10 Fascinating WWE SummerSlam 2001 Facts
3. Austin Considers His Match With Angle One Of His Greatest As A Heel
Life for WWE and Stone Cold alike was never quite the same once Austin turned heel at the conclusion of WrestleMania X-Seven. Austin admits to enjoying his run as a born-again villain, but admits it was nowhere near as successful as his heroic hellraising of the previous few years.
Austin's in-ring work was something else in this time frame, as evidenced in matches with Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Kurt Angle. The WWE Championship match with Angle at SummerSlam, where Angle robotically fought his way back from several Stunners and lost blood, would probably be considered a five-star classic if it didn't end in a BS disqualification.
Austin spoke about the match on his podcast, saying of his character at the time, "That was probably one of my proudest matches working a pure vicious heel mode. That's what I try to tell people to embody as a heel." He sums up the opus by saying, "That was a bad-ass match, and I really loved it: the blood, the beating the s--t out of each other, the intensity."