10 Wrestling Photos Taken Moments Before Disaster
7. Steve Austin Takes A High-Angle Owen Hart Suplex
![Shane McMahon WWE WrestleMania 39](https://d2thvodm3xyo6j.cloudfront.net/media/2024/06/c6f15332458a59c58507d439973cfabc-600x338.png)
Here is an image of Steve Austin taking a German suplex at a high, exhilarating angle deep into a blistering match at SummerSlam 1997.
It is a distinctly '1997' image.
Austin, after the disastrous finish, would very rarely take a move like it again. He was temporarily paralysed near the finish, when Owen Hart dropped him with a variation of a tombstone piledriver.
Steve Austin, who retired within six years and missed almost a full year of action at his height, would absolutely disagree with the following take - but...
This was fortuitous as far as disasters go, a total oxymoron. Austin in the aftermath of SummerSlam had to modify his in-ring style. That's not to state that he wouldn't have become the biggest wrestling star of all time, had he not done that, but the brawling-heavy shortcuts of the Attitude Era did a great deal to endear him to the biggest possible audience. It was broad, pulsating fun, watching him take shortcuts and electrify fans on a deep, primal level, and that he was throwing those fists amongst his people underscored, almost every week, that they were his people.