10 Wrestlers Who Turned During Championship Reigns
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin (2001)
Last, and very much least, we arrive at WWE finally hitting a reset button but getting around to it too little too late.
The conversation about Stone Cold Steve Austin's 2001 typically pivots around two key and equally relevant points.
1) His WrestleMania X-Seven heel turn signified the end of the boom, and with it the unimpeachable drawing power he'd once held .
2) He was actually pretty f*cking great at the role, and the highlights were a nice change of pace from the miserable babyface he'd returned as back in the glorious year 2000.
Why both matter is fundamentally why this - the third turn for Austin as WWE Champion and fourth of the calendar year - was the worst of the lot. Though both his heel turns were accepted as financial failures, they were noble ones. Stone Cold was a comedic blast, and the more he experimented, the better his bizarre segments got.
WCW were defeated at Survivor Series, but Austin as WWE Champion had to turn face in line with how the winners were portrayed. This return to the "Old Stone Cold" couldn't have felt different to the last - it resonated as an open admission of failure, and a future that didn't look half as bright as an increasingly distant past.