Columns
Morning Glory #14: The
Fall Of The WWF/E (Part 1)
This column is a
multiple part work, attempting to trace exactly why the WWF/E has ended up in the slump
that it is currently in. In this piece, the first part, I discuss why Steve Austin’s
initial heel turn went wrong, causing the original slide in ratings, and the death of the
‘boom period’ in the WWF.
Nostalgia, Necrophilia, and Torn Quads: The Fall of the WWF/E, Circa
2001-3
Just over two years ago, the wrestling business seemed to have a huge future mapped out in
front of it. Sure, ECW had gone bankrupt, and WCW had been purchased by Vince
McMahon’s WWF, but even so, this was a monopoly that would be successful. After all,
how could the WWF go wrong, when they had the best roster of workers ever at their
disposal? Not only that, but they had the rights to use the WCW name, and give the fans
the ‘dream feud’ they’d waited for years to see. WWF vs WCW. We’d
finally see all the matches we’d thought about for years. Undertaker vs Sting. The
Rock vs Hulk Hogan. Steve Austin vs Goldberg. Kevin Nash vs The Big Show. Well, maybe not
that one, but still….you get my drift. Not only that, but they’d just put on the
best PPV of all time, in Wrestlemania X7. A PPV that transcended time, that featured
something for everybody. And not only that, it seemed to be the moment that kickstarted a
new era in the world of wrestling.
Looking back now, does Wrestlemania X7 still hold up today, two years later? The answer is
quite simply yes, it does. Matches like the Chris Benoit/Kurt Angle technical showdown,
the TLC match between the Hardyz, Dudleyz and Edge & Christian, the awesome
storytelling of Shane vs Vince, the great brawl between Undertaker and HHH, and the best
Wrestlemania main event ever, Rock vs Austin, simply do not age with time. These matches
transcend time, and stand tall as classics, each in their own right. But what made
Wrestlemania X7 so good was not just the classic matches and feuds. No, it was the ending
of the PPV. The ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin heel turn that should’ve killed
the ‘Attitude’ era in the WWF for good, and began a brand new page in the
storybook of the World Wrestling Federation.
You see, for the four years leading up to Wrestlemania X7, Steve Austin had represented
everything in the WWF. Hell, he practically was the WWF. Steve Austin WAS attitude. His
character, the common man rebelling against authority, had been able to carry the brunt of
all the storylines since 1998, all the way through until 2001. And even when he was gone,
for the majority of 2000, it didn’t matter. The spirit of the ‘Stone Cold’
character was always there to see, whether it was The Rock rebelling against authority, or
when he was gone, Chris Jericho in the same role. However, by the beginning of 2001, it
was obvious that the times were changing. Since Austin had defeated the evil
‘Corporation’ and sent them packing, and The Rock had done the same with the
‘McMahon-Helmsley Faction’, what more was there for the ‘rebelling’
character to do? Fight more corporate-run, heel stables? It would’ve been pointless.
Something needed to change. The crowds weren’t getting tired of the character, as
such, but it seemed the right time to move away from that formula, before the fans did
tire of it. So at Wrestlemania X7, the WWF did the best thing they could. They turned
Steve Austin heel, and aligned him with Vince McMahon.
This heel turn would’ve been one of the most believable, and logical heel turns of
all time, had they played it right. Austin had been out for a year with a neck injury. The
idea for the heel turn was simple – Austin didn’t believe he could do the job in
the ring any more, so he sold out to McMahon in order to win the WWF Title. The former
rebel finally kisses the boss’s ass. It would’ve been perfect. Even with The
Rock leaving for Hollywood, to film ‘The Scorpion King’, Austin had a ready made
opponent in Triple H. Austin and HHH had tried to kill one another over the space of the 6
months since Austin’s return, and now Austin had aligned with Vince McMahon, it was
suggested, on the show following Wrestlemania X7, that HHH was not happy with his
father-in-law’s relationship with the Rattlesnake. Past Helmsley, the feuds for
Austin seemed limitless. Men like Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho, face characters just
coming into their own seemed good choices for later contenders to Austin’s belt. And
of course, coupled with Austin’s old foes, like Undertaker, these feuds would provide
2001 with decent competition, before the WCW brand would be ready to hit the WWF, in early
2002 when the unsigned, major WCW talent would be available.
It was not to be. Firstly, Austin never even explained his heel turn. He didn’t tell
us how he doubted himself, and used McMahon as his ‘insurance policy’. He
didn’t even say that he was sick of the cheers. Austin simply said “I don’t
care about the fans”, and beat up on Jim Ross for cheap heat. And worse was to come.
Rather than capitalizing on the obvious HHH-Austin money feud that was looking certain,
the WWF threw a nonsensical swerve into the works, and had Helmsley stay heel, joining up
with Austin to form the ‘Two Man Powertrip’. Not only that, but they positioned
Kane and The Undertaker, two over, but played out characters as their primary opponents,
after a short feud where the Powertrip squashed the Hardy Boyz. HHH defeated Jericho for
the Intercontinental Title, and then the Powertrip won the Tag Titles, meaning they had
all the gold in the promotion. Jericho and Benoit, both hugely over by this point, were
left in the midcard, in respective feuds with William Regal and Kurt Angle. And this was
where the ratings began to slide. It was painfully obvious that people weren’t
getting into Austin’s heel character at all, and of course, that was the blametaker
for the slide in ratings. But was it all down to the failings of the Austin heel
character? Yes and no. It wasn’t, as people claimed, that Austin could not play a
viable heel, but it was because Austin was portrayed almost as HHH’s lackey, and
however hard Undertaker was pushed, however over he was, we’d seen it all before.
There was a huge online backlash to the Austin/HHH/Taker/Kane feuding, as writers like
Scott Keith wrote huge diatribes on the ‘glass ceiling’, claiming that guys like
Jericho and Benoit were being held down because of their size, or because HHH didn’t
like them, or a variety of other reasons. By the time Jericho and Benoit finally received
the pushes they needed, as the top two faces in the promotion, it had been two solid
months since the Austin heel turn, and that meant two solid months of lower ratings.
Whether a strong, fresh face for Austin to play off would’ve kept ratings up is still
debatable, but I strongly believe that that was the reason for the slide. However, things
seemed to be looking up as Jericho and Benoit received their pushes. After winning a Tag
Team Turmoil match at Judgment Day, they were positioned as the top challengers to Austin
and HHH’s Tag Titles, and on RAW, the night following the Judgment Day PPV (Where
Austin beat Undertaker to finally end their feud), the four men put on a match that was
arguably the Match of the Year for 2001.
Jericho and Benoit went over, following a piece of miscommunication from the heels, firmly
placing the Canadian duo in the mix as main eventers, and the WWF seemed to be on the
right track up again. It was rumoured that Jericho would be positioned as the immediate
contender to Austin’s crown, while Benoit faced off against HHH, and once the feuds
had played themselves out, the WWF would finally pull the trigger on the long-awaited
HHH-Austin feud, most likely culminating at Summerslam. However, the match, however good
it was, ruined all that. Helmsley suffered his now infamous quadriceps tear. While saving
Austin from the Walls of Jericho, a pedestrian spot, Helmsley’s muscle tore right up
the leg, sidelining him, and his feud with Benoit. Just as it seemed that it couldn’t
get worse, Benoit became the next injury casualty, damaging his neck badly in the TLC
match on the Smackdown that week. Benoit was out following King Of The Ring, where he and
Jericho faced Austin in a Triple Threat match for the WWF Title. Austin won, but the major
story of the match came at the end, in the shape of a run in from the then-WCW champion
Booker T, to attack Austin. The WCW Invasion had seriously begun, considerably earlier
than people had expected. Before this, we had seen odd run ins from WCW wrestlers, but
nothing to suggest the Invasion would come to a head so early. Those run ins had been
against low card wrestlers such as Perry Saturn and Steve Blackman. This was an attack on
the WWF Champion.
Would Vince McMahon have felt compelled to start the WCW Invasion at that point, had
Helmsley and Benoit stayed injury-free? I don’t know. The Invasion may well have
started just as it did, as Shane McMahon began his feud with Kurt Angle on the show that
HHH was injured, and it was this feud that in turn began the WCW Invasion. If the company
had had HHH and Benoit available during the Invasion, would it have been any better?
Again, I don’t know. However, the way it went meant that the first chapter of Austin
as a heel had ended. Had he done a good job as a heel? Sure. Austin was over as a main
event heel, and was beginning to perfect his ‘paranoid’ character, a character
that would carry him through the rest of 2001. This shone through especially as HHH was
gone from TV, as Austin was finally portrayed as his own man rather than one half of a
partnership. However, the opponents positioned for Austin, and the fact that for all
intents and purposes, he was portrayed as #2 behind HHH, meant that his run did not go as
well as it should’ve done. The moment Steve Austin turned heel should have been a new
beginning for the WWF, a new era after ‘Attitude’. As it stands, the turn not
only began the ratings slide that the company is still on today, but inadvertently, it
triggered the slump that the sport is currently in.
And so ends the first part in this series. In the second part, I will discuss why the
Invasion bombed like it did, how the WWF had the ‘next big thing’ in their midst
a whole 6 months before the arrival of one Brock Lesnar, and why Vince McMahon’s
obsession with destroying his competition eventually led to his own company’s
downfall.
Until then…..Seeya.
Scott Newman: scott.newman@ntlworld.com
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