Scott,
First off, I love the blog. Now, I understand that most people shit all over the "Stone Cold" heel turn, where Austin defeated The Rock and aligned himself with Vince. My question is, why did this turn get such a bad rep? Now, I'm not saying that I had extreme feelings either way, but hadn't Austin basically done all that he could as a babyface during the previous four years? I'm inclined to believe that the turn was designed to somewhat "freshen up" his character. Thoughts on the reason that this turn got such a negative response?
Because this wasn't Hogan getting booed out of buildings or Cena drawing a 50/50 reaction every night. Austin was still selling merch by the truckload and people liked the character, and they didn't WANT to boo him. And when it became immediately, like IMMEDIATELY apparent that the turn wasn't working, they probably should have just aborted it and returned to classic Stone Cold, but in fact they did the exact opposite and pushed the anti-Stone Cold character harder and harder down people's throats with the Alliance nonsense. And Austin was so fantastic with that character that you wanted to CHEER him and they kept having to fight that as well. It was just a disaster on every level.
The worst was the Power Trip, when you had 2 guys the fans wanted to cheer for teamed up as the #1 heels.
ReplyDeleteI still contend heel Austin would've worked if they turned Triple H face at the Raw after WM and went right into that feud.
And if nothing else, we wouldve got a rematch from No Way 2001 out of the deal.
Yea, I hated the turn also but I give WWE credit for trying to stay ahead of the curve and having the GRAPEFRUITS to turn the hottest guy ever heel, in his home state, at the biggest show of the year. Either complete delusional arrogance or a genius attempt that just didn't work. I go back and forth
ReplyDeleteMy problem is that somehow I never saw HHH on Austin's level. When HHH fought Rock, it was fine, because they had been feuding for years up the card, so it seemed natural. With HHH/Austin, I just wanted to see Austin kick his ass, chickenshit heel or not.
ReplyDeleteAustin himself felt his character was getting stale and wanted to turn, plus also you have to wonder if he saw the writing on the wall with his neck injuries and wanted "one last heel run" before he had to retire. That said, Scott is very right here, the fans weren't at all tired of Austin. If anything, interest in Austin was at its highest point in a while.....he'd just returned from a year-long hiatus, he was capable of having more technical matches with the likes of Angle and he had just come off one of the very best matches (Three Stages of Hell) of his entire career. And on top of this, Wrestlemania was in his home state. A turn at that time made no sense.
ReplyDeleteYou do wonder, though, if this was a case where the WM venue played a factor in how we perceive a storyline. If WM12 isn't in Anaheim and is in front of a hotter crowd, do we think the Iron Man match is a classic since the match would've actually had some heat throughout? If WM13 isn't in Chicago, does the Bret/Austin double-turn go over as well? If WM18 isn't in Toronto, does Hogan still get that rapturous ovation? What I'm saying is, would Austin's turn have worked better had it been in front of a crowd that wasn't prepared to cheer Austin through anything and hadn't been half-booing the Rock all night?
Austin was red hot, wrestling classic matches, great promos, etc. The problem was he was so beloved by the crowd it wouldn't work. Even when he started the what chants, the crowd ate it up.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Even if you could argue that the Stone Cold face character was getting stale, or that he'd done everything he could do, well...it didn't matter. Stone Cold in Spring 2001 was STILL the most over babyface in wrestling history at that moment, even if he was slightly less over than he was 2 years earlier. He was hitting 45 homeruns a year instead of 55— doesn't mean you trade him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, my view was always that Stone Cold as the face opposing the WCW invasion was exactly the thing that would have freshened up his run. Not to rebook the invasion here, BUT, I always thought the problem was that they had Shane align with WCW and Vince with WWF, when all along they knew WCW would end up the heels. Instead they should have had Vince driven MAD by his loss to Shane at Mania X-7 and by teh fact that Stone Cold was champ once again, and therefore Vince buys WCW and attempts to put his own company out of business. Put HHH on the Vince/WCW side, and you've got a year's worth of WCW flunkies for Austin to run through, all while taking the Austin/Vince feud to a crazy new place.
But the thing is, we had just sat through a feud between them from November-February. I'm not sure how the fans would have responded to another feud so quickly between the same two guys. Now granted, it would have been freshened up since HHH would have been a babyface and Austin a heel, but I'm not sure it would have made much difference in the end.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do think the biggest problem with Austin's heel turn is that he didn't have any great babyface to go against. The only way fans were going to boo him was if he was going up against a guy that was loved to the same level as Austin. 2001 Undertaker and Kurt Angle were not those guys.
And because they made him a giant p-word to try to get him over as a heel, and nobody believed him as a giant p-word. It was the worst element of a monumentally blown storyline.
ReplyDeleteIf the heel turn was "designed" to "freshen up his character" then it was all the more idiotic. Who said his character needed freshening up? Usually when you've got a good thing going you milk it for all it's got.
I think Austin's heat did cool down slightly. When Austin returned in late 2000, it was obvious he wasn't missed that much as WWF was still making lots of money and Rock/HHH filled the void that Austin left behind pretty nicely. Plus when Austin returned, it was obvious it wasn't the same Stone Cold as it took a while for him to get his confidence back in terms of delivering promos and delivering in the ring as for the first few months, Austin was mostly protected in the in-ring stuff and didn't really do much. It seemed Austin only started to get his heat/confidence again during the buildup to WMX7 and his heel turn was probably planned before then.
ReplyDeleteNo wrestling organization should ever turn their legitimately number drawing babyface for no reason other than he is declining in popularity. Austin wasn't on the decline, so it was fucking stupid to turn him heel.
ReplyDeleteThe minute the WCW purchase went through, they should have audibled the Austin turn. Plenty of new opponents coming in from a company Austin hated. Rock was leaving til summer. They should have just stuck with Austin as top face and put him against Booker, DDP, Bagwell, and eventually Flair
ReplyDelete"Vince... attempts to put his own company out of business'
ReplyDelete...which is the direction they tried to go when vince brought in the nWo, to kill his own creation (since he didn't like how out of control things had gotten with flair as co-owner)
Right, but they pretty much dropped that aspect of it as soon as the nWo debuted, if I remember correctly. It's not like Vince came out with them wearing black & white or anything.
ReplyDeleteHad Vince bought WCW and really been the face of the group— promising to get rid of Raw and the WWF letters and such once he won the war— that could have been cool and definitely given the Invasion storyline enough juice to run until Mania 18.