No Way Out 2001: The WWF Delivers One Last Classic Before WrestleMania

The Hardcore Championship opener is designed as controlled chaos rather than a conventional singles match. Raven and Big Show barely have time to establish their own fight before the division's 24/7 ecosystem floods the scene, with Tori, Crash Holly, Steve Blackman, Molly Holly, Hardcore Holly and Billy Gunn all becoming part of the action. The title changes hands during the scramble before Raven regains it, only for Big Show to finish the sequence with a Chokeslam and leave as champion. There is plenty happening in four minutes, but the constant interruptions make the match feel more like a compressed division showcase than a satisfying title bout.

The Intercontinental Championship four-way is a twelve-minute sprint with enough technical quality to avoid becoming random multi-man offense. Jericho and Benoit bring the rivalry that had defined the title picture, Guerrero adds opportunism, and X-Pac gives the match another fast counter-wrestler capable of changing direction instantly. The structure keeps all four men involved without forcing everyone into the ring at once for long stretches. Jericho ultimately catches X-Pac with a roll-up to retain, which protects the other challengers and gives the champion the result he needs before WrestleMania. It is compact, athletic and one of the card's clearest wrestling strengths.

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and Trish Stratus greatly outperform the expectations attached to a storyline-driven celebrity-style grudge match. The match is less polished than the championship wrestling around it, but the lack of polish actually helps because both women are presented as furious and willing to fight rather than as technicians trying to impress. They brawl, use the ringside environment and keep the crowd engaged until William Regal's interference changes the finish. Regal's attack on Trish gives Stephanie the pin, so the ending is not clean, but the eight-minute match has enough intensity and crowd investment to justify its place on the show.

Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin deliver the event's defining match by turning a two-year rivalry into nearly forty minutes of escalation. The first fall is a straight singles match, where Austin earns the early advantage with the Stunner. The second fall becomes a street fight, allowing Triple H to use the sledgehammer and Pedigree to even the score. The steel cage third fall then combines the damage from both earlier stages with increasingly desperate weapon use and near-falls. The finish is wonderfully ugly: Triple H swings the sledgehammer as Austin swings a barbed-wire-wrapped weapon, both collapse, and Triple H lands on Austin for the winning pin. It feels violent, exhausting and final in exactly the way the feud requires.

Richards versus Lawler is built almost entirely around the stipulation involving The Kat and Right to Censor, leaving the wrestling secondary from the opening bell. Lawler controls enough of the match to make the crowd believe the stipulation may break his way, but Ivory's presence and the looming possibility of interference keep pulling attention away from the action. The decisive mistake comes when The Kat accidentally strikes Lawler with the WWF Women's Championship belt, allowing Richards to score the pin and force her into Right to Censor. The angle has storyline consequences, but the five-minute match offers very little beyond getting to that result.

The three-team tables match gives the undercard another strong burst of action without trying to recreate the ladder and TLC epics associated with the division. The Dudleys bring the table offense, Edge and Christian supply speed and opportunism, and Undertaker and Kane change the physical scale whenever they enter. Rikishi and Haku interfere to remove the Brothers of Destruction from the decisive stretch, leaving the established tag teams to settle the finish. The Dudleys catch Christian with the 3D through a table and retain the championship. The interference keeps it from reaching the division's highest tier, but the match is fast, clear and crowd-friendly.

Angle and Rock close the show with a championship match that combines excellent wrestling with the urgency of WrestleMania season. Angle repeatedly attacks Rock's ankle and survives several momentum swings, while Rock keeps finding ways to create one more explosive opening. Big Show's interference briefly threatens to derail the match, but the wrestlers recover and produce a strong closing run around the Ankle Lock, Angle Slam, People's Elbow and Rock Bottom. A referee-count mistake after the first Rock Bottom creates an awkward moment, yet Rock immediately lands another and wins the WWF Championship cleanly. The result sends the correct champion toward WrestleMania X-Seven and gives Angle's first reign a worthy ending.