by Will Parrish
Special to OnlineOnslaught.com

The result is something just a tad... unconventional.  At least within the realm of the online wrestling community.

You see, a variety of folks on the Web have been covering the year 2001 in wrestling from a variety of different slants, with OO as usual firmly perched at the highest end of the year-in-review quality spectrum.  But nobody else labored away to provide such a meretorious medley of hard facts:   Below is a collection of data pertaining to the looking-back-at-’01 theme, presented in the same format most mainstream publications use when they want to inundate their readers with meaningless figures.

So as not to make the mishmash of stats too confusing, I organized everything into sub-categories, the headings of which range from somewhat witty to really lame.  My aim with the feature is simply to provide you with something that’s both fun to read and slightly offbeat.  If it goes over well enough, and Webmaster permitting, I’ll make it into a weekly column with alternating themes.

And hey, if for no other reason than that I’m about the only guy online who’s pathetic enough to sacrifice several hours to count, calculate, and catalogue a large collection of data that most people will probably find about as riveting as Bagwell vs. Booker from July 2... well, *I* think I deserve a regular spot here at OO.

Now.  To wit:

A Legendary Workload

95 Raw or Smackdown matches featured Chris Jericho in 2001 -- the most of any WWF performer.

85 Raw or Smackdown matches featured Kurt Angle in 2001-- the second most of any WWF peformer.

73 Raw or Smackdown matches featured Bubba Ray Dudley -- the third most of any WWF performer (and 1 more than D-Von Dudley).

What Makes Steve Austin so Special

37 Raw or Smackdown main events featured Steve Austin in 2001 -- the most of any WWF performer.

36 Raw or Smackdown main events featured Kurt Angle in 2001 -- the second most of any WWF performer.

35 Raw or Smackdown main events featued The Rock in 2001 -- the third most of any WWF performer.

So Just How Worthless ARE Those Damn Things?

175 days was the duration of Steve Austin’s first WWF title reign in 2001 (April 1-September 23) -- the longest of any WWF titleholder last year.

87 title changes occured in the WWF in 2001, of which 38 were the Hardcore title.  And, no, that doesn’t even include the countless post-invasion WCW title switches, which would launch that number well over the century mark.

12 was the number of WWF and WCW title belts at one time featured in the WWF in 2001.

‘Bout Time To Take That Game Off the Shelf

224 days was how much time HHH missed in 2001 due to a torn quadricep muscle sustained on May 21.

179 days was how much time Chris Benoit missed in 2001 due to neck surgery.

119 was how many days The Rock was absent from the WWF -- from April 3-July 30 -- while filming “The Scorpion King.”

Going Out with a Whimper Rather Than a “Whoo”

6.0 was Nitro’s (unopposed) rating for the August 31, 1998 show headlined by Bret Hart & Hulk Hogan vs. Lex Luger & Sting -- the highest in the program’s five-and-a-half-year history.

2.9 was Nitro’s rating for its debut on September 4, 1995 -- a program highlighted by Lex Luger’s shocking appearance.

2.1 was Nitro’s rating for the March 19 show highlighted by a Jeff Jarrett-Ric Flair-Dusty Rhodes angle -- the final edition before the WWF purchased WCW.

“Rocky Sucks?”  The Rock’ll Layeth The Factual Smack Down with This 4(.)11:

4.11 was The Rock’s average PPV match-star rating in 2001 -- the best of anyone in the WWF -- as assigned by OO/Smarks.com recapper extraordinaire Scott Keith.

4.04 was Chris Benoit’s average PPV match-star rating in 2001 -- the second best showing in the WWF -- as assigned by Scott Keith

3.69 was Steve Austin’s average PPV match-star rating in 2001 -- the best of any WWF wrestler who participated in a year-round slate of PPV matches -- as assigned by Scott Keith.

And Now a Final Diverse Dosage of Digits

1 Buff Bagwell match was all it took to send the WCW invasion angle to the brink of utter ruin.

2.4 was WrestleMania’s buy rate -- the highest of any wrestling PPV this year (or of any year since 1992, when WrestleMania VIII also drew a 2.4).

5.7 was Raw’s highest rating of 2001, a plateau it twice reached -- for the post-WrestleMania April 2 edition, featuring an Austin vs. Rock rematch from the previous night’s extravaganza, and for the July 30 edition, featuring the return of The Rock.

19:39 was the duration of the Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit match on the May 31 Smackdown -- the longest of any WWF TV match in 2001.

39:23 was the duration of the Steve Austin vs. HHH best two-out-of-three falls match at No Way Out on February 26 -- the longest of any PPV singles bout in 2001.

44:55 was the duration of the Winner Take All Elimination Match at Survivor Series on November 18 -- the longest of any PPV tag bout in 2001.

$8,881,435.17 were the net total of ECW’s liabilities when it filed for bankrputcy on April 11.

$16,780,000 was the PPV gross of WrestleMania, the most of any pro wrestling event in 2001 -- or ever. 

E-MAIL WILL PARRISH

Will Parrish is a Journalism and Sociology student at the University of California Santa Cruz, located in the greater Bay Area.  He’s been in college way too long and might even soon decide to get his degree.  In addition to having taken a couple of statistics courses in his time (as you might have guessed), he’s been a “smart” fan for close to a decade and has amassed a rather profuse wrestling tape collection that takes up approximately 45% of his apartment space.

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