Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on September 11th, 2001?
I remember waking up to the sound of my cell phone ringing, seeing my friend’s name and face pop up on the caller ID. It wasn’t strange to receive a phone call from her, but I remember finding it weird that it was happening so early in the morning. It wasn’t even 3am, but I answered, anyway, and I remember my friend telling me to turn on the news.
I don’t remember which station I was watching, but I know I was still half-asleep, trying to figure out what was happening. One of the World Trade Center towers had been hit by a plane, and everyone was scrambling as they tried to figure out what happened. Was it pilot error? Did a plane run out of fuel? Was it a hijacking?
Then we saw the second tower get hit by a plane live before our very eyes.
In an instant, the entire world changed.
As time went by, and with seemingly everything in the United States being canceled or postponed out of fear and precaution, people began to wonder if we would ever return to some sense of normalcy.
Well, leave it to pro wrestling to bring that sense of normalcy back to one of the wildest and most chaotic times in the history of this country.
Two days after the attacks in New York, when people were still afraid to convene in any sort of large group that could be considered a new “target” for terrorists, the World Wrestling Federation aired their latest episode of Smackdown from the Compaq Center in Houston, Texas. Over 12,000 fans were in attendance that night, and I distinctly remember people calling Vince McMahon just about every name in the book for deciding to continue on with the show. He was “crazy” for doing so. He was “arrogant” for wanting his name and his company in the headlines. He was an “asshole” for essentially asking the terrorists to come after our country and attack us again, putting his employees and all those fans in danger.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Smackdown that night. Were we going to get a “regular” episode, with matches and storylines that continued the build for the upcoming Unforgiven pay-per-view? Would it be an episode similar to the Owen Hart tribute two years prior, where stories were paused and everyone just went out there to show love for Owen, with the United States playing the role of Owen Hart for the night?
What followed was one of the most surreal episodes of WWF/WWE programming I’ve ever seen.
We started with Vince McMahon dressed like he came straight out of a Tommy Bahama catalog, delivering a “rah-rah” speech about how we, the United States Of America, would not live our lives in fear. One thing you can never take away from Vince is his ability to get reactions on the mic. He was definitely able to get that crowd fired up during his brief speech. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he was able to convince someone in the crowd, or watching at home, to run out and join the military so that they could fight for the country in a literal sense.
After the Smackdown intro aired, we returned to see The Rock leading the roster down the ramp. Many of them had tears in their eyes, and even more were holding miniature American flags in their hands. It was our first sign that this wouldn’t be a “regular” episode. Heels and faces alike were standing together, with Jim Ross pointing out on commentary that members of the WWE and members of The Alliance were joining forces to pay tribute to the country.
Next up, Lilian Garcia sang an emotional rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, leading to even more tears from many in attendance, including Lilian herself. It was one of those magical moments that played up everyone’s patriotism and even jingoism, and she really hit it out of the park with her performance.
Like we saw during the Owen Hart tribute episode of Raw, we got a bunch of pre-taped backstage videos where different on and off-screen employees of the company got to speak from the heart about their feelings after what happened two days earlier. Many tears were shed, and many rousing speeches were made. Some were more “gentle” than others, while some folks, like Taz, basically called for the deaths of those responsible for the terrorist acts. JBL (still known as Bradshaw then) used the tried-and-true threat of saying that America was going to find whatever country was responsible for the attacks, and we would turn said country into a parking lot, and that probably got the biggest pop of any speech all night long.
Then, everything went off the rails with one video from Stephanie McMahon.
She immediately began talking about the infamous steroid trials that her father went through years prior. She talked about how people tried to destroy her family by attacking them and their reputation, but those people failed, because they only made the McMahon family stronger. That was her immediate comparison to what happened on September 11th, pointing out that people tried attacking the United States, but those people would fail, because they were only going to make America stronger. Unlike a lot of people, I don’t think she necessarily meant to come across the way she did that night. She was young, she was emotional, and she dug down deep to come up with another tragedy she could talk about. It just happens that her choice made her seem completely tone deaf, and she still catches shit for it, all these years later.
All in all, this is never something that would be considered a “good” episode of Smackdown. You certainly aren’t going to get a ton of great in-ring work. There were nine matches during the show, and none of them went over five minutes in length. While it wasn’t necessarily good, it was absolutely important. One of the most important episodes in the history of Smackdown, and one you should definitely watch once if you haven’t already done so.
When this column goes live, it will be September 11th, 22 years after the horrific events in New York City. There will be all sorts of tributes everywhere you look, whether you want to see them or not. I wanted to take a break from talking about what we’re seeing every week, and what we could be seeing in the future, to talk about a topical subject. This particular episode of Smackdown was something I saw being talked about on Facebook, so I headed over to Peacock and watched it again. It’s not something I plan on doing again. As I said, it wasn’t a high quality episode of pro wrestling television, but it’s worth checking out if you haven’t already done so. Once you’ve seen it, though, there just isn’t much reason to watch it again unless you, too, are writing about it on the 9/11 anniversary in the future.
Be good to each other, folks. Hug your loved ones a little harder. Tell the people you love how you feel. With this stuff fresh on our minds, and with everything we’ve experienced over the last week or so with wrestlers leaving us far too soon, it’s important to remember that tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us, and you simply don’t know what the future holds.
Weekly Power Rankings
Gunther vs Chad Gable: The build for the match made it feel special, and the match itself ended up being special. Gable continued to look like an absolute star, even in a losing effort. Gunther is now the longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion of all-time, but in a post-show interview, Gable says that his story with Gunther isn’t over. When all of this started, I saw a lot of people predict that Gunther would beat Gable, go on to break The Honky Tonk Man’s record, and then drop the title to Gable at a later date. That may very well be the direction WWE is going. We’ll probably find out tonight, as Imperium has a celebration planned for Gunther on Raw.
Darby Allin vs Roderick Strong: It isn’t saying much because he has never been known for this part of pro wrestling, but Roddy is putting on the best character work of his entire career right now. He has been so good and so entertaining in his role as Adam Cole’s jealous friend. It is placing him in a higher profile spot, and he is delivering in the ring, as always.
Penta El Zero Miedo vs Samoa Joe: It took a little while, but Samoa Joe really seems to be returning to the dominant force that he has been for most of his career. He is turning the clock back, both with his in-ring work and his promo work, and he is becoming a bigger piece of AEW’s puzzle. It is well deserved.
Butch vs Axiom: The Global Heritage Invitational is producing quality technical wrestling. Surprise, surprise. It remains to be seen if it will help get the Heritage Cup to the next level in America, but it’s definitely off to a good start.
AEW’s WrestleDream Starting Off Strong: The WrestleDream event was announced in honor of wrestling legend Antonio Inoki, and it will be held on the one-year anniversary of Inoki’s passing. Some have speculated that the show will be another Forbidden Door type of show, with AEW talent squaring off with New Japan talent. While that would obviously make Forbidden Door pointless, the first announced match for WrestleDream is, in fact, an AEW vs NJPW contest. It is a doozy, though, with Bryan Danielson squaring off against Zack Sabre Jr. That is at the top of many people’s “dream match” lists, and we’re finally going to see it. Works for me.
Toni Storm: I don’t know how it works, nor do I know why it works, but what I know is Toni Storm’s new “starlet” gimmick is a lot of fun to watch. She was already one of the more talented in-ring performers in all of women’s wrestling, but she never really got to show off any sort of personality, at least not since she made a name for herself in America. By this point, we’ve seen the “chin up, tits out, and watch for the shoooooeeeee” catchphrase repeated on social media at least a million times. Wrestling is silly.
Ilja Dragunov vs Oro Mensah: Shawn Michaels really, really, really loves the in-ring styles from the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. He must have fallen in love with that stuff during his time working with the NXT UK roster, and he made sure to bring plenty of it to America now that he is in charge of the original NXT brand. If we keep getting entertaining matches like this, I won’t complain at all.
AJ Styles vs Jimmy Uso: I’m not sure this one quite lived up to my expectations, but it was still plenty good, and more importantly, it allowed for multiple storylines to continue on. I’m still not a fan of The Bloodline story running in circles, though. Not a fan at all. It’s stupid.
Penta El Zero Miedo vs Jay Lethal: Two Penta appearances here this week. I think he’s capable of so much more than he has been allowed to do as a singles performer in AEW. There’s still time for it to happen, but he is so good in the ring, and possesses such a unique look, that you almost have to make him a big deal.
Trent Beretta vs Roderick Strong: Roderick Strong making two appearances in my Weekly Power Rankings? Incredible. As I said a few entries ago, he is in a higher profile spot now, and he is doing the best character work of his career. If those things continue, he could become a regular here.
Jade Cargill: She made her return to AEW after a three-and-a-half month break, and she made it clear that she is coming after the TBS Championship that she lost to Kris Statlander at Double Or Nothing back in May. What immediately caught my attention was the face reaction she received upon her return. Yes, she returned and saved Statlander from a beatdown on Collision, but even after she “turned” on the champion, there was still plenty of clapping and applause from the crowd. Combine that with a lot of social media opinions that Statlander’s title reign has been a big disappointment so far, and there are already people talking about a double turn coming. Interesting.
CJ Perry: The Lana character didn’t exactly lend itself to having lots of solid promo work, so many people were surprised to see a vignette for CJ Perry where she actually got a really good promo discussing her relationship with Miro and his reaction to seeing her at All Out. At the All Out post-show media scrum, Tony Khan said that Perry isn’t with AEW on a “long-term, guaranteed thing” at the moment, so it remains to be seen what will happen with her, but at least it has captured my attention.
Impact Wrestling: The company is celebrating the 1,000th episode of Impact, which is infinitely more than most people assumed. While the company isn’t exactly a multi-billion dollar entity right now, they have fought off so many doom and gloom rumors through the years, and times when people were SURE that they would fold, and they’re still doing their thing. Kudos to them for that.
Butch & Ridge Holland vs Finn Balor & Damian Priest: Time for WWE to restart GANG WARFARE like they did in the late-90’s with Los Boricuas, The Nation Of Domination, and The Disciples Of Apocalypse. Or, it’s time for WWE to do their own Trios Titles with all of these three-man factions running around. I’m kidding, of course, but it is interesting to see all of these “teams” on the roster now.
Maven Huffman: It isn’t brand spanking new (the first video on the account was posted almost two months ago), but I am really getting a kick out of Maven’s YouTube channel. He has posted some really entertaining videos, ranging from shooting on the people he worked with (both on their in-ring work and their real-life personalities) to going into detail about how much wrestlers were making during his time with WWE. He has been refreshingly honest so far, and it has been cool to have the curtain pulled back a bit, often in ways you don’t usually see when it comes to former wrestlers.
This Week’s Playlist: “Needs” by Tinashe… “MAYNARD VIGNETTE” by Killer Mike, Jacquees, T.I. & JID… “Think I’m In Love With You” by Chris Stapleton… “Descent” by Sylosis… “KILLING ALCHEMY” by UnityTX… “Afterlife” by Avalanche Effect… “Someone Else” by Awakening Sun… “rockstar” by Post Malone & 21 Savage… “The Box” by Roddy Ricch… “Mask Off” by Future… “Money On The Floor” by Big K.R.I.T, 2 Chainz, 8Ball & MJG… “Hey Luv (Anything)” by Mobb Deep & 112… “World A Music” by Ini Kamoze… “Tears In The Rain” by The Weeknd… “Say You’ll Stay” by Kai… “When I See You Smile” by Uncle Sam… “What About Your Friends” by TLC… “His Story” by TLC… “Baby-Baby-Baby” by TLC… “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jelly