10 Most Wildly Unpopular WWE Title Changes

6. Steve Austin Defeats The Rock - WrestleMania 17

This one might raise a few eyebrows. The main event of the greatest Wrestlemania of all time saw Stone Cold Steve Austin, returning to his home state of Texas, complete his big comeback from a 10-month lay off due to injury and win back the WWF Title for the 5th time. The fans in the Astrodome cheered Austin like the conquering hero he was. It was the 2nd coming as champ for the most popular superstar of all time. So why is it on this list? It wasn't so much who won the title in this case but more so HOW he won it, in one of the most regrettable decisions in WWE history. 2001 saw a few of those. Rather than do what everyone in that building and most around the world wanted and have Austin overcome The Rock in a titanic battle, WWF at the time decided, for whatever reason, that Rock needed to be protected as a top babyface. In a Vince Russo-esque swerve, they turned Austin heel and aligned him with his hated enemy, Vince McMahon. The problem was that NOBODY wanted to boo Steve Austin. The radical changes they made to his character to force people to stop cheering him: assaulting Lita and Jim Ross, running away from matches, singing songs and hugging Kurt Angle, defied all logic. When the Invasion storyline came around, they saw an opportunity to rally the fans behind Team WWF by having Austin abruptly turn back face. There was a famous angle where Austin came back to Raw in his old, classic persona and stunned about 10-15 Alliance members in the midst of a mass brawl. Here's a link: Just listen to that crowd. WWE should've kick-started off that and took Austin back in the right direction. Instead, they made it a double-swerve and returned Austin heel two weeks later at the Invasion PPV. It made no sense. Nobody wanted any of it. Frankly, Vince needed his head testing on this one.