The first of the WWE _No Mercy_ cards and it looks like between the preceding PPV event _Backlash_ and tonight, they have really pushed "Triple H" (Paul Levesque) into the spotlight as a major "heel". The card opens with "The Godfather" (accompanied, of course, by his "ho's") facing off against "Midian" (Dennis Knight, formerly one of "The Godwinns", the hillbilly brothers who brought slop to the ring.) As a member of "The Ministry of Darkness", however, Midian is accompanied to the ring by "Viscera" (Nelson Frazier Jr, formerly "Mable"). Average opening match: good enough but certainly you'll miss nothing if you take a bathroom break here. When it comes to the next match, however...seriously, if you're needing a bathroom break, THIS is the time to take it. 70+ year old "Fabulous Moolah" and an even older "Mae Young" come to the ring to take on "Womens' Champion" Ivory (Lisa Moretti) Wow, this was awful. Next up, another match that I have no interest in, mainly because it involves "The New Age Outlaws", Brian James ("Road Dogg") and Monty Sopp ("Billy Gunn") against "Hardcore Holly" and "Crash Holly". I've never liked NAO and I know nothing - and care even less - about these Holly guys. The match itself was NOT "uninteresting" but I just didn't care anything about it and was glad when it was over. Sadly, this match was followed by an even more ludicrous match: a match for the Intercontinental title between Jeff Jarrett vs Chyna (Joan Laurer). Talk about a match that I have no interest in; I'm starting to think I must be in the "slump" of WWF creativity if this is all they can come up with. I _do_ know that, at some point, Ken Shamrock left the WWF because he refused to be in a storyline pitting himself against Chyna; not sure if this was around the time he left or not but it's kind of ridiculous to try pitting a female against a man. I _will_ give major props to Laurer for at least being willing and able to take bumps like she does but the WWF's attempts to turn this gargantuan into some kind of "sexy" female impersonator...meh, it just doesn't work and Laurer really needs to just disappear. She can have all the plastic surgery she wants (God rest her soul) but it never did anything to make her appear more "feminine"; if anything, she looks like a horse...specifically a Clydesdale. I'm assuming with all the backstories that I'm having to sit through that the "lead-ins" to these matches are probably more interesting than the Pay-Per-View itself. I'm also pretty certain that the WWF is reaching a new low in story-writing, when it comes to having their entertainers "bodyslammed" into a board fill with a pile of dog turds. This is both ridiculous and disgusting. The match between "The British Bulldog" vs "The Rock" (Dwayne Johnson) seems to be David Smith's last-gasp effort to return to his previous superstar status. The match wasn't "boring" but it does seem to prove that Smith has lost a step. He's still huge and his upper body is still very "cut" but the athleticism and certainly the speed has lost some of its former luster. The match was fairly brief but at least we got to see the Bulldog one more time in the ring. Following this was one of the more interesting matches on the card: a tag-team match featuring the new (to the WWF PPV scene, anyway) "Hardy" brothers tag team - Matt and Jeff Hardy - squaring off against Edge and Christian in a "ladder match". To make it even more interesting, the winning tag team not only wins the $100,000 prize hanging over the ring (by climbing a ladder and retrieving the money, of course) but will also win the managerial services of Terri Runnels. The match itself was great; the downside was listening to that idiot Jerry Lawler blubber about what he supposedly "saw" when Terri demonstrated the ladder earlier that evening. Lawler is nowhere nearly as amusing as he _thinks_ he is (or was) and his constant drivel about Terri - or whatever female happens to be near him at the moment - is as stupid as the day is long. The match was excellent but the ending was no surprise if you've followed the WWF for any length of time. Next up was a silly little vignette featuring Mick Foley (as "Mankind") running around touting his book and even offering it to someone who was "sitting" in a bathroom stall. After this stupidity was the match between Foley and Val Venis. Kind of a ho-hum...well, actually, considering it involved Mick Foley, who is normally a superb competitor, it was a surprisingly uninteresting match. Foley can usually make almost anyone look good in a match but even he couldn't make this one interesting. Next up: a "fatal four-way" match featuring Kane vs Farooq vs Bradshaw vs X-Pac. Although the ending was pretty much what you would expect, this was not an uninteresting match. The main event - a championship match between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin vs Triple H - was every bit as good as you could imagine. Love 'em or hate 'em, Steve Austin and Paul Levesque are two of the best performers in sports entertainment, and they spared nothing in this match. I have to admit I laughed out loud when, after Steve Austin took one of the wheeled set cameras and swung the camera boom into Triple H's head, Jerry Lawler screeched, _"He lowered the boom on him, JR! I can't believe he literally lowered the boom on Triple H!"_ Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler really added to the entertainment factor of this particular match (although, in all honesty, they provided that through the entire card) and whether you appreciate the rest of the card, this particular match was well worth watching. Both performers really left it all out there for the fans. (Kudos to the fan who was holding up the sign that read _"Triple H is part queer"_ LOL) The match, of course, ended the way you would expect but they did at least put in a little bit of a twist to make it interesting...and, of course, to extend the storyline. Not a bad PPV card at all, in spite of some of the early stupidity. **NOTE** I realized after the card concluded that I watched this one out of order. The _original_ "No Mercy" pay-per-view was actually held in Manchester, UK (England) and the main event was a three-way match featuring "Stone Cold" Steve Austin vs The Undertaker vs "Triple H". This particular card was actually the second "No Mercy" PPV but the first held in the USA.