How would you book the Austin heel turn?

[AngryCenaFan]

at WrestleMania 17 Stone Cold Steve Austin turned heel, after carrying the company on his back as the top Babyface for almost 4 years, perhaps WWE felt he was getting stale and running out of opponents, regardless most agree it didn't go very well and IMO one of the biggest problems is WWE booked him like a coward and a comedy act, it took away from his Aura as the "toughest S.O.B" in the WWE.

Basically WWE tried to make us think the guy who never needed anybody, and never backed down from a fight, would run away from the Undertaker, would join forces with someone that was behind "running him over" and try to be Vince McMahons friend. The whole thing never made any sense, but it did bring us the legendary "WHAT" chants.

So knowing what we know now, how would you book the heel run?

I have some thoughts but I want to see some of your guys' first.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

I think the WWF was in a complicated situation at the time. When Austin turned heel and sided with McMahon at WM17 I am thinking this was already planned before Vince bought WCW. With the impending WCW/ECW Invasion and Austin's heel turn at the time, the whole storyline was really jumbled up back in the summer of 2001.

So we had a heel Ausitin, Face Shane who owns the heel WCW faction down the line, Heel Vince who owns the face WWF. So they had to hotshot Austin being a face again only to turn heel with a now heel Shane and you get the complications.

That said I would probably have taken a simpler route.

At Wrestlemania X-Seven, right after Vince arrives in the ring. Shane then appears, he gets a face pop but then all of a sudden WCW guys (DDP, Booker T, Chavao, Stasiak, Lance Storm, etc) all surround the ring.

Rock and Austin don't know what's going on. Then Bishoff comes from behind and attacks Vince, WCW attacks The Rock. Austin is confused but STUNNER!!! pins The Rock 1-2-3. Then Austin becomes champion looks confused but shakes Shane's and Bishoff's hand and celebrates with the WCW folks. The continue to beat on The Rock and also Vince, incapacitating The Rock (to sell an injury angle to keep him off TV). Hence turning Austin heel.

Now a lot of people say that this is too overbooked, but then again the ending of WM X-Seven was already a mess to begin with

 

[titadab05]

I would have waited. Let Austin sort of tread from the border, get jealous of The Rock's growing popularity and, when the announcement of the WCW buyout by Shane O'Mac occured get him paranoid.

Building up to it, I would have had him in a verbal altercation (playful jabs) with The Rock where The Rock gets one up on him, maybe have him smirk it off, but build up a small feud.

The paranoia would continue to build as it fit his DTA mantra, imo. You let the Rattlesnake question to move to acquire and think that they're somehow doing this to screw with Austin. Then you have him in the match with Jericho & Benoit at KoR like they had it planned, but maybe have Booker go for a chair shot to his head where he ducks and hits one of the other guys (Let's say Benoit) and Jericho comes in and drop kicks Booker off. Austin would then Stun Jericho, retain the belt and go off air from there.

In that instance, Austin wants answers bc he near missed two hits by former Alliance members. Then Vinnie Mac comes down and asks the same thing to Austin not trusting him which gets on his nerves. Soon after, Vince tells of the acquisition of a new hire, as he hires on Eric Bischoff. Bischoff comes out and declares that Austin, Benoit & Jericho need a rematch as the conclusion of yesterday's match wasn't fair and for security measures, Booker T will not be allowed into the arena.

Austin comes out for the match in his truck, shortly thereafter, Booker comes out of hiding from Austin's truck and looks to hit Austin while he is getting ready to wrap up a victory with a steel chair, and the usual hit someone else. Beer celebration and Shane McMahon says he bought Austin out of his WWE contract with Austin saying it was all for the money and he would make sure that Vince lost everything he ever owned and wanted.

So, shorter heel turn, quicker switch to WCW, and the face turn immediately after the Invasion angle is finished.

With Austin being the biggest draw, that whole angle with him kissing up to Vince, being whiny, huggy and so on was just ridiculous. If you want him to be a heel, I would go with the paranoid ego-maniac, not the egotistical, scared emotional person.

But, that's just my take

 

[relentless1]

I wouldve had austin lose and flip out, beating rock over and over with a chair, then i wouldve made it look like breaking kayfabe and have vince come into the ring and try to stop austin only to get beat with the chair too, id have it go so over the top that the fans would start to actually feel bad for mcmahon...id have rock take his time off and since vince is gone id have linda start a title tournament in wich austin brutally beats every one of his opponents finally coming face to face with Angle, he beats Angle and becomes the most brutal, almost scary WWF champoin ever til vince comes back, bringing the rock with him at summerslam, just as rock and austin fight in the main event, the invasion begins......

 

[sdaniel1977]

The Austin heel turn wasn't only a failure due to the way it was done it was a failure because Austin changed the demographic of fans. No longer did you have to be a Steamboat style babyface with your family at ringside and slap everyone's hand as you went by to the ring. People respected Austin because of his work ethic. They respected his honesty and unrelenting ability. People knew his true story, he told them in ECW. I believe the turn failed because a lot of people "knew" Austin even though not personally and they just couldn't hate him. Stone Cold was never the old school blueprint of a face or a heel. There are a few out there now, but not many with the most notable being Cena, who is as close to 80's Hogan as you'll ever find and Alberto Del Rio, whose "Million Dollar Man" gimmick and "Armando Alejandro Estrada" style announcer carry him far more than his talent. Getting back to Austin, he was the everyman. The guy you knew from the old neighborhood who liked his beer and if you made him mad you better pack a lunch because it was gonna be a long night. Everybody knows someone like the character of Stone Cold, and most of them like that person because they have the guts to speak their mind on anything. As a result, he already won the crowd over so the heel turn was about as useful as the 15th installment of the nWo was to wcw, and they said the Horsemen were overrated, lol.

 

[CarlSinclair]

The answer to your question is : I wouldn't. It should not have been attempted, and nobody could have made it work.

Austin had transcended simple "Heel/Face" mechanics. He had transcended being a wrestler.. the guy was an Icon.

Its like the attempts down the line to turn people like Flair, Piper and HBK heel. They had their run in the day but they are such legends to the fans, they just don't want to boo him.

The biggest problem with the Austin turn was.. the guy was already acting like a heel, and we loved him for it.

I just think it was a terrible idea from the beginning and nothing would have worked.

 

[RJJ]

First, I wanna say, I really understand why they turned austin heel. When you got two mega stars going at it, and having them both as faces, it's hard to give one of them a clean win without making the other look weak. That was the situation with rock and austin.

Now, as far as the heel turn itself, I think vince should've attacked rock while he's covering austin(after hitting the people's elbow), give austin a chair and let him do the finish(12 chairshots). There was no reason for all the chase down, and the fake finishes, but like I said they had to make the loser look strong. Also, being in austin's homestate was a huge reason why the fans didn't buy it.


IMO, I would make vince help austin without his approval(Doing all the dirty work just to make get the strap), at the end of the match vince would leave the ring with a huge on austin's face. And the next night, rock would get his rematch. During the match vince will come down to the ring and do the exact same thing he did(helping austin). Austin get the win. After the match they will confirm his heel turn by shaking vince's hand, and beat the the hell outta the rock.



And by the way, I really enjoyed austin's heel run. It was so hilaraious. Oh, and....."What?!" as a heel>>>>>>"What?!" as a face.

 

[WunNightStan619]

Im gonna probably the only person on this board to say that the Austin heel turn was great IMO. I mean he joined forces with Vince McMahon and HHH, the two men he hated most. From there he beat JR bloody, then the way that he and HHH would attack the Hardyz (and Lita) with those chairs was insane. His feud with taker was great too. Since he's a heel of coarse he's gonna be cowardly. They billed him as a crazed paranoid redneck who only beat on those weaker than him. Even when he joined the alliance and would beat on the likes of taz, michael cole, chavo and then run from Kurt Angle. Idk what kinda heel wouldnt have done the same thing. They tried to make him the badass heel before and look what happened?. Over all, i dont think it was his best run, but i dont think it was NEARLY as bad as ppl make it out to be. It just wasnt what YOU wanted him to be, that doesnt mean it wasnt a good angle.

IWC = Indecisive Wrestling Community

 

[S.J. Maximus]

Im gonna probably the only person on this board to say that the Austin heel turn was great IMO. I mean he joined forces with Vince McMahon and HHH, the two men he hated most. From there he beat JR bloody, then the way that he and HHH would attack the Hardyz (and Lita) with those chairs was insane. His feud with taker was great too. Since he's a heel of coarse he's gonna be cowardly. They billed him as a crazed paranoid redneck who only beat on those weaker than him. Even when he joined the alliance and would beat on the likes of taz, michael cole, chavo and then run from Kurt Angle. Idk what kinda heel wouldnt have done the same thing. They tried to make him the badass heel before and look what happened?. Over all, i dont think it was his best run, but i dont think it was NEARLY as bad as ppl make it out to be. It just wasnt what YOU wanted him to be, that doesnt mean it wasnt a good angle.

IWC = Indecisive Wrestling Community

I honestly couldn't have said it any better myself. It was actually a very logical direction for his character to go in, as he explains in his interview with JR it made complete sense for his badass character to make a deal with Vince in order to guarantee a title run. Every week before WM17 he talked about his 10-month journey and his need for the title. He wanted the title so bad that he aligned with the people he hated most just for the sake of being champ. During that run, he was paranoid and a coward because nothing could've possibly been worse than losing his title. What's there not to get? He got booed out of arenas, he was booed as early as the night after WM, the crowd of that time hated him and I think it was a successful heel run. Like WunNightStand619 said, just because you guys didn't like it doesn't mean it wasn't successful

 

[silrock316]

Actually I think they did the best thing they could have. Fans just didnt want to boo Austin regardless of what they did. They had him join Vince, his biggest enemy and then pummel the Rock, then join HHH basically the next night and then destroyed J.R. and the fans STILL didn't want to boo him.

In my opinion there really wasn't much you could have done to have Austin as a true heel. We just didn't want to hate him, by then he was too far in our hearts kinda like Hogan never really will truely be hated as an on screen character.

They tried turning the Rock heel as the hollywood heel and the fans didn't want to boo him either. There is certain wrestlers the fans just enternally love and theres nothing you can really do about it.

 

[silrock316]

Some of you people trashing the IWC are cracked out because you are part of the IWC how many times do people have to tell you this.

You probably didnt realize they ended Austins heel turn because it wasnt SUCCESSFUL in the aspect that he was a great heel because he wasnt. They did great TRYING TO TURN HIM HEEL by doing all the nasty things he did BUT the fans didnt boo him.

I was in Philly for a smackdown taping the night Jeff Hardy beat HHH for the IC title and the fans were in HUGE Austin chants but on tv when smackdown aired they turned it into heel heat.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Um, I would have made sure Rock was available even after WrestleMania 17.

Now I may not have been able to do that but that was really the only way Austin was going to get any heat. The fundamental theory behind Austin's heel turn was that his character had gotten stale and that there was a top babyface available who could take the mantle from Austin. That was obviously The Rock. What that also meant was that Austin was still more popular than any other wrestler on the roster and that the crowd would always cheer him over anyone but Rock. So, the logical move should have been to feud him with The Rock for a few months to get him over as a heel.

But since it would have been almost impossible to keep Rock after Mania 17, I would have gone with holding back the heel turn slightly. Have Vince help Austin out at Mania but then you could have ended Mania 17 with Austin stunning Vince. That would have kept Austin face. Then I would have kept the story as Vince trying to make sure that Austin was on his side in the view of the impending Invasion by the WCW superstars. Vince would have kept interfering in Austin's matches and Austin would have kept beating Vince down saying that he did not really need his help. Instead of Austin trying to please Vince, as was the case in the original heel turn of Austin, I would have made Vince try to please Austin to make sure he was on his team. Keep in mind that it would also need to be promoted that with Austin and Vince not really seeing eye to eye, it was a definite possibility that Austin would sign up with WCW.

Then, I would start up the Invasion angle close to SummerSlam and then have Austin confirm his allaince with the WWF. He would make a few jokes that Vince was a dumbass for trying to get him on his side as he was never going to defect anyway. Then you can have The Rock return and suddenly have Vince kowtowing to The Rock as well just as he was kowtowing to Austin a few weeks before that. Austin who would have been looked upto this point as WWF's saviour would now be looked on as someone inferior to Rock. Now, with Vince kowtowing to Rock it would appear that Rock was even better than Austin. You could also have Austin lose a few matches at this point and that would make Vince even more nervous.

I would have pulled the heel turn once and for all at Invasion which I would make sure have taken place after Rock returned. There, I would have had Austin wrestle with Rock for Team WWF till the end where he would turn on Rock and align with The Alliance. The reasoning would be that WWF considered Rock a bigger priority than Austin and Austin was pissed off by that.

 

[EastCoastFan]

The biggest problem with making Austin a heel was that everything they had him do to get heat in 1996-97, people CHEERED him for it. I know Austin's heel turn was his idea as he wanted to do something different to freshen up his character, but the fans liked him too much for him to ever really be a heel. No matter what he did, people still cheered him. That's why they kept trying different things - to try and get heat on him.