Well, Triple H won the vacant WWE Title, the reformed New Age Outlaws retained the tag belts and Al Snow and Big Boss Man took part in one of the worst gimmick matches in history at this decent, but not great PPV show.
The big storyline coming into this match revolved around the WWE Title. Triple H had been decidedly unhappy after Mankind rudely stole the pin off him in the triple threat world championship match at Summerslam, and so he attacked poor Howard Finkel to force Mankind to put his title on the line the following night on RAW. Triple H defeated Mankind for the title and in the meantime Mideon and Viscera had interrupted a 5 man No.1 contender's match between Undertaker, Rock, Big Show, Mankind and Kane, leading to all five men being named No.1 contenders and the decision to have a six pack challenge match for the WWE Title at the Unforgiven PPV. After the match, the men involved assaulted a group of referees, who then went on strike. With the referees on strike Triple H then lost the title to Vince McMahon, with Shane as the guest ref. Vince relinquished the belt soon afterwards and inserted Triple H in the match for the vacant WWE Title, right before firing the Undertaker for refusing to wrestle Triple H and the British Bulldog was added to the match instead. All the referees refused to adjudicate the match following the violence at the end of the No.1 contender match and so Steve Austin was installed as the guest referee. With only one referee not striking there were many guest refs on this show.
The night started off with Steve Blackman continuing his PPV losing streak, this time going down to Val Venis, returning to PPV after a noticeable absence. Blackman knocked out Venis after the match after Val had attempted to jump him from behind. Refereeing for us here was The Brooklyn Brawler.
next two matches contributed little of value with D Lo Brown winning the European Championship from Mark Henry in a poor match refereed by Jimy Corderas, the only ref who wasn't on strike, and Jeff Jarrett successfully defending the Intercontinental Championship against Chyna of all people. Well, actually Chyna did pin Jarrett following a guitar shot from Jarrett's former valet Debra, but the referee Harvey Wippleman (the man who would soon become the only male to hold the WWE Women's Championship under his alter ego Hervina) reversed his decision and awarded Jarrett the victory by DQ and so he kept his title.
The next match saw the Acolytes defeat the Dudley Boyz, making their WWE PPV debut in a not great match decided by interference from former ECW wrestler Stevie Richards. The Dudleyz had also come in from ECW where they had been a big hit and their table fetish would eventually work for the WWE audience too. But it was slow going near the start. Corderas again had the refereeing gig. The match occurred because the Dudleyz had interfered in a No.1 contender's match, costing the Acolytes a title shot.
The next match saw Ivory (whom I always had a soft spot for) pin Luna Vachon with that man again Harvey Wippleman as the guest referee.
Next up saw the reformed New Age Outlaws defeat Edge and Christian after interference by the Hardy Boyz to retain their tag belts. Korderas again was the referee.
The next match was the infamous Kennel from Hell match which saw Snow defeat the Big Boss Man to retain the Hardcore Title (that he had been awarded by the British Bulldog and hadn't won to begin with) was wrong for many reasons. For starters the match occurred because Big Boss Man kidnapped Al Snow dog Pepper, turned it into a hamburger and fed it to Snow as a snack. To win the match you basically need to escape the inner cage around the ring and then make your way out of a second cage filled with dogs. But these dogs aren't salivating, barking and vicious. Their activities involved urinating, defecating and allegedly fornicating. Anyway, Snow won be escaping the second cage. No referee was needed.
Next match saw Chris Jericho make his PPV debut and lose by DQ to X-Pac after Jericho's bodyguard Mr Hughes clobbered guest ref Tom Prichard. Not an auspicious PPV debut for Jericho. Jericho's place in the match was originally going to go to Ken Shamrock, but he had left the WWE after being badly injured (he was actually returning to MMA).
Next up was the six pack challenge match. In this match men stood in each of the four corners of the ring and had to be tagged in and out to enter the match. There were a lot of blind tags, guys getting punched in the face and the back as a tag and other shenanigans. the result was an entertaining match won by Triple H with Austin reluctantly counting the 3 after the British Bulldog had run wild late in the match with a steel chair. Austin clobbered the British Bulldog with a steel chair of his own and then saw Triple H making the cover on the Rock and counted the three. Triple H's second WWE Championship was his first title win of any significance (his previous one happened on RAW and lasted only a few days). He didn't have long to celebrate though with Austin hitting him with a stunner as the PPV went off the air.
So this was a much improved PPV show on their recent efforts and set up a great PPV the following month. Snow and Bossman's ridiculous rivalry was over and there was a genuine feeling of optimism going forward. The would soon regain its focus, and that was just what the company needed with their main competition WCW already struggling.
The big storyline coming into this match revolved around the WWE Title. Triple H had been decidedly unhappy after Mankind rudely stole the pin off him in the triple threat world championship match at Summerslam, and so he attacked poor Howard Finkel to force Mankind to put his title on the line the following night on RAW. Triple H defeated Mankind for the title and in the meantime Mideon and Viscera had interrupted a 5 man No.1 contender's match between Undertaker, Rock, Big Show, Mankind and Kane, leading to all five men being named No.1 contenders and the decision to have a six pack challenge match for the WWE Title at the Unforgiven PPV. After the match, the men involved assaulted a group of referees, who then went on strike. With the referees on strike Triple H then lost the title to Vince McMahon, with Shane as the guest ref. Vince relinquished the belt soon afterwards and inserted Triple H in the match for the vacant WWE Title, right before firing the Undertaker for refusing to wrestle Triple H and the British Bulldog was added to the match instead. All the referees refused to adjudicate the match following the violence at the end of the No.1 contender match and so Steve Austin was installed as the guest referee. With only one referee not striking there were many guest refs on this show.
The night started off with Steve Blackman continuing his PPV losing streak, this time going down to Val Venis, returning to PPV after a noticeable absence. Blackman knocked out Venis after the match after Val had attempted to jump him from behind. Refereeing for us here was The Brooklyn Brawler.
next two matches contributed little of value with D Lo Brown winning the European Championship from Mark Henry in a poor match refereed by Jimy Corderas, the only ref who wasn't on strike, and Jeff Jarrett successfully defending the Intercontinental Championship against Chyna of all people. Well, actually Chyna did pin Jarrett following a guitar shot from Jarrett's former valet Debra, but the referee Harvey Wippleman (the man who would soon become the only male to hold the WWE Women's Championship under his alter ego Hervina) reversed his decision and awarded Jarrett the victory by DQ and so he kept his title.
The next match saw the Acolytes defeat the Dudley Boyz, making their WWE PPV debut in a not great match decided by interference from former ECW wrestler Stevie Richards. The Dudleyz had also come in from ECW where they had been a big hit and their table fetish would eventually work for the WWE audience too. But it was slow going near the start. Corderas again had the refereeing gig. The match occurred because the Dudleyz had interfered in a No.1 contender's match, costing the Acolytes a title shot.
The next match saw Ivory (whom I always had a soft spot for) pin Luna Vachon with that man again Harvey Wippleman as the guest referee.
Next up saw the reformed New Age Outlaws defeat Edge and Christian after interference by the Hardy Boyz to retain their tag belts. Korderas again was the referee.
The next match was the infamous Kennel from Hell match which saw Snow defeat the Big Boss Man to retain the Hardcore Title (that he had been awarded by the British Bulldog and hadn't won to begin with) was wrong for many reasons. For starters the match occurred because Big Boss Man kidnapped Al Snow dog Pepper, turned it into a hamburger and fed it to Snow as a snack. To win the match you basically need to escape the inner cage around the ring and then make your way out of a second cage filled with dogs. But these dogs aren't salivating, barking and vicious. Their activities involved urinating, defecating and allegedly fornicating. Anyway, Snow won be escaping the second cage. No referee was needed.
Next match saw Chris Jericho make his PPV debut and lose by DQ to X-Pac after Jericho's bodyguard Mr Hughes clobbered guest ref Tom Prichard. Not an auspicious PPV debut for Jericho. Jericho's place in the match was originally going to go to Ken Shamrock, but he had left the WWE after being badly injured (he was actually returning to MMA).
Next up was the six pack challenge match. In this match men stood in each of the four corners of the ring and had to be tagged in and out to enter the match. There were a lot of blind tags, guys getting punched in the face and the back as a tag and other shenanigans. the result was an entertaining match won by Triple H with Austin reluctantly counting the 3 after the British Bulldog had run wild late in the match with a steel chair. Austin clobbered the British Bulldog with a steel chair of his own and then saw Triple H making the cover on the Rock and counted the three. Triple H's second WWE Championship was his first title win of any significance (his previous one happened on RAW and lasted only a few days). He didn't have long to celebrate though with Austin hitting him with a stunner as the PPV went off the air.
So this was a much improved PPV show on their recent efforts and set up a great PPV the following month. Snow and Bossman's ridiculous rivalry was over and there was a genuine feeling of optimism going forward. The would soon regain its focus, and that was just what the company needed with their main competition WCW already struggling.