Triple Threat WWE Title Match: WWE Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin def. Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam
WCW Title Match: Chris Jericho def. WCW Champion The Rock to win the title
The Undertaker vs. Booker T
WWE Tag Title Match: The Dudley Boyz def. The Big Show and Tajiri
Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Title: Edge def. Intercontinental Champion Christian to win the title
Lingerie Match: Torrie Wilson def. Stacy Keibler
Test def. Kane
WCW Tag Team Title Match: WCW Tag Champions The Hardy Boyz def. Lance Storm and Hurricane Helms.
One of the more underrated pay-per-views of all-time, No Mercy in 2001 emanated from the Savvis Center in St. Louis, Missouri and featured two legitimate main events as Chris Jericho challenged The Rock for the WCW Championship and Stone Cold Steve Austin defended the WWE Championship against Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam in a triple threat match.
Unlike other October pay-per-views on this list, the 2001 installment of No Mercy featured a consistently solid card from top to bottom with no match being actively bad. The Hardy Boyz defending their WCW Tag Team Championship against The Hurricane and Lance Storm got the night off to brisk start while Kane and Test brought the hard-hitting offense one match later. Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler, former friends in the ECW-WCW Alliance, settled their differences in the first-ever Lingerie Match.
Edge and Christian brought their sibling rivalry to a close in a ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, a match type both were extremely familiar with, while the Dudley Boyz retained their WWE Tag Team Championship over the make-shift duo of Tajiri and the Big Show. Undertaker successfully represented WWE in their war with the Alliance, defeating Booker T.
The main events had a lot to follow as fans had enjoyed a very entertaining, very solid pay-per-view event up to that point. Luckily for Vince McMahon’s company, his main event scene featured some of the all-time great performers, all capable of delivering “Match of the Year” candidates at any given point. Chris Jericho and The Rock did just that in their first high-profile pay-per-view bout against one another. Jericho proved himself as a main event performer and The Rock showed that filming The Scorpion King could not slow down what had been a phenomenal year for “The Great One.”
Arguably the wrestler of the year, Stone Cold Steve Austin continued a hot streak in 2001 with a win over Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam in a triple threat match for the WWE Championship. Working banged up and bruised for the better part of the summer and fall months, Austin did not let that get in the way of delivering a quality title bout and Angle and Van Dam, arguably the two hottest stars in the company by the time No Mercy rolled around, filled their roles to perfection.
No Mercy 2001 is the greatest October pay-per-view in WWE history because it was a perfectly structured show with quality bouts from top-to-bottom. Even matches such as Kane versus Test and the WWE Tag Team Championship bout, which do not seem to be strong on paper, turned out to be solid bouts with satisfying results. Add all of that up and toss in a few performers at the very top of their game and you have the perfect recipe for a very good pay-per-view event.
