How Reviving An Attitude Era Classic Would Make WWE WrestleMania 35 Unmissable
Stone Cold Steve Austin's quest to find the man that ran him over hit a brick wall in more ways than one when the perpetrator turned out to be Rikishi. 'The Rattlesnake' seemingly had no interest in selling for the Samoan, resulting first in a pathetic pay-per-view non-match in which Austin tried to splat the former face up against a building in pickup truck, and later a Raw reveal that dragged Triple H into the feud.
'The Game' abandoned a quasi-babyface turn to double down as a heel mastermind of the entire attack. Linking arms with Rikishi in November, he'd elbowed him out of the programme entirely by January. Cerebrally assassinating that push, Triple H had enough credit in the bank with Stone Cold to satisfy an increasingly-irritable Austin and take it himself. The pair were all over each other at the 2001 Royal Rumble, but Hunter couldn't hold Austin back from the victory that assured his WrestleMania WWE Title clash.
The sheer fury between them instigated the need not just for a 'Three Stages Of Hell' encounter between the two at February's No Way Out but also a stipulation inserted by Vince McMahon to stop them killing each other before his big box office battle was buggered.
By threat of losing his WrestleMania shot, Austin couldn't strike Triple H. By threat of suspension for six months, Triple H couldn't strike Austin. The effort to keep composure naturally caused chaos.
CONT'D...