Even Jericho’s late 2001 finisher, the Breakdown (Skull Crushing Finale) was nothing more than just a brief pause for the match. They worked a really fast pace, leaving little room to sell or to take their time building anything.
Having since seen their Unforgiven 2001 bout, I actually prefer that one. It’s not a bad match by any means, but it’s not the amazing match that I expected it to be. To be honest, I bought this show on PPV and my immediate reaction was that I was left a bit underwhelmed. This is the infamous match where after a review of it popped up online, Chris Jericho threw a fit because the reviewer didn’t give it a higher rating. Meanwhile, RVD defeated Eddie Guerrero and X-Pac, with X-Pac also defeating Goldust in the first round. With Valbowski defeating Christian in the first round, that portion of the SD bracket was a little Canadian bracket. To reach this point, Jericho won via forfeit over an injured Edge and then beat The Big Valbowski (A 2002 attempt to freshen Val Venis up). To say SD had a shit offering for the tournament would be a massive understatement. Chris Jericho vs Rob Van Dam - KOTR Semi-Finalsįor the first, and thus far only, time ever, the KOTR was split up into a couple of brackets to allow for Smackdown and Raw to have their own first two rounds before the semi-finals led to Raw and Smackdown finally colliding.
