• Stone Cold Steve Austin Believed He Could’ve Made His 2001 Heel Turn Work
On April 1st 2001 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated The Rock for the WWF Championship by aligning himself with his archnemesis Mr. McMahon in the main event of WrestleMania X-Seven.
This is still considered one of the Top-5 most shocking heel turns in the history of professional wrestling, despite the eventual heel run not working out all that well due to fans still cheering for their hero, no matter what.
On a recent episode of his ‘The Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy’ podcast, the former Mattitude leader talked about the controversial turn and revealed that Austin truly believed he could make it work.
Here’s what Matt Hardy said:
“It was interesting. I mean, Steve was really confident in himself and he thought he could make this thing work and I like that mentality, I like the approach of trying something different and new. You have to always change, you have to always evolve, right?
Stone Cold became a character that was so beloved, it was very hard to get him booed, and that was gonna be problematic all the way through that. I almost, to me, it feels very similar to Jeff Hardy.
It would be hard to make Jeff Hardy a full-fledged heel because he’s just such a beloved character and people connect with him in a way that very few people do. Stone Cold was that way too. I know he went out, and it was in Texas of all places where he is absolutely put on a pedestal, and he was getting cheered when he was beating The Rock’s a$$ after aligning with Mr. McMahon or whatever.
They knew that was going to be problematic so they said ‘How can we get some legitimate heat on this guy?’ and he said ‘Well, let’s call in these young heartthrobs, The Hardy Boyz and Lita, Team Extreme.’ Let’s get some heat on those guys.”
New Video: Debra (Stone Cold’s Ex Wife) Reveals Her Buns:
• Old School NWA Legend Would Have Celebrated His Birthday
Old School NWA Legend Lou Thesz would have celebrated his 107th birthday today.
Lou Thesz is considered one of the greatest pure technical mat wrestlers of all time, some might even argue he was the greatest.
If you combine all of Thesz’s 3 NWA World Heavyweight Championship reigns, he was the Champ for more than 10 years combined.
In 2016 he was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of their 1st annual “Legacy” wing inductions.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY & † R.I.P.!
April 24, 1916 – April 28, 2002
