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Defrost:Welcome back everybody. We, the royal we, are delighted to bring to you the next installment of DRS2EBRaSAG-G. The format is still is flux. This time out the DRS2EBRaSAG-G will focus on a particular point in time. That point in time brings us to the first time Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock battled over the WWF Championship. It also brings us to a time where a man named Vince Russo was booker in the WWF. Aside from a pole this is pretty obvious watching these matches. I’ll get to Vinny Ru later. So we shall now see if this is a better way of analysis, whether last time was, whether the next one will be, whether it doesn’t matter, or whether in the immortal words of The Total Package Lex Luger I don’t know.
RAW is WAR 11/16/98 (Rupp Arena)
World Wrestling Federation Championship
WWF Heavyweight Champion The Rock(w/ Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, Ken Shamrock, Big Bossman) vs Stone Cold Steve Austin
Wrestlemania XV (First Union Center)
No Holds Barred Match/World Wrestling Federation Championship
WWF Heavyweight Champion The Rock vs Stone Cold Steve Austin
Backlash 1999 (Providence Civic Center)
No Holds Barred Match w/ Guest Referee Shane McMahon/World Wrestling Federation Championship
WWF Heavyweight Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock
Attitude Era Syndrome is a bandied about term. A term I have never agreed with. After watching these there might be something to it. All of these matches are overbooked to bejesus. Run ins in every match. Run ins on guys only tangentially involved. Run ins on guys’ seconds. Refs bumps and guest refs and everything in between. This leads to an inevitable discussion of Vince Russo. He loves some nonsensical plotlines and recycles the shit out of them. For anyone who follows TNA, why would put yourself through that, there is apparently a power struggle going on. Mick Foley has some power, Hulk Hogan does, Dixie Carter does, I think Jim Cornette still does even though he doesn’t work there anymore, Dusty Rhodes and Larry Zbyszko say hi. The prototype for this is Shawn Michaels as commissioner. Despite being hired by Vince McMahon and his boss being Vince McMahon as commissioner Shawn Michaels somehow had more power than Vince McMahon. Well he had that power whenever it was convenient. For instance he could do nothing about Steve Austin being #1 in the 1999 Royal Rumble, but he could change Vince McMahon’s number from 30 to 2. Why? Fuck if I know, but what I do know is Russo’s propensity of starting angles without having a payoff planned ahead of time leading to plot holes the size of the god damn moon.
Now as overbooked as the first two matches were the booking of the Backlash match is mind boggling. Check this out. The deck is stacked against Steve Austin. Shane McMahon is the evil ref, who doesn’t just Montreal him but that’s another complaint entirely, who is actively helping Rock and refuses to count three on him. Not to mention if Austin touches him he forfeits the title. Austin is able to overcome this because Vince McMahon runs in with the Smoking Skull Belt attacking Shane and making Earl Hebner the ref. Now this was revealed to be all part of Vince McMahon’s master plan to get the WWF Title off of Stone Cold. Let me repeat that for everyone who is now experiencing massive pain in the brain region after reading that. Vince Russo booked Vince McMahon to save Stone Cold Steve Austin’s title reign from certain doom as a way of certainly dooming Stone Cold Steve Austin’s title reign. Vince Russo is a shit booker. That makes no sense. The only thing that could possibly make less sense would be booking Mr Kennedy as your promotion’s champion. Wait, what?
On to the actual wrestlers. Following Stone Cold’s return from being dropped on his head by Owen Hart the WWF main event style became a brawling style. Crowd brawling became the new big thing in every Steve Austin match. A lot of that had to do with his inability to take many bumps. Crowd brawling is prevalent in these three matches. The Raw match only goes six minutes and they managed to squeeze it in. Plus this was the heyday of the continual deaths of the Spanish Announce Table. Then once out of the crowd there would be brawling everywhere else. Most of their matches at Wrestlemania and Backlash were spent brawling in front of the entrance way. Rock and Austin took turns throwing each other into the set at Mania and Backlash. At Mania Rock reversed a suplex outside, and Austin returned the favor at Backlash. The Stunner reversed into a Rock Bottom reversed into a Stunner was dropped on the Backlash match after being used in the first two matches. The crowds on all three shows were many many times hotter than anything you see in WWE these days.
I remembered their first Wrestlemania match as being better than it was. I also didn’t remember Rock getting as much offense in the first two matches as he did. Not that it mattered since Austin no sold everything and it seemed the Rock only knew three moves. It is amazing how great Rock would be a year after this. All Rock had in the first two matches were a ton of clotheslines, I mean a comical amount of clotheslines, long chinlocks, and an occasional swinging neckbreaker. Rock backdropped Austin leg first on the set and beat on Austin’s leg with a chair and Austin never made any attempt at limping. Austin was stunningly bad at Wrestlemania and Rock came across super green. I remembered it a lot more fondly.
However, once you got past the head scratching booking the Backlash match was great. I have no idea what got into Austin but he was doing a mid 1990s Shawn Michaels impression here. He was diving off all sorts of stuff on the outside. He took a flip bump on the concrete floor after the Rock rolled one of those giant cases at him. Austin took a Rock Bottom through the Spanish Announce Table. He was getting thrown through the set then diving on Rock through it. I was surprised by this. Plus this match allowed The Rock to cut some corners and allowed him to cut back on the, still way too many, clotheslines. The Rock taking the headset and cutting a promo, or taking the camera and filming as Austin gave him a Stunner on the announce table. I have no idea what a Stunner on a table does, but whatever it was fun. At least he avoided a chinlock.
RAW is WAR 11/16/98
Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated WWF Heavyweight Champion The Rock via DQ when Undertaker hit Stone Cold in the face with a shovel at 6:00. The Rock retained the World Wrestling Federation Championship
Star Rating *1/2
Wrestlemania XV
Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated WWF Heavyweight Champion The Rock via Pinfall after the Stone Cold Stunner at 16:52. Stone Cold Steve Austin won the World Wrestling Federation Championship
Star Rating **
Backlash 1999
WWF Heavyweight Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated The Rock via Pinfall after Stone Cold hit The Rock with the championship belt at 17:07. Stone Cold Steve Austin retained the World Wrestling Federation Championship
Star Rating ***3/4
Average Rating: **1/2
Welp that’s another one in the books. Next up is a pairing that only occurred three times thus this is yet another new set up here. Not having to decide what fits and doesn’t. It is also the first trip outside 1990s WWF as we set off to the land of the rising sun to check out the three times Keiji Mutoh faced off against Hiroshi Tanahashi. As always feedback is appreciated. Until next time everyone.