7. P***ing Off Steve Austin, Allowing Him To Leave And Then Burying Him
What the hell was going on with Steve Austin in 2002? He's since come out and shed a little more light on his situation (he often claims to have been running hard and living fast back then), but his behaviour is still unexplainable. Austin first walked out on WWE the night after WrestleMania 18, but agreed to come back to work a short time later and it was deemed to be water under the bridge. His next walkout on June 10th, however, would result in him not appearing for the company until February 2003. Even worse, WWE went out of their way to bury their biggest star. And make no mistake about it, in June 2002 Austin was still the company's biggest star. He was still getting the monster pops and he was still headlining house shows. But Austin was not a happy camper and was particularly displeased with the creative direction of the company. He didn't like the return of the nWo or the fact that he was programmed with Scott Hall, Big Show and Ric Flair (hence the reason he personally requested to work with super-worker Eddie Guerrero). He famously tore into the creative team during a phone-in appearance on WWE's internet show Byte This. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was when Austin was asked to do a job for the green-as-grass Brock Lesnar in a King of the Ring qualifier on the June 10th Raw, without any build-up. So Austin 'took his ball and went home', as they say. WWE were furious, with Vince McMahon cutting a scathing promo on Austin in the ring, instructing The Rock to insult Austin during a promo and airing the infamous WWE Confidential burial job all within a couple weeks of each other. Sure, Austin did not do the right thing by just getting on a plane and no-showing a TV taping he was advertised for, but why did WWE have to p*** him off so much in the first place and then bury him on TV? It was petty and short-sighted, since the two sides would obviously work together again in the future once cooler heads had prevailed.
