Live Feed Mania: WWF Smackdown 02.06.01
By Maffew Gregg on 18 June 2025
WWF @ Charleston, SC – Coliseum – February 6, 2001 (9,357; sell out)
We’re on the way to No Way Out!
Dark Match!
Scott Vick vs. Steve Bradley
Sick Boy returns to dark match action. Him and Bradley would wrestle each other a bunch in untelevised encounters for the Fed during this period. Bradley’s dressed more like Sick Boy then Vick. Vick fakes a knee injury on a leapfrog early to get the advantage. That was a very convincing fake-out too, who does that spot in a dark match? Vick heels away on Bradley while working on his left knee. This is solid but goes on for a while with no-one in the crowd wanting to get behind Bradley. Vick taunts the crowd which allows Bradley to sneak attack but then he’s too busy selling his knee to capitalize. Crowd chant BORING because this is going nowhere until Bradley converts a Figure Four into a roll-up to a big pop because the match is over. This was like a HHH main event try-out.
Dark Match!
Onyx vs. David Young
Onyx of the original Black Out! He’s jacked too, “black out” must refer to blocking the sun whenever he goes outside. He gels well with future Diamond In The Rough member Young as they exchange fast-paced cruiserweight feeling out process followed by a dive from Onyx to the outside. David (wearing ugly yellow and black tights) lands a nice spinning elbow but generally appears chubby and unhappier. Sweet Frankensteiner into a running Powerbomb from the man though, followed by Onyx landing a Missile Dropkick and a proper Frankensteiner. An Implant DDT wins it for Onyx and that was a nice, brief, smooth encounter. Unsure why this didn’t lead for anything more for either guy.
Coachman heads outside by himself and gets set up, telling whoever it is on the head-set that Kevin Kelly isn’t here yet but they’re looking for him backstage. Coachman says hi to the Mayor Of Charleston and then says Kelly is milking it because of how long he’s taking.
Kai En Tai (Taka Michinoku & Sho Funaki) vs. The Undertaker & Kane
TAKA’s voiceover explains they have decided to issue an EVIL open challenge so whoever accepts better be ready to die. Crowd goes nuts for the Brothers Of Destruction because it’s wild having headliners out this early. Undi chases Kai En Tai with his push bike as both lads are hamming it up. TAKA doesn’t want to get in the ring so Kane pulls him in and has his merry way with them. One handed chokeslam should end it but Funaki saves his mate. Undi gets a great stare and then somehow fucks up a chokeslam on Funaki. Undi does it again, so then both lads go for Last Rides…and Kane awkwardly drops TAKA while bumping on his knees. So they repeat THAT spot too for the easy & loud win.
Wait a minute, I remember a match between these two teams months later that saw Undi teach Kane how to do a Last Ride, I had no idea until now it was based on this debacle.
Kelly has arrived at ringside to tell everyone he was doing a pre-tape and apologises for killing Coach’s pop.
Haku (w/ Rikishi) vs. Scotty 2 Hotty (w/ Grandmaster Sexay)
Are they trying to see who can book the most overpowered squashes tonight? Haku flails his hands around while the crowd chant for Scotty. Haku chokes Hotty before missing an elbow, allowing Hotty to go for the bulldog…which Haku dodges with ease to lock in the Tongan Death Grip to the easy win. OK that tease was well done, that got me. Sexay does his best to get Haku off his mate but Haku doesn’t notice his offence, so Rikishi nails him with the ass. Very effective squash, shame Haku’s 2001 run was forgettable.
Crash Holly (w/ Molly Holly) vs. Albert
These guys wrestled each other on TV more than Cena and Orton. Crowd loves Elroy. Albert launches Crash across the ring but he keeps coming back quickly. Crash takes Albert down to the mat where Albert also has the advantage with punches. Crowd laughed at that. Crash gets crotched and pushed outside, with poor Crash’s legs getting caught up in the ropes and he lands upside down. Ow. Albert Reverse Suplexes him back inside but can’t pin the little frigger. Albert locks in a bearhug so Crash bites to escape to the crowd’s glee. Crash then bounces off Albert after a crossbody off the top in a bump that had to suck. But he gets back up and dropkicks Albert to finally knock him off his feet as Crash is now bleeding. So Albert mercy kills this by landing a Baldo Bomb. Crash was bumping for the entire Holly clan out there and the crowd appreciated him. They’d have appreciated him a lot more if he’d won but there’s that hot Albert singles push to consider.
WWF World Champion Kurt Angle vs. Essa Rios
Non-title and oh boy, Essa is wearing his finest “Buff Bagwell when he’s not winning” face. Kurt explains he’s giving Essa getting this special non-title shot so he can tell his illegitimate grand kids how far he got in life.
Kurt stomps away on Essa and drops him with a back suplex. Essa lands on his feet to deliver a spinning leg kick to get the crowd excited but Kurt instantly delivers an overhead and a quick “woo!” Crowd very loudly chants “ANGLE SUCKS” which distracts him long enough for Essa to backflip over him and land a quick fall-forward slam for two. Kurt goes up top so Essa can land a double-jump Frankensteiner which Kurt very politely giving Essa the Kurt Angle Kick Out at 3.1 which annoys the crowd to no end. Essa tries the Essa Rios Moonsault but Kurt gets his knees up, somehow not shattering his legs in the process. A quick Angle Slam ends a very spirited 3:22. There was no need for Kurt to give Essa this much but he did and that’s why we love him.
Kurt then delivers another Angle Slam and after the crowd showers him with chants of “ROCKY”, delivers a third out of spite.
That was quite the loaded episode of Heat, I wonder why they went that hard?
Ring canvas gets changed but no video or Titantron plays for the crowd so it’s just ASMR clanging turnbuckles for five minutes.
We start off with Vince McMahon and his tumbler. If Vince had a tumblr it’d be filled with fan art of Dick Ebersol. Vince says if you know him, you know he’s all about being fair. We sadly know plenty more than that about you. On Raw, there was an incident involving The Big Show and The Rock that was anything but fair, and we get footage of Show taking The Rock out of the main event tag match. Vince says that wasn’t fair and Rock should be the Number One Contender for Angle’s WWF Title, or should it be Big Show? Hey why not settle it tonight, winner gets Angle at NWO! They wrestled at NWO 2000 over fairness issues too, good to see WWF doing their bit for recycling.
Oh also in that tag match, HHH took a swing at Austin but Austin ducked. That would been career suicide says Vince, as he’s made it clear their match at NWO is only happening if neither man touches the other until the PPV. Vince accepts some blame for putting them in a match together, so tonight both men will get to pick a representative to wrestle for them tonight, with the winner getting to pick the stipulation for their PPV match. So it’s Pick Your Poison.
Vince asks for a volunteer so we get William Regal accompanied by Trish Stratus aka “his little crumpet”. Regal says he’s a bit tired due to a lack of sleep nudge nudge know what i mean know what i mean. Trish pulls two balls out and Vince says “those look nice in your hands.” How many times did they do that bit with the tumbler over the years? Anyway Austin’s representative will be The One Billy Gunn! Who gets a decent pop because the crowd love his theme song. HHH’s rep is the IC Champ Chris Jericho! Ah.
Regal kisses Trish in front of Vince who’s mask slips and gets mad for a few seconds before going back to being calm. Yeah that mask ended up sticking for a few decades. HHH is shown backstage being furious at having Jericho as pick, with Steph also furious at that crumpet Trish. Decent start to the show.
Stacker 2 presents: Eddy Guerrero returning on Raw to Frog Splash the IC Title right into Jericho’s face.
The Radicalz (Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn) (w/ Terri) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Matt & Jeff) (w/ Lita)
This match is brought to you by Saving Silverman, Chef Boyardee Overstuffed Ravioli and Seganet? Wow that’s a flash in the pan, Sega’s online support for Dreamcast that was discontinued after eleven months, almost as long as Malenko’s run in WWF.
The Hardys get distracted by Malenko’s separate entrance which allows Benoit and Saturn to attack from behind. Wait the Malenko/Lita feud was still going? Saturn fires snot rockets to start before getting confused by Jeff’s blind tag and escape out the ring. Matt leg drops Saturn which causes Benoit to take over. Terri grabs Matt’s foot to help out but I don’t think Benoit needed any assistance taking apart Matt here. Benoit and Saturn get a sweet Knee Drop variation of the Demolition Decapitation tribute but Matt is able to kick out. Saturn counters an up-and-cover into a slam but Saturn keeps on him. Benoit lands Air Canada but eventually Matt’s able to land an iffy top rope moonsault to Saturn to hot tag in Jeff who lands all the headscissors and legdrops and Whisper in the wind.
Double flapjack for Saturn, Poetry in motion and a Twist of Fate to Benoit. Jeff swanton and that’s such a hot finishing streak that it can only mean it can’t be the win for The Hardys. And sure enough, Terri distracts Lita, Dean grabs Lita, Matt tries to stop Dean, Jeff gets dunked by Saturn who then taps out to the Crossface at 6:21. The good ol’ Hardys finish! Land a dozen moves, get distracted by a set of car keys, lose anyway. Good action even if the feud is death, with Matt doing the majority of the work so poor Jeff can recover from a taking a fall off the stage last week.
XFL commercial wants to brag about the insane ratings they got for their debut game. And you know what, fair enough.
Backstage, Trish reminds Regal to never kiss her again. Steph shows up to tell Regal she knows him and Trish are pretending to be together to cover for Vince’s relationship with Trish. Regal can’t believe it, he loves that buxom wench! Steph lets Regal know he doesn’t want her as an enemy. Crowd OOooOOOos that.
Al Snow bothers Vince in a hallway about Mick Foley. Vince is so furious at Al talking to him that he makes a match for him right now so he needs to get dressed. He is dressed, he’s wearing the WWF Attitude shirt aka the kiss of death!
HHH goes to see Billy Gunn (who is wearing a XFL Shirt, aka the peck on the cheek of death). HHH knows they’ve had their issues but eh that’s all in the past so could you take a dive for me tonight pretty please? Billy declines because of their past issues so HHH tries to remove Billy’s short term memory with a fire extinguisher to the back of the head like in Irreversible.
Rikishi (w/ Haku) vs. Al Snow
Al Snow is ready for his match and how great would it be if he represented HHH instead of Billy? Sadly no, it’s Rikishi to zero crowd reaction because it’s his second appearance tonight. Al gets a really nice counter to an Irish whip by going through Kishi’s legs then hitting a DDT. Sadly for Al, Rikishi is Samoan and no-sells to DDT Snow and use THE ASS to win at 1:24. Haku locks in the Tongan Death Grip for good measure. Cole doesn’t know what to call it as usual.
Backstage, Coach asks Vince what’s happening with Billy Gunn. Vince says he’s not used to being asked that question he doesn’t like being disrespected so HHH can represent himself to wrestle Jericho (who is now representing Austin) instead.
Commercial for Chyna: If They Only Knew. I remember that being very negatively received.
Weider Results presents: Undi & Kane losing their title shots to The Dudley Boyz on Raw courtesy of chair shots from E & C.
WWF Tag Team Titles
The Dudley Boyz (c) (Bubba Ray & D-Von Dudley) vs. Edge & Christian
E & C don’t look thrilled to be here or maybe it’s their attempt at looking serious. It needs work. Duds clear the ring to start as we’re informed TLC 1 was voted by the fans as the MOTY 2000. A very deserving winner. Duds take apart E & C as the crowd demand tables. Christian bounces D-Von’s head off the top rope to get the advantage for a bit with solid offence while Bubba boils on the apron like a kettle. The Canucks attempt their older Murderplex double team which ends with D-Von pushing them away so it turns into a self-destructing Doomsday Device. It would have hurt them more if they’d hit the move as intended.
Bubba gets the hot tag as the crowd is going BANANA. The Duds land all their cool moves including the Bubba Bomb and WASSUUUP. Christian messes up their timing by interrupting the “get the tables bit” which is just rude and allows Edge to spear Bubba. Bubba comes back with a supleplex which leaves him wide open for an Unpretttier as it looks like E & C have a shot at winning the titles but instead Undi & Kane run out to chokeslam Edge to end the match via DQ for them again at 7:04.
The Duds are pissed at Undi who stands there trying to look cool until he spits his tobacco onto D-Von which naturally results in The Brothers Of Destruction delivering chokeslams. At least the selfish wankers managed to land them correctly.
Backstage, E & C bitch to Vince so he lets the pair of them host Sunday Night Heat this week. Oh and also E & C will take on Undi & Kane on Raw and the winner of that gets The Duds at NWO. Well I think we can figure out the finish from what we just saw.
Hardcore Holly (w/ Molly Holly) vs. WWF Hardcore Champion Raven
We get clips of The Black Ninja showing up on Raw to take out Molly Holly. And by “take out” I mean “got beat up until Raven saved her.”
Raven misses with the fire extinguisher (twice in one night?) to start before accidentally bonking himself with a chair. Holly kicks Raven in the sometimes-a-low-blow-sometimes-not as the commentators talk about XFL. This turns into bash bash bash bash with objects and the crowd aren’t fussed about any of it. They don’t even pop for the drop toe hold into a chair. Hardcore lands a shoddy Falcon Arrow out of nowhere for the win at 2:26 as cameras were distracted by The Black Ninja showing up at ringside to film the title change. Pain by numbers.
Raven saves The Ninja from an attack from Molly allowing Hardcore to get distracted so The Ninja can break a 2×4 over Holly’s head to allow Raven to regain the title. The Ninja sure was useless huh?
The Kat is playing strip poker with The APA and Jacky. Big Brad loses the hand and takes off his shirt. Kat’s like it’s ok we can get naked later because that’s her whole gimmick to spite the PTC I guess?
On Raw, Kat wanted to set up her own stable called THE RIGHT TO NUDITY causing Steven Richards to charge the ring and get sexually assaulted by Kat and normally assaulted by Bradshaw. Steven tells Kevin Kelly that he was disgusted that Kat kissed him on Raw. He knows that we start life naked but we also start life innocent. RTC is so evil they even vow to take on the XFL too! Ah just wait a few week mate.
Right To Censor (Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan, The Goodfather, & WWF Women’s Champion Ivory) vs. The Acolytes (Faarooq & Bradshaw) Jackie, & The Kat
I can’t believe this one-note joke lasted this long, thank God they were mercy killed at Wrestlemania. Lawler starts off saying Kat just wants the rights to bare her arms…her legs, her chest and everything else. Urgh.
Faarooq takes ten seconds of offence before stopping until he tags in his mate Bradshaw for more no selling. Great dynamic they have. Ivory blind tags in to take on The Kat. Jacky comes in instead to launch Ivory around until Steven grabs her foot. Jacky recovers quickly and then it all breaks down with everyone spilling in as Bull misses a clothesline on Jacky to run into a Bradshaw lariat. Finally Kat gets her shot to hit a DDT on Ivory and follows it up with a Bronco Buster while Lawler yeets everywhere. Everything Kat does makes her look untrained so thankfully it’s only those two spots and then Ivory gets a dirty pin to win at 4:02. Shite.
XFL is featured in Sports Illustrated! We’ll ignore the tag line describing it as “Cheap Thrills.”
Oh and we get the dramatic recap of the historic New York/New Jersey Hitmen vs. Las Vegas Outlaws. No coin tosses, its all rough tackles and concussions! And sexy cheerleaders!! And Lawler & Ross commentating!!! 54 million viewers, suck it everyone!!!! Cole says “and it can only get better from here” and we’ll move on so we can all have a good laugh.
Triple H (w/ Stephanie McMahon) vs. WWF IC Champion Chris Jericho
Jericho says it’s appropriate that this match came from a lottery as his wife is like one:
They’ve both been played by everyone, they both only costs a dollar but the difference is that with Steph, you always get lucky! Hey that was pretty good by Jericho’s usual woman-bashing.
It’s fast to start as HHH could keep up with Jericho in 2001 because he’s still human. Jericho nearly gets in the Walls early before using his 1998 WCW offence to knock HHH off the apron. Jericho reverses a whip into the ring steps with a flying elbow and this run ends with HHH side-stepping a missile dropkick. Steph attempts to slap Jericho but he grabs her arm so HHH saves by uhhh launching Steph to the floor. She’s OK though, HHH’s knee-based offence keeps her happy. HHH gets distracted by the crowd which allows Jericho to land a top rope Frankensteiner. Sneaky roll-up nearly ends it as Jericho is very cruiserweight out here. HHH keeps kicking out of offence that would have seen off Super Calo until Eddy runs out to distract Jericho, who lands on HHH’s knees allowing a pedigree to give HHH the win and the stips at 7:20.
Immediately afterwards, Austin heads out as commentators remind us that they’ll both lose their match and be suspended if there’s any contact. So Austin offers HHH a beer instead, with Eddy demanding a brew because he helped. Austin stunners Eddy which felt a bit forced but Austin’s gotta stun someone I guess. Jericho takes advantage of this to stick HHH in the Walls so Austin can pour beer on HHH and yell at him. That was better and hey, remember when Jericho would get to look strong on HHH?
Live Feed Exclusive: Steve Austin throws beers into the crowd. HHH mouths off and dares him to come back so Austin does…and then runs away to frustrate HHH before lying on the floor and drinking more beer while grinning. Ha!
Gary & Mike go to Vegas, which allows Lawler to give us his advice for Blackjack: Never hit on 21. As if Lawler would ever go that high.
Backstage, Vince is on the phone while talking about the upcoming XFL games blahblahblah and then he inexcusably makes another Pick Your Poison match for Raw, with Rikishi repping Austin and The Rock repping HHH with the winner getting to make the stip for NWO. But, we just had that match for that exact thing? Maybe Vince was paying too much attention to the Memphis Maniax.
Backstage, Kurt can’t find his brand new shirt and asks Essa Rios if he saw it. Essa denies the charge but Angle can smell alcohol on his breath so he accuses Essa of selling his shirt to buy tequila. Angle asks Essa to go buy him a shirt, and if he comes back in five minutes he can keep the change and use it for tacos. Essa declines and wants a match instead. “Now I know you’ve been drinking!” says Kurt. Only Kurt could make a dumb thing like this work.
Backstage, The Rock tells Kelly that a lot of things have changed with Show since he returned but one thing hasn’t changed…you don’t mess with The Rock. So Show’s got a shot tonight but it ain’t happening tonight. No way! Rock’s going to win whether he wants to or not as this was a more serious, focused Rock promo with no Show mocking which is for the best in the long run.
The Rock vs. The Big Show
Kurt heads out to do commentary. I loved his tracksuit/WWF title look. Kurt plugs his match with Essa on Sunday Night Heat, the one that’s hosted by E & C. Like Crush’s guns, that show is loaded.
Big Show is wearing an unflattering low shorts look. It looks like he ate the top half of his gear. Rock slaps him around the outside to start as the crowd cheer wildly. Show reverses an Irish Whip into the guard rail but Rock won’t stop launching Show into stuff. Show squeezes in a bear hug to slow it down. Kurt doesn’t think Rock’s that great because he was able to beat him at No Mercy. It’s true. Kurt tells Cole to shut up which is enough to give Rock the power to escape the bear hug but falls victim to The Final Cut. Rock’s too close to the ropes though. Rock somehow someway dodges out the way of a corner charge to knock Show down after multiple clotheslines.
Show blocks the Rock Bottom by shoving him out the ring. Crowd were ready for that and aren’t happy. Show gets the announce table but Angle is disgusted by his lack of integrity and calls him a “seven foot pile of crap” so Show sends him into the crowd. Rock slaps Show and his girdle through the announce table by punching him a bunch of times. That was a nice bump.
Show recovers though and slams The Rock back into the ring. Show has been made to look amazingly strong here. Rock punches him in the balls and then DDTs Show to set up the People’s Elbow with the crowd on fire…but Big Show kicks out of it! Cole says no-one has kicked out of that before. I’m not sure about that exactly, but it was definitely not a common thing. Show instantly gets up to chokeslam a stunned Rock, but manages to hit the ref as he rises. An angry Kurt absolutely twats Big Show with two chair shots to the head with neither being able to send him down despite bending the chair in half. Rock interrupts to send Kurt outside and then takes advantage of the situation to land a Rock Bottom onto the chair and in the highlight of the night: Show’s so big that his backfat engulfs the chair so the ref doesn’t see it and counts 1-2-3 to send Rock to NWO at 9:22.
And then Show still recovers before The Rock does so he can chokeslam Kurt and then Rock too because fuck him.
I could not believe how strong they booked Big Show here. Regardless of the poor look and his lack of shape, Rock treated this match as if he was wrestling the Colossus Of Rhodes and sold his arse off while Show would not stop coming for him. Rock treating Show seriously was a welcome change from all the times he didn’t and boy was it effective here.
Live Feed Post Show Stuff
Rock attacks Kurt and poses with his belt but drapes it over him once he leaves cos Rock’s no thief. Then Cole and Lawler re-record some lines for clarity. Chimel reminds the crowd that Kurt’s still champ, then E & C re-record their backstage bit from earlier cos Vince stumbled over his words earlier. Feed ends with Vince saying “was that better Shane?”
Overall: God there was a lot of weak stuff on this show considering how strong the PPVs were during this time. Non-stop RTC and XFL rubbish. Great main event to see one of those rare moments where Show looked impressive pre-2009.
I’ve been maffew.