7 Times Wrestling Should Have Called An Audible
6. Steve Austin - WWF WrestleMania X-Seven
Lost in the criticism of Stone Cold Steve Austin's business-destroying heel turn at WrestleMania X-Seven was the perfect execution of it.
Austin, soaked in claret, looked psychopathic as he destroyed The Rock with a steel chair. Vince McMahon, who engineered the turn, looked almost reluctant as he surveyed the creation of his new monster. The Mr. McMahon character existed to put Austin over, and he never did it with as much beautiful subtlety as he did here. Rock kicked out of everything, but it didn't once border on the ridiculous.
That said, the sheer brilliance of the performance just underscored the objective fact that it was never going to work. If that platform didn't allow Austin the chance to alter his perception in the eyes of the audience, nothing was going to.
The entire angle was pitched perfectly - but the problem is that it should never have happened in the first place. Austin's popularity was on the wane, but fans were unwilling to accept the turn. Besides which, The Rock was bound for Hollywood for a lengthy stint.
Austin is on record as singling out this moment as the biggest regret of his career. If he could retroactively change one part of it, he would go back and deliver a Stone Cold Stunner to McMahon following their notorious handshake. It would have retconned the entire development, but it would have at least been in keeping with his "don't trust anybody" mantra - and prolonged, even if briefly, the company's biggest ever boom period.