The Rock Vs. Steve Austin | Wrestling Timelines
December 2, 2000 - A Night Off
The Rock and Austin share the ring when they headline the UK exclusive Rebellion pay-per-view in a Fatal 4-Way match also involving Rikishi and the WWF champion Kurt Angle, who retains. The match, as ever, is barely canon, but at a brisk 08:50, it’s exhilarating for what it is.
December 10, 2000 - Armageddon
After another Fatal 4-Way teaser on the December 7 SmackDown - Rock Vs. Austin Vs. Undertaker Vs. Kurt Angle - ends in a DQ, those four men (and Rikishi and Triple H) do battle inside of Hell In A Cell at Armageddon.
The match is incredible. The match graphic alone is a flex of the WWF’s luminous star power, an excessive figure fed collage somehow made real, and it’s every bit as good as its brain-scrambling promise. Intense, blood-soaked, and chaotic, the fans never stop roaring at the crazed frequency of the near-falls. Austin and Rock build towards their big late interaction brilliantly amid the lunacy, and it’s a step above the counter sequence at WrestleMania XV. It really seems as though Austin is about to drill Rock with the Stunner before Rock desperately fires him off into the ropes. The intent behind everything is much more believable, the drama much more fraught.
As much as the wider creative is in decline - the WWF, in fact, has so much star power that they don’t quite know what to do with it - the good times are still here.