The seeds for the WWF title match at SummerSlam 2001 between Steve Austin and Kurt Angle were planted at the Invasion pay per view the previous month. Austin and Angle had both represented Team WWF against Team Alliance (WCW/ECW), but at the end of the match Austin turned his back on Team WWF by giving the Stone Cult Stunner to Kurt Angle. The Alliance was victorious and Kurt Angle wanted revenge. Austin, who had turned heel earlier in the year at WrestleMania, explained that he felt betrayed by Vince McMahon and suspected McMahon wanted Angle to be his next mega star, so he turned on Angle to help the invasion team get the victory and make McMahon realize that he had under-appreciated him (Austin). This was an intriguing match because of the history of the men involved. While Austin was gaining steam and developing his "Stone Cold" persona during the summer of 1996, Angle was at the Olympics in Atlanta winning a gold medal. There had been very few pro wrestlers in history that were able to excel at such a high level in such a short amount of time in the way that Kurt Angle did. Just two years earlier he had been wrestling one of his first matches for the WWF, a dark match against Owen Hart, and now here he was going one on one in the co-main event of SummerSlam against arguably the biggest wrestling star in history. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x184v87_wwf-summerslam-2001-kurt-angle-vs-stone-cold-steve-austin-wwf-championship_sport The match itself was a great mix of brawling and athletic ring wrestling. Angle became one of the few people to kick out of the Stone Cold Stunner, and Austin even kicked out of the Angle Slam. In the end, multiple referees got involved and it was a crooked referee, the Alliance's Nick Patrick, who eventually DQed Austin in order to allow Austin to remain WWF Champion.
