10 Awesome Wrestling Matches That Had Harsh Consequences

The Rock and Steve Austin’s WrestleMania series is one of wrestling’s great match trilogies, and this was their finest hour. At WrestleMania X-7, Rock and Austin went all-out in one of the greatest ‘Mania main events of all-time. It was a classic No DQ match between the era’s two biggest stars, and as the company’s two icons fought tooth and nail to outdo each other, it was immediately clear that this was something special.

Despite all this, Rock vs. Austin II ended with one of WWE’s most controversial finishes. Vince McMahon, Austin’s career-long rival, walked down to the ring, and most assumed he was out to screw The Rattlesnake just like he’d done a thousand times before. Instead, Vince aided Austin to victory, and the sight of their post-match handshake has become an icon of the failure that was to follow.

Austin’s heel turn was a huge flop. His rebellious character worked not only because of his strengths as a performer, but because it reflected the audience’s real-life frustrations with authority. Anybody who didn’t like their boss was immediately sucked into the Austin vs. McMahon feud, and this made Stone Cold a perfect anti-hero.

WWE undid all of this by aligning him with McMahon, and while Austin always played a great heel, nobody wanted to boo him. He was the biggest money maker WWE ever had, and they’d just won the Monday Night Wars. Business took an immediate downturn, ratings decline, and PPV buyrates plummeted.

Austin’s character never recovered, and he soon turned face, then heel again, and back to babyface, all within a year. More importantly, however, WWE have never recovered from the decision to turn Austin heel, and WrestleMania X-7 effectively signalled the end of the wrestling industry’s last major boom period.