Your Thoughts on The Austin/Dude Love Tag Team....

[chunkylover53]

What were your thoughts on this short-lived duo? Despite them being tag team champions for 2 months, they haven't done much as a tag team, but from what I've seen, they had great chemistry together. Dude Love basically was the comedy fodder to Austin's straight man role, had a nice ying-yang flow.

This was also during Mick Foley's stage of his career, where the WWF wanted to introduce the person behind Mankind, and brought up that he came up with the Dude Love persona as a teen. During that time, Austin's tag team championship partner Shawn Michaels walked out, and Austin was required to find a partner to be tag champs with. Despite Mankind offering him his help, Austin turned his services down...but he never said anything about teaming up with Dude Love.

So Dude Love debuted to help Austin out against challengers Owen Hart and The British Bulldog, and defeated them to become(or in Austin's case retain) the tag team champions.

Now, Austin got injured during his reign as tag team(and Intercontinental) champion forcing him to forefeit both belts, so that can explain why they didn't do much as champions. But the inception of that duo had a storyline purpose to it with Dude Love being Austin's reluctant tag team partner, and I'd love to see how the interaction between the two would play out if Austin was able to perfrom around the time.

All in all, could've been better for obvious reasons, but enjoyed what I saw. How about you?

[BigJerichool222]

So f***ing random when it happened.

But then it became epic.

[Todd Pettengill]

I freakin' loved it! Everything from the debut until their feud over the big strap a year later.

[Deleted]

Anything Dude Love related is good

[GuyOfOwnage]

I remember my 9 year old self marking pretty big for the Dude Love debut, and rewatching my tape of it over and over again. Too bad their reign got cut short.

[Renslayer]

Steve Austin was extremely awesome in 97 & this pairing was great.

[Bob Schlapowitz]

Foley's first appearance as Dude Love is one of my favorite moments of my 25 years watching WWF/E.

["Hollywood" Cactus Matt]

May 7, 2011 23:52:06 GMT -5 Bob Schlapowitz said:

Foley's first appearance as Dude Love is one of my favorite moments of my 25 years watching WWF/E.

Ditto. I marked HARD watching it on Raw. Then again, I've been a fan of Foley since his days in WCW. (hence my screen name.)

[Madagascar Fred]

superfun team, really short run though...their 98 feud was epic

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I absolutely loved this.

Honestly I think that the Rock and Sock came about because this angle stalled at Austin being injured. The booking wrote itself, both times.

Plus, anything Austin and Foley did together was amazing.

[Johnny Danger (Godz)]

They are in my top 3 tag teams of all time. I LOVED them together and am so sad it didnt last longer.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

It's often forgotten that Dude Love was an example of a great swerve. Austin had been rejecting Mankind for weeks and the Raw before Dude's debut, Mankind got pissed and said something along the lines of bringing in someone from his own past to deal with it. This was a strong hinting that he'd be bringing back Cactus Jack...and then they debut the Dude to the shock of everyone. That lengthy JR interview set it all up perfectly. Austin's reaction to Dude on the Titantron is simply classic.

A weird fact is that this was Foley's first title in the WWF as well. It's really kind of heartwarming that his childhood character was the one he won his first belt with.

[mrjl]

May 7, 2011 23:29:55 GMT -5 @bootytime said:

Anything Dude Love related is good

anything Mick Foley related was gold

[Todd Pettengill]

I don't think their run was really cut short by that much.

Austin HAD to break free of the team to go on his own in the build for 'Mania. His injury hastened the team's demise, but it wasn't going to go on much longer anyways.

And I must agree with the others, the Dude's debut is one of my favorite moments ever.

[The Possum]

A moment of pure joy in the hearts of all wrestling fans. Especially when you consider Mankind's character, and how he had a boyhood dream of being a superstar, but didn't have the right look for it. When the girls come up to Dude and Austin hands him the belt, if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then you lack humanity.

[chunkylover53]

May 8, 2011 9:09:40 GMT -5 The Possum said:

A moment of pure joy in the hearts of all wrestling fans. Especially when you consider Mankind's character, and how he had a boyhood dream of being a superstar, but didn't have the right look for it. When the girls come up to Dude and Austin hands him the belt, if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then you lack humanity.

I also find it surreal and neat that Austin shook his hand.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

May 8, 2011 9:14:57 GMT -5 chunkylover53 said:

May 8, 2011 9:09:40 GMT -5 The Possum said:

A moment of pure joy in the hearts of all wrestling fans. Especially when you consider Mankind's character, and how he had a boyhood dream of being a superstar, but didn't have the right look for it. When the girls come up to Dude and Austin hands him the belt, if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then you lack humanity.

I also find it surreal and neat that Austin shook his hand.

I think this is the moment that Austin's character became main-event ready. Up until this point, he was still the serial-killer inspired lunatic that showed up to Pillman's house ready for a gunfight and attacked Bret Hart in an ambulance. While fans were certainly getting behind Austin as an anit-hero, he was going to need some humanity in order to truly connect with the audience and become the superstar that he ended up becoming.

Austin accepting Dude Love as his tag partner added that needed depth to Austin's persona that would later allow him to spout catchphrases like "GIMME A HELL YEAH!" without it seeming forced.

[chunkylover53]

May 8, 2011 9:31:16 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

May 8, 2011 9:14:57 GMT -5 chunkylover53 said:

I also find it surreal and neat that Austin shook his hand.

I think this is the moment that Austin's character became main-event ready. Up until this point, he was still the serial-killer inspired lunatic that showed up to Pillman's house ready for a gunfight and attacked Bret Hart in an ambulance. While fans were certainly getting behind Austin as an anit-hero, he was going to need some humanity in order to truly connect with the audience and become the superstar that he ended up becoming.

Austin accepting Dude Love as his tag partner added that needed depth to Austin's persona that would later allow him to spout catchphrases like "GIMME A HELL YEAH!" without it seeming forced.

While I do agree with what you said 100%, some smarks say thats when Austin became "characterized" and jumped the shark. I for one didn't notice or care about the change, but if you compare Austin's 1996/1997 persona to his 1998 onwards character, there is a noticable difference.

But again, his marketabilty has never went away, so thats all that mattered.

[Bishblast]

I liked it, even if I liked the tag team of Austin and Michaels more. Really, I hold most things from that period of WWF (late 1996 - early 1998, before it got completely absurd) very highly.

[Wii M Punk]

I used to use these 2 all the time on WWF Warzone on the PS1. Cactus Jack and Dude Love were hidden characters in the game. When I unlocked them, I always did tag matches using Austin and Dude Love!