WWF WrestleMania X-Seven, Houston, TX
You know the match, you know the back story. If you don’t the video package does enough to set it up, including the quickly and thankfully abandoned very bad inclusion of Austin’s wife Debra.
The match is surprisingly announced as no-DQ right before the entrances, which Jim Ross wonders about, figuring Commissioner William Regal made the call at some point, but it had not been announced.
This opens them up to brawl violently and freely, so that’s good, because both excelled with wild brawls. Austin takes full advantage, getting the better of the early portion of the match, busting Rock open and just aggressively taking it to him; it’s wrestling cliche but he really is rabid in his attacks, and he’s also the fan favorite in Texas. (And also because, as popular as Rock could be as a babyface, Austin was more popular. They are two of the three most popular stars in WWE history and happened to exist at the same time, one had to be more popular.)
Rock proves his mettle yet again, though; he was never a “pretty boy,” but in the heel character that he broke through with, he was something of a coward, of course. He had to prove his toughness after actually, finally getting over, and he did it really well. Here, his comeback features him battering a staggering, bleeding Austin, and Austin is perfect looking like maybe he’s a bit past it, like he’s given Rock his best shots and Rock has gotten through it all. You get the impression throughout the match that Austin has x amount of gas and knows it, and he’s trying to take Rock out before he has to empty the tank. Rock is younger, fresher, less wear and tear. Austin is desperately violent and driven from the opening bell.
They both do sharpshooter spots, recalling Bret-Austin at 13 with the blood and the screaming and all. It becomes a huge war of attrition, as both guys are fading, and again it’s clear Rock is still the fresher guy. And as Austin keeps being unable to put him away, the frustration grows.
Vince McMahon is also at ringside, still in the fit from his match earlier in the night, and the question is why, but he’s got a close eye on things. Rock hits the People’s Elbow, and it’s over — but Vince is in to pull Rock off of Austin. Again, no DQ; he can do it.
But it becomes clear that Austin and Vince are in cahoots. The years-long blood feud must be over. But Rock keeps kicking out, and keeps fighting back. But eventually Austin gets a chair from Vince, and it’s now clear even for the dumbest wrestling fans: Austin and Vince are together.
Artistically speaking or whatever, Austin just ruthlessly pummeling Rock with a chair as Vince celebrates his actions works really well. Austin wins the world title not with one big move, but just beating the last life out of the Rock with a chair.
It’s a great, Attitude Era-style brawl. The booking is suspect, and it turned out to be a huge misstep, an enormous swing and miss. I hate to pull the “old” card, but I was there, man, and if you’re a youngster, please believe me: people did not want the Steve Austin heel turn. He had not gone stale. They were still absolutely crazy for him, they loved him. And in some sense this might seem like a good artistic choice, then, to gut the audience while they still love him. But wrestling just doesn’t work like that very often, and instead of feeling gutted and now hating Austin, what they hated was the drastic change in character for someone they still truly wanted to cheer. Within a couple months or so, proof was in the pudding as the top heels (Austin, Vince, and Kurt Angle) were reduced to a comedy trio in backstage skits. This is not ideal. It was good TV for people like me who weren’t going to stop watching — Austin is legitimately funny, and Vince and Angle can play along with that — but it wasn’t a top guy thing to be doing. Combined with the utter flop of the WCW and then ECW invasion angle, and you can really look back to this match, this legitimately legendary match, as the first step of a very hard fall for the WWF. It’s not quite a Hogan-Sting at Starrcade ’97-level catastrophe, but it’s about as close as this company ever got. Luckily, no alternatives were around to make them pay.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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