10 Worst Payoffs To WWE Storylines

With Stone Cold Steve Austin requiring time off to rehab a neck injury, WWE wrote him off of TV by having a mystery assailant run him over at Survivor Series 1999.

After almost ten months out, Austin returned at Unforgiven 2000, where he immediately set about trying to find out who had attacked him. That witch hunt ended after just a few weeks when, on the 9 October showing of Raw, Mick Foley coaxed a confession out of Rikishi—the same Rikishi that the company was seemingly hoping to turn into their next big heel.

As for his explanation? Rikishi did it for the Rock. He was sick of the company’s “great white hope” and the constant holding back of the “island boys”.

Following that bombshell, Austin got revenge by destroying Rikishi at No Mercy, and in doing so an angle lasting almost a year was blown off in the space of a couple of weeks—and in fairly underwhelming fashion, at that.

The story was picked up again in November, when Triple H revealed that he’d been the one who masterminded the attack, rendering Rikishi’s rationale redundant in what felt like an admission of the initial angle’s failure.