8 Desperately Weird Vince McMahon Promotional Tactics

8. Goodbye Austin

stone cold steve austin 2001
WWE.com

The year 2002 was not a good one for the Steve Austin/Vince McMahon relationship. Their behind-the-scenes interactions started to resemble their St. Valentine's Day Massacre cage match.

Things became extra heated after Austin had a lackluster storyline and match with Scott Hall at WrestleMania 18, that was greatly overshadowed by The Rock vs. Hogan build. A few weeks later he was asked to job to Brock Lesnar on Raw, and decided if that was the plan, he just wasn't going to bother to show up.

In the past, when a wrestler left the company on bad terms it was never mentioned on-air. Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior took off without note, but Vince based an entire episode of Raw promoting that the Austin Era was over. To top things off, The Rock blasted The Rattlesnake on-air, and the following week Vince toasted his former top star farewell in the middle of the ring. He basically told people that were fans of Austin to not bother watching anymore, because their hero was a coward!

While Austin leaving the company may have been questionable (though having him job to Brock on free TV unannounced is certifiably crazy), burying the fan favorite was a bad way to alienate his passionate fanbase.

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As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com