Against The Grain 10.26.08: The Heel Turn of Stone Cold

Posted by Julian Bond on 10.26.2008

With the anticipated participation of this man in tonight’s Cyber Sunday PPV, this week’s topic is about the 2001 heel turn from the legendary Stone Cold Steve Austin. What?!? I, like many others, have fond memories of the rare, crazed and hilarious reign of the Texas Rattlesnake. What?!? So I will reflect on these moments and break down why I think that the true appreciation of this time was unintentionally overshadowed and underrated by the comedic uprising of the one word that was spoken (maybe a little too often) by Austin himself. What?!?

Welcome everyone to Against The Grain, my (bi-weekly) take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. The first thing people may be thinking with my chosen topic is that the heel turn of Stone Cold couldn't have been overlooked and underrated because a majority of fans all watched and enjoyed it when it was originally on. But I realized after recently going through a bunch of old DVDs and PPVs during this time that the real underlining genius of this rare heel run was most definitely not fully realized by us unsuspecting viewers. Besides the infamous "What?!?" phrase that is forever engraved in everyone's memory, there were so many other various excellent "old-school" heel elements that Stone Cold, and at the time only Stone Cold alone, really brought to the table in the wrestling world. I believe that the best work in his career was done during this time and I'll explain why below.

"The Underrated Genius of The ‘Evil' Stone Cold Steve Austin"



In the history of wrestling, it has been documented and seen that if you're a great well-known wrestler, there are only two main rules: that if you're a heel, you're forever known as a heel and if you're a face, then you're forever known as a face. So with the many attempts of these people "seeing the light" and then "going over to the dark side", only a small handful have truly succeeded in pulling it off. Hulk Hogan did at Bash At The Beach with the NWO. Bret Hart unintentionally did it in his match with Austin at Wrestlemania. But none have done it so dramatically and so gracefully as Stone Cold Steve Austin. Not only did he shocked his loyal fans and the wrestling world as a whole by aligning himself with his two well-known nemesis in Vince McMahon and Triple H, he also displayed not one, not two, but three different heel personas throughout his brief, but enjoyable heel turn. It's very easy for one to just turn on the fans, explain to them the next night that it was because of "place lame excuse here", and then act like a complete ass to get some heat. But what Austin did instead was above and beyond the normal requirements of being a bad guy in and out of the ring.

The first demonstration of this came with the introduction of the "Sadistic Heel" persona of Stone Cold. After the man stole the WWF Championship from the Rock at Wrestlemania X-Seven by beating the People's Champ severely with multiple chair shots, he then aligned with "the Devil himself", Vince McMahon, whom was his long time nemesis for over 2 years. To add more shock value to the whole ordeal, the next night on Raw, Stone Cold again beat the Rock in a rematch and then Triple H (a man who storyline wise tried to run Austin over with a car) came down to the ring and surprisingly helped Austin finish off the Rock. The two then formed the tag team dubbed as the nicely-named "Two-Man Power Trip". Initially I wasn't buying Stone Cold's turn because it seemed so out of left field and I definitely wasn't digging the idea that he magically made amends with the men he was just feuding with not that long ago. But that all went away with the Smackdown that took place the same week. After all of the crazy events that had gone on, Raw commentator and close friend (in real life) of Stone Cold, good ol' J.R. Jim Ross came down to the ring to request an interview with Austin to have him explain why he did what he did. So instead of the usual cut-and-dry explanation of why he turned "bad", Austin looked like a mad man to J.R.'s face and told him straight up that he got "an insurance policy" by aligning himself with the people that he hated the most to get what he wanted (the WWF belt). After J.R. had the priceless look on his face as if he just lost his best friend, Ross turned his back and Stone Cold proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him. If you saw this act, it was seriously shocking to watch the always fan-favorite Austin do something as heinous as whopping the crap out of everyone's favorite announcer J.R. This I saw was the beginning of the new look for Stone Cold and I totally brought into it.

Shortly after this, HHH and Austin eventually had every major belt in the company (World, Intercontinental, Tag Team) and were dominating over every person that came in their way (took it hard to Undertaker and Kane and absolutely destroyed The Hardy Boyz…and even Lita in an infamous and sick-looking beatdown). At their peak at heel heat, the "Power Trip" lost two out of three of their belts (with Austin keeping his) when they were defeated by the newly formed team of Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho and HHH was taken out the same night with a severe injury. With the HHH/Austin team suddenly broke up, the Powers That Be could've easily pulled the plug on Austin's still fresh heel turn, but they wisely keep it rolling strong by having Stone Cold jump straight into an awesome feud for his belt against both Benoit and Jericho (the two "Chrises"). This is when the man started to show the second part of his heel persona: the "Cowardly Heel".

How this "cowardliness" started was with Stone Cold attempting to make his boss and "good friend" Vince McMahon happy no matter what. So this cause Austin to be EXTREMELY paranoid about keeping his belt (which led to some horribly heelish tactics against the two "Chrises") and about his place as McMahon's #1 henchmen being stolen by Kurt Angle (that led to some hilarious "hugging contests", which I'll get to in a moment). At the peak of this behavior from Austin, the man seemed poised to turn back to a face again with the impending "Invasion" by the resurrected WCW and ECW wrestlers, but in a nice swerve, Stone Cold pulled the "double heel turn" by betraying his WWF team and joining the newly named "Alliance" stable as their leader. Austin again pulled another rare feat of turning heel twice within a manner of months and having it feel fresh both times. The first time Austin's a straight-up psycho, the second time Austin's a straight-up bitch.

So now Stone Cold is the crazed leader of rising group that was attempting to outright take over the WWE. Wit this power, Austin started taking rank and began to be like a crazed military general by calling out "Alliance" members like Raven and the former bad-ass Tazz only to humiliate and (literally) whoop their ass with his leather belt. The man who was once loved by everyone was now looking more and more like a yellow-belly coward that you just prayed would one day get beat down and taught a lesson by any wrestler willing to get the job done. Surprisingly at the time, the very person to do this was the corny, Olympic Gold Medalist, Kurt Angle. Before the ultimate ankle-locking, suplexing submission master became what he is today, he was back then looked at as someone with great potential and skills, but still came across as a fresh face that really wasn't perfect for the main event scene. But when Austin was getting "out of control", Angle stepped in and the two started a picture perfect feud that made Kurt into a bonifided bad-ass. Angle went from the man who liked drinking milk and worshipping his own gold medals, he instead turned into a man who became obsessed with defeating Stone Cold and winning the WWE Title. Once Angle achieved his task of winning the belt, he was forever changed and put over BIG TIME by the feuding, while Austin slowly concluded his notorious heel turn.

In between all of this, he also managed to incorporate yet another heel persona that everyone definitely remembers more than the others, which is that of a "Comedic Heel". Between his moods of destroying opponents and cheating his way through matches, Austin was without a shadow of a doubt one of the funniest heels, or funniest overall wrestlers for that matter, that I've ever seen on my TV screen. Even though the well-known "What?!?" phrase is now a somewhat annoying punchline still spoken by fans towards despised heels, when Stone Cold first started using it, the word became instant comedic gold. Despite the man wanting everyone to hate him, it was sometimes hard not to because of his perfect timing with the simple word of "What?!?". Besides this, his random bursts of sing-alongs with his guitar (including singing Kumbaya?!?) paired with the "hugging contests" (yes…hugging) he had with Angle and McMahon made Austin the highlight of every single Raw and Smackdown for a good while there.

Lastly the biggest underrated aspect of Austin's heel turn was his dramatic change in wrestling style. Instead of the always brawling rattlesnake, he became a cunning, scheming, technical wrestling genius. Never before on the main event stage of the WWE has Austin displayed this much detail in breaking down his opponents in the ring on a regular basis. It was a great display when Austin took known mat technicians like Jericho, Benoit, and Angle to the limit by matching them move for move. And not only did he do this successfully, the man also single-handedly put them all over even more by selling their moves like a mad man. To see anyone of Austin's size take like 10 or so German Suplexes in a row (against Angle and Benoit) is a rare and crazy sight to behold.

So to conclude, this period of watching Austin in all of his heel glory was one of the best periods in wrestling I have ever witnessed. I truly still believe that it's a shame that this run ended so soon only after a summer and wish that Austin wouldn't have conformed back quickly to his good ol' ways of being a fan favorite. As much as I like Austin the "good guy", I loved Austin the "bad guy" much, much better. I hope that people enjoyed the complexities of his turn as much as I did and I hope that others just don't remember it for being the "What?!?" phase of Stone Cold Steve Austin's career.

For Your Viewing Pleasure
The Two-Man Power Trip (Stone Cold/HHH) at Their Absolute Worst (Sadistic Heel)


Kurt Angle Scares the Crap Out of Stone Cold (Cowardly Heel)


The Infamous "What?!?" Montage (Comedic Heel)



Next Time On….Against The Grain
In another topic that is relevant to the times, I want to talk about one of my favorite all-time wrestlers who left the business in a very unceremonious way and is currently set to be in a major UFC bout next month against Randy Couture. I am of course talking about Brock Lesnar. I talk about why I loved his work while in the WWE and the reasons why I think that it was somewhat unjustly disregarded once the fans turned on him when he left the business.