The 2001 No Way Out was the third No Way Out professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It took place on February 25, 2001, at the Thomas & Mack Center in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada. This was the last WWF PPV of the Monday Night Wars era of September 4, 1995, to March 26, 2001, during which the WWF's Monday Night Raw (later Raw Is War) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW)'s Monday Nitro competed for ratings in a weekly Monday night time slot, which is now widely seen as the "golden age" of professional wrestling. The show is widely considered to be one of the greatest WWE pay-per-views of all time.
Seven professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card, which featured a supercard, a scheduling of more than one main event. The first saw The Rock defeat Kurt Angle in a standard wrestling match to win the WWF Championship, despite interference by The Big Show. The other main event was a Two-out-of-three falls match, in which Triple H defeated Steve Austin two falls to one. The featured bout on the undercard was a Fatal Four Way match between defending WWF Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and X-Pac, which Jericho won.
Production
Background
No Way Out was first held by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) as the 20th In Your House pay-per-view (PPV) in February 1998. Following the discontinuation of the In Your House series, No Way Out returned in February 2000 as its own PPV event, thus establishing it as the annual February PPV for the promotion. The 2001 event was the third event in the No Way Out chronology and was held on February 25 at the Thomas & Mack Center in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada.
Storylines
The main feud heading into the show was between The Rock and Kurt Angle for the WWF Championship. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Kurt Angle and Triple H in a Triple threat match to retain the WWF Championship. At No Mercy, Angle defeated The Rock to win the title after interference from Rikishi failed. Two months later, at Armageddon, Angle pinned The Rock to retain the WWF title in a Hell in a Cell match, also involving Steve Austin, Triple H, Rikishi and The Undertaker. On the January 1 episode of Raw Is War, The Rock lost a #1 contenders match to Kane by countout after Angle interfered. A few days later on SmackDown!, The Rock lost a non-title match to Angle by disqualification after attacking Angle with a steel chair. On the February 8 episode of SmackDown!, The Rock defeated The Big Show to become the #1 contender to the WWF Championship at No Way Out.