in a good near fall, although the crowd reactions still aren’t what you’d like them to be considering the quality of the wrestling we’ve been getting here. Nidia eventually gets involved again, grabbing Noble’s leg when Tajiri goes for a Victory Roll, which leads to Noble landing on top for three.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: JAMIE NOBLE
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This had some darn good wrestling, but the crowd sadly didn’t get that into it outside of a few particular moments. Sadly WWE fans just didn’t really care for Cruiserweight wrestling, even in situations like this where the match had a storyline reason for existing and the two wrestlers were actually given time to have a real match. Whether it was because there was something ingrained in the mind of WWE fans that caused them not to care about smaller wrestlers, or whether they’d just been burned one time too many by seeing the Cruiser’s booked badly, the result was that good matches like this often didn’t get the reactions the good wrestling within them arguably earned

Tajiri plants a kiss on Nidia post-match, and she seems to enjoy it. Noble is of course offended and then goes for a kiss himself on his woman, which leads to Tajiri laying the redneck royalty out with a kick before storming to the back.

We get a funny segment where Kurt Angle is beating up Chavo Guerrero Jr backstage in the locker room, but Eddy Guerrero doesn’t believe it’s actually Chavo getting beaten up in there, leading to Eddy going on a long rant to Chris Benoit about how he won’t be fooled, only for Chavo’s beaten body to be flung out of the room by Angle. This was payback for a similar attack that Eddy and Chavo perpetrated on an episode of Smackdown. Eddy was absolutely fantastic here, with Benoit being a good straight man for him to play off.

We get a video package for the upcoming Raw World Title Vs IC Title match.

Match Five
Title for Title
Raw World Champ: “The Game” Triple H w/ Ric Flair Vs Intercontinental Champ: “The Freak” Kane

With WWE having two separate brands of Raw and SmackDown, it was decided that each show needed to have a major Champion rather than having the WWE Champ appear on both shows. Initially the plan had been to unify the European and Hardcore belts into the IC Title, thus making it in effect a top Title. HHH was then of course due to win the new super belt, because HHH. However, Triple H didn’t want to wrestle for the IC Title, so they instead brought back the Big Gold Belt and just gave that to him, with this match being set up in order to kill off the IC Title for a while (It would be back by the spring of 2003).

Despite being a big unification match; this contest is probably better known for being the feud built around Katie Vick. To cut a long story short, I’ll just re-post what I’ve written in a previous review;

“For those that weren’t watching at the time (you lucky buggers), they’d retroactively given Kane a high school sweetheart called Katie Vick (Yes, apparently Kane went to high school. I hear he was a nightmare to get as your cooking partner in home economics) who had then tragically died in a car crash due to Kane not being familiar with a manual transmission. Kane may be able to make fire shoot out of the turnbuckles at will, but ask him to find the biting point on a manual Hyundai i20 and it’s game over. Anyway, this had led to Triple H saying that Kane had murdered Katie Vick, which even if we were to believe that ANY of this backstory happened wouldn’t make any sense, as at worst Kane would be done for accidental death caused by reckless driving in such a scenario. This all leads to a poorly shot skit from a funeral home, where Triple H shows up dressed as Kane and makes love to a dummy in a casket that is supposedly Katie Vick.

So yeah, it’s a brutal skit and WWE got plenty of complaints from it, leading to WWE going on the defensive saying that they were trying to be dark comedy like Six Feet Under. That defence of course went over about as well as Triple H banging a corpse, which is to say not very well at all. This was not only incredibly offensive but it also did nothing to make you want to watch Triple H and Kane wrestle one another, which is kind of the point of this whole Pro Wrestling thing. It just made you want to never see any of the people involved on your TV screen again anytime soon. Supposedly one of the payoffs to this would have been that Scott Vick (Sickboy from WCW) would show up as the brother of Katie Vick looking for revenge on Kane for murdering his sister, but they ended up dropping the angle due to how violently negative the reaction to this segment was.”

So, with you all caught up; let’s get to the match itself!

Kane is all big and angry to start, which forms the basis of the babyface shine. In all fairness, I don’t think you watch a Kane match expecting snapmares and arm drags, so the IC Champ throwing punches and getting all fired up (pun not intended) is probably the best way to do this. HHH takes nice bumps for everything, with Kane being just fine at doing the big man slugger offence like clotheslines. Tri eventually manages to dodge an attack in the corner and follows up with a sloppy looking neck breaker, but that’s our false cut off, as Kane sits up and keeps bringing the pain, as this continues to be a passable, if not thrilling, opening section of the bout. HHH eventually goes to the eyes and flings Kane into the ring post outside, which is enough for the real cut off and gives us our heat segment.

Kane sells well enough during the heat, although the crowd doesn’t seem that interested, whilst HHH mostly focuses on delivering more neck breakers, which was a thing he was doing a lot of at the time. Tri of course busts out a Spine Buster at one stage, because Triple H, but Kane manages to survive that and the bout continues. HHH has been just fine in this one so far, but he hasn’t done an especially good job of elevating this contest past anything but “passable” thus far. It’s not really fair to expect HHH to get every average worker to ***+ like Flair could in the 80’s, but his inability to personally raise the quality of this bout kind of highlights why his matches often didn’t always close the show in this era, even though he was arguably the top guy in the promotion at the time. Kane does finally make the comeback, coming off the top with his trademark clothesline, which leads us into our overbooking for the evening.

Ric Flair and Hurricane both get involved to help Tri and Kane respectively, with the ref of course taking a bump at one stage as well, as they are trying everything they can to make this better than the sum of it’s parts. Hurricane actually gets a bit of a pop for getting involved, but that soon goes away once Tri kills the Super Hero with a Pedigree outside the ring. They do an admittedly decent near fall when HHH hits Kane with the belt for two, as they have at least protected Kane somewhat within the match itself and it’s being presented that Tri would likely lose without his legendary lackey helping him out. The ref takes ANOTHER bump, as this is starting to get a bit silly now. If doing all this nonsense is the only way you can get people to care about your World Title match (when you have as stacked a roster as WWE had at the time) then this is probably the wrong match to run for the Title on a pay per view.

Case in point; Tri takes a Choke Slam through the Spanish table, as the shortcuts keep coming, and then Flair tries to bring the sledgehammer down on Kane. Kane fends that off, but Tri manages to clock Kane right in the Jacobs’ and then hits Kane with the hammer to counter the Tombstone. Kane keeps coming though, as he gets a Choke Slam, which gets two when Flair takes out the replacement ref. Kane takes out Flair once AGAIN, but this allows Tri to get a cheap shot and a Pedigree, which is finally enough to put the monster down for three.

WINNER AND STILL/NEW CHAMPION: TRIPLE H
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: A bang average match that they tried to make feel special by turning it into a dog and pony show. It worked to a limited extent, but it still couldn’t really make this feel anymore than “meh” for the most part. Obviously not every World Title match needs to be a classically worked epic contest, but when the belt is essentially brand new and you’re wanting to get it established as something meaningful, it’s probably better to book bangers for it than going with Kane for the millionth time and trying to disguise his averageness by piling on the gimmicks and booking shortcuts. All I will say is that Kane was at least protected in defeat here, as it took help from Flair and numerous weapon shots for Tri to finally keep Kane down for three. However, he lost a considerable amount of lustre in this feud due to the Katie Vick silliness. Unifying the belts would have been plenty on it’s own without WWE trying to turn back the clock to the Attitude Era “glory days” with such a dumb storyline

Stephanie McMahon tricks Tracey The Adulterer into admitting that she made the whole affair with The Undertaker up, which leads to Taker coming in and telling Tracey off. That was some more A Level acting from all involved, let me tell you.

We get a video package to hype up the next match, focusing on how Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle are being forced to work as a tag team against their wishes, yet they keep winning anyway because they’re so good.

Match Six
SmackDown Tag Team Titles
Tournament Final
“The American Hero” Kurt Angle and “The Crippler” Chris Benoit Vs Edge and Rey Mysterio Jr

The story here is that SmackDown didn’t have Tag Titles, so General Manager Stephanie McMahon decided to have a tournament to crown the first Champs here at No Mercy. Angle and Benoit were feuding at the time, but McMahon thought they would make a good team, so she’s forcing them to tag with punishments on the line if the two refuse to cooperate. Anyone who has watched any ECW will be able to tell you that one of Paul Heyman’s favourite booking tropes has always been “partner’s who hate one another but still inconceivably keep winning despite that” so him using it here shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise to any seasoned ECW viewers. Rey gets to be all gutsy in the early going by refusing to back down from the bigger Angle, which leads to Rey eventually getting to shine on Angle once he survives the Olympian’s initial bullying attempts. There’s no better underdog babyface than Rey Jr in situations like this.

Neither Angle nor Benoit have much joy with the babyfaces in the early going, with the shine being a strong showcase for the good guys thanks to their offence being well executed and the Heels doing a good job bumping and selling for all of it. Eventually an Angle cheap shot allows Benoit to cut off Edge, which gives us our heat segment. Edge sells all of that well, with the crowd remaining invested in the contest and wanting to see Edge make the tag to Rey. Angle and Benoit function well as a team, with them working together without much difficulty thanks to the potential sanction of a year without pay hanging over them should they suddenly decide to start fighting one another. As the four wrestlers are being given a decent chunk of time to work with (around 22 minutes) we get the rarely seen in WWE double heat segment, as Rey Jr eventually gets a tag and has a brief flurry of offence on the Heels before they cut Rey off and work him over for a bit as well.

It should hopefully not be a shock to any of you to learn that Rey Mysterio Jr does an excellent job selling a beating from Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit, as they happily fling their smaller opponent around and Rey is equally happy to take big bumps in order to make it all look good. Considering that neither of these pairings were regular tandems at the time, they’ve both done an excellent job of structuring this one. If I was watching this with no knowledge of the backstory and I was told that both teams had been together for nearly a year prior to this, I would see no reason as to disbelief it, which a testament to how well rounded all four competitors are that they can be picked up out of the singles ranks, thrown in the tag division, and immediately make it work. Edge does finally get our second hot tag of the bout, leading to the comeback proper and the home stretch of the match itself.

Benoit and Angle all line up to take bumps from the babyfaces, and it’s all smoothly executed, as Taz makes a point on commentary that both tandems have shown that they would make worthy Champions. That’s a good point on Taz’s behalf and an important thing for this match to establish, as both teams being credible Champions only raises the value of the belts themselves. Once Edge has done his hot tag segment, we move into the near falls, and there are some doozies. One in particular sees Edge giving Rey a boost so that Rey can fly to the top rope and rana Angle down, which leads to Benoit accidentally clocking Angle off the top in order to give Edge a two count. Fans are so annoyed that the Faces didn’t win there that they start booing, which shows how invested they are in this one. Angle and Benoit mostly focus on going for submission attempts whilst Edge and Rey focus more on getting pins, which suits the characters of all four wrestlers and also adds a clear story thread to things, with the Faces looking more to catch the Heels out with a quick pin whilst the Heels are looking to lock in a tight hold and squeeze out a victory. By far one of the best parts of the match is that the finish is entirely clean, as Angle manages to lock Edge in the Ankle Lock and Edge is eventually forced to tap out, because Angle and Benoit are just the better team tonight.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: ANGLE & BENOIT
RATING: *****

Thoughts: Pretty much the perfect match there, with all four wrestlers playing their respective roles well and the bout doing an excellent job of establishing the new belts on the front foot. Angle and Benoit were the better duo on the night, which is why they won it clean with no excuses, but Edge and Rey pushed the new Champs all the way, so they lost nothing in defeat and remained credible challengers for rematches down the line. What made this all the more impressive was that neither of these two tandems were regular duos prior to the tournament starting, yet they all worked the formula perfectly here and looked like they’d both been tagging for ages. Sadly the belts wouldn’t retain this level of importance and credibility, but this was one heck of a way to debut them and there were still more great matches to come for them over the coming months

Undertaker’s hand is all injured, so Larry the doctor gives Taker a pain killing injection like he’s Diego Maradona at Italia 90.

Cool Down Match
WWE Women’s World Title
Champ: Trish Stratus Vs Victoria

Pour one out for these poor lasses. The story here was that Victoria had previously been a fitness model alongside Stratus, but Victoria felt that Stratus had held her down, thus leading to her getting all psycho, as you do. This is another instance where the two wrestlers go in there looking to have a “proper” match and not just do sleazy crowd pleasing diva spots. They actually do a decent job of it too, as Stratus was regularly improving around this time frame and Victoria was one of the better in-ring performers in the women’s division from this era. Victoria takes the majority of the match, with the idea being that they are trying to get her over as a credible threat. Stratus’ selling is good and she shows good fire when she is able to make the occasional comeback, so the match is watchable, if a bit sloppy in places due to the execution of some of the moves and counters not quite being right. Stratus eventually makes a bit of a comeback and manages to catch Victoria in a pinning hold for the fight-from-behind win.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: TRISH STRATUS
RATING: **

Thoughts: Quite sloppy in places, but both wrestlers were working hard and the match told a decent story of Stratus being on the backfoot against the bigger and more violent Victoria, with Stratus’ resilience eventually proving the difference on this occasion.

Victoria kicks Stratus in the face following the match, which means the feud will continue.

Rikishi is at WWE’s restaurant in Times Square, seeing as Undertaker threw him off the roof of the Hell in a Cell once. The Big Kish of course picks Undertaker to win the next match, and how could he not in such a circumstance?

We get a video package for the next match.

Main Event
SmackDown World Title
Champ: “The Next Big Thing” Brock Lesnar w/ Paul Heyman Vs Biker Taker

The story here is that Lesnar had become exclusive to SmackDown and Taker wanted a piece of him, thus leading to Taker switching sides to SmackDown from Raw and then pinning Chris Benoit to become the new #1 contender. The two had competed in a No Contest/Double DQ/Sportz Entertainment finish back at Unforgiven, which had agitated everyone’s onion’s. Thus, we’ve got a rematch tonight at No Mercy in the Cell, which will ensure that we get a decisive winner. There were also two additional backstories going on. The first was more soap opera, with Lesnar and Heyman paying for an actor called Tracey to pretend that she slept with Taker in order to put him off his game, and the second was that Lesnar has broken Taker’s hand by hitting it with a propane tank (I’m sure Hank Hill was disgusted to see a propane accessory used in such a manner). However, the broken hand now means that Taker gets to wear a sodding big cast that he can use as a weapon in the match itself. I actually like that as a story point; as Lesnar being a sadistic jerk has now led to his opponent having an additional offensive option in the match, and Lesnar is of course complaining about it despite it all thoroughly being his own fault. Wrestling is the ultimate morality play at the end of the day.

So right off the bat I should state that this is one of the first HIAC matches in a while where the two wrestlers remain inside the cage for the duration of the contest, which was kind of a necessary thing to do seeing as it felt like every HIAC match was built around the competitors getting out of the supposedly inescapable cage so that they could do high spots on the roof. This Cell match is designed more to be a brutal fight as opposed to a backdrop for teasing someone falling off a roof, and it works really well in that regard, as the intensity of the brawling is on point and the action itself is really gripping. Paul Heyman does an excellent job on the outside of the cage too, freaking out as Lesnar is battered and bludgeoned in the early going, with Taker using both the cage and the cast to open Lesnar up. Lesnar sells really well during that section of the bout, registering the pain and taking nice bumps, but also continuing to try and get back on his feet in order to fight back. Heyman even takes some licks during this section of the match as well, with Taker grabbing Heyman’s tie and pulling him into the cage, which leads to Heyman doing a blade job as well. This match is definitely NOT PG!

Lesnar eventually manages to catch Taker with a Stun Gun (the move, not the item) into the cage wall, and that gives us the heat segment, with Lesnar attacking the cast and also targeting Taker’s face so that everyone can bleed. This is like a warped evil episode of Oprah or something; “You get a blade job, and YOU get a blade job!”. Taker shows some genuine desperation when it looks like the cast might get ripped off, which gets across the severity of the injury because usually babyface Taker ain’t sweating stuff. They get a decent bit of mileage off that as well, with Lesnar gradually ripping and tearing more and more of the cast away whilst Taker continues to make ever more desperate attempts at fending Lesnar off in an ultimately failed effort. Once the cast is finally off, Lesnar targets the injured hand with stomps and whatnot, with Taker doing a good job of selling it. I like how you can potentially read into the idea that the shot from earlier might gradually be wearing off as well, meaning that there is a metaphorical hour glass ticking down before the appendage essentially becomes entirely useless, which just adds even more dread and trepidation to the situation.

Taker eventually manages to start fighting back again, even getting a TOPE SUICIDA out onto Lesnar at cageside. Heyman continues to be excellent, practically begging his charge to fight back “Brock we’re losing”. Heyman has been an essential part of this match working as well as it has, and the dude hasn’t even stepped foot in the cage itself! There’s a frankly brutal sequence where Lesnar just starts CLOBBERING Taker with the ring steps, with Taker taking some fantastic bumps for it and then bleeding an absolute gusher as a result of it. Taker keeps coming despite that though, and then gives Lesnar a taste of his own medicine by stomping away at Lesnar’s hand so that they can both have injuries. Speaking as someone who has broken his hand in the past, that’s not something you want to have happen to you, so seeing the stomps and attacks to that part of the body make me wince a little bit more than usual. Taker manages to get a Choke Slam with the injured hand, but it doesn’t quite have the snap it normally would, and Lesnar is able to kick out as a result. Eventually Taker tries to bust out the big guns with the Tombstone, but Lesnar gets a slick counter of slipping out and heaving Taker up into an F-5, and that’s enough for three.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: BROCK LESNAR
RATING: ****1/2

Thoughts: One heck of a brawl right there, with Lesnar going in there against the Undertaker in Taker’s own specialty match and picking up the clean win. This had everything you’d want from a big stipulation grudge match like this, as it delivered violence, blood, selling, storytelling, exciting near falls and a clean finish to draw a line under things properly. Heyman was as much a participant as the two wrestlers in the ring as well, as his reactions really added to the drama, and he even got some colour as well just for good measure. I know some at the time weren’t thrilled that Lesnar was doing these sorts of matches when it looked like he might be capable of working a more interesting technical/power style in his big Title matches, but the whole point of this match was to show that Lesnar was a versatile monster who could wrestle anyone in any style and still prevail, which this bout achieved quite nicely. It was also good to see a Cell match actually stay within the Cell itself for the duration, as fans were getting conditioned to people fighting outside the cage and flying off the top, and that just wasn’t a sustainable expectation to maintain. This was the perfect match to use to really ram that point home as well, as fighting around outside the cage and doing high spots would have detracted from the story that Lesnar and Taker were trying to tell in there and wouldn’t have really fit in with what they were doing anyway

Lesnar climbs the cage post-match for the big photo op, and they’d eventually use that as the default victory celebration for a bit whenever you won a HIAC match on the SmackDown games.

In Conclusion

The Smackdown Tag Title and Hell in a Cell matches make No Mercy 2002 an easy thumbs up. Elsewhere the card is mostly just okay, but that’s fine when you have those two matches to fall back on. What’s great about those two matches as well is that they are both awesome, yet completely different as well. The tag match is more technical and wrestling based, whilst the HIAC match is more about brawling and drama, and both totally hit the spot with what they are going for. Wrestling is at it’s best when it’s a Three Ring Circus that delivers a variety of different styles and stories, and that was certainly the case at No Mercy.

Recommended show!