WWE - Armageddon 2002 (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	Three stages of hell
Disadvantages:	The rest is like hell

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I remember the very first Armageddon pay-per-view, back in the WWF days and back in a time when the company was actually putting an effort into creating new names for their events. That's right, the year was 1999 and with 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin injured Triple H was being thrown into the spotlight, I actually think the main event at the first ever Armageddon is one of the most memorable matches of all time - with Stephanie McMahon making her big presence known in WWF for the very first time by turning on her own father in a street fight match. 2002 is much closer to 1999 than the present date, so lets see if things were still good back then.

Funny that the first Armageddon main event would be a street fight, because 3 years later the December event would have just a cruel gimmick match for a headline match. 2002 was the year Shawn Michaels, or 'HBK', returned to the WWE and there was big money to be made in the feud between the two old DX boys. That's right, the match would be HBK vs. HHH. The Heartbreak Kid was the World Champion going into the match and would be defending it in 'Three Stages Of Hell'. The match works as a best of 3 falls (first to 2) only each fall has a different stipulation, for example in the case the first fall was a street fight.

In most cases like this you find that the match will always go to 1-1 to allow for a third and crucial fall to decide the match, although sometimes WWE likes to try and do something different and throw a curve ball where someone wins 2-0. That ends up being a bit of an anti-climax though. In this event the fall to follow the street fight would be a steel cage match, and if the match was still undecided it would finish on a ladder match. Shawn Michaels is obviously well known for his presence in ladder matches, and the first ever HHH match I saw was when he defeated The Rock in a ladder match at Summerslam 98.

Not the most memorable match but HHH/HBK had a pretty good feud (shame they've milked it for all it's worth now), and I'm sure if you dug up this event and only watched the main event you wouldn't be too disappointed. But what about the rest?

This was all happening after the brand split and that meant the WWE title needed to be decided as well, and it would be Big Show defending against the Olympic gold medalist, Kurt Angle. How many times do I say Angle's name when reviewing these events? It seems that Angle always had such a crucial part in pretty much every event, that Vince must be kicking himself he let him go to TNA, the rival wrestling company.

Another title on the line was the tag team championship, and that would be a in a 4-way elimination match, where 3 teams would be eliminated and the last team in the match would be the champions. This match saw The Dudleys, Chris Jericho/Christian, Booker T/Goldust and Lance Storm/William Regal battling it out - so all pretty weird combinations except for the first.

It wouldn't be a WWE event without womens wrestling, and the biggest prize in the womens division was on the line with Victoria defending her title in a triple threat match against Jacqueline and Trish Stratus. To lose the title Victoria would not even have to be involved in the decision, so she had everything to lose in this match. Victoria is actually the only one of the three women in the match to still be with the company.

Finally, the three filler matches; Edge vs. A-Train (Prince Albert), Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit and Batista vs. Kane. Benoit/Guerrero have had some memorable matches in their time, although this wasn't one of them. Batista was also very new to WWE at this point, so this worked as a bit of a battle between monsters.

All in all Armageddon 2002 was very lacking of any big matches, and the main event is pretty much the only match that served as a way to sell the event. There is a 15 certificate on the event, so obviously the rating people obviously didn't think the main event was too violent. It will run for just under 3 hours, like every WWE event I have reviewed thus far. Except for holding a piece of the HHH/HBK feud there is no other reason to own this DVD, so I would not recommend it to fans and not fans alike.