10 Wrestling Matches We Didn’t Know Changed EVERYTHING
3. The Rock Vs. Steve Austin - WWF WrestleMania X-Seven
This match - fought between two super-over megastars, at the biggest and best event of the company's most popular and lucrative period - put an end to it.
It wasn't a disaster. It was incredible. Austin and Rock perfected the crazed crowd brawling beloved of the time, and perfectly intersected the themes of personal hatred and professional respect. They laid in the chair shots and the closed fists, but utilisied the most devastating weapons of the other to claim victory at whatever cost.
Austin of course claimed victory at the ultimate cost, his very soul, in a shocking storyline development that, while audacious and not without creeping fan support, torpedoed the WWF's popularity. It hardly mattered that the turn was performed so brilliantly by all three players. Rock sold as if near death, Austin look remorseless and monstrous, and Mr. McMahon looked slightly appalled at just how unhinged Austin had become in pursuit of the WWF Championship.
Incredible match, incredible angle, crippling decision. Ratings and house show attendances plummeted almost immediately - despite that creeping sentiment, it transpired that fans could not bring themselves to hate Austin - and the subsequent Invasion folly ruined everything, too.
The biggest star in wrestling, and its inconceivable inter-promotional war, both died in 2001.