If Stone Cold doesn’t go heel in 2001

[4real]

Then what?

How do you keep Austin’s act fresh? He was noticeably directionless as a face in 2002.

Rock is still going so that feud is off the table. Maybe still do a two man power trip but with HHH &….Angle? Have them put their differences aside to destroy Rock & Austin?

Putting HHH & Benoit together would also be interesting but Benoit was starting to get over as a face.

Would you turn Taker or Kane or both heel to feud with Austin or should we leave that in 98?

What becomes of Jericho? Does he get elevated to that main event status without Austin going heel?

Also assuming the second Austin heel turn on WWF to join WCW doesn’t happen who leads WCW against the WWF?

Do you put Booker or DDP in main event feuds with Austin for the WWF Title? Lots of possibilities here.

[Feyrhausen]

Does Austin still tease a turn with Vince coming to help him but then call an audible and stun Vince? That would keep Austin as a face that does heel things to win.

I would go that route and keep him a wild card. Angle and H would be Vinces left and right hand who hate each other. If the quad tear never happens then they split and one heads the Alliance and the other the WWF. Austin stays on his own with both groups gunning for his title. When Rock returns he is on the WWF side but doesnt take orders from either. If H still s the quad tear then WWF has Taker lead until Rocks return.

[flowercity]

If we are to keep Stone Cold face, I like the idea of turning Taker heel after X-Seven. Those two had one of the all time hot programs in the summer of 98. Now with the different Taker character, it would be fresh, albeit not as big.

When it comes to the inVasion, if Vince was never going to bring in the major stars of WCW, it would never work. You didn’t even need Hogan/Hall/Nash. Even just Flair, Goldberg, DDP, and others would have been fine.

Austin should have been team WWF through and through. You build to Vince and Stone Cold having a power struggle, the rest of the roster sides with SCSA. Then Vince can bring in NWO to kill what he started just like the storyline in 02.

[rnrk supports BLM]

It's literally on the cusp of the WCW Invasion. Austin was the standard-bearer face of WWF all through the Monday Night Wars, and on top of that he's the guy who got kicked to the curb, fired over the phone, and told he'd never make it big by Eric Bischoff, and now he's got a chance to go up against Bischoff's handpicked golden boys.

This shit writes itself. You can easily get a year or more out of Austin fighting his way through the WCW guys to get to the other evil corporate boss figure who he's got even more reason to hate than Vince.

[tirtefaa]

Yeah, I mean it definitely should have been postponed till after the WCW Invasion. You could easily tie his hatred of WCW into the real life events that happened beforehand. You even can have the uneasy alliance with Vince, then the nWo start popping up, only to have Vince eventually establish himself as the force behind them. Only after you exhaust all the events of WWF vs. WCW and WWF/WCW vs. nWo, THEN you turn Austin heel.

[cornettesracket]

May 21, 2022 10:30:50 GMT -5 Feyrhausen said:

Does Austin still tease a turn with Vince coming to help him but then call an audible and stun Vince? That would keep Austin as a face that does heel things to win.

I would go that route and keep him a wild card. Angle and H would be Vinces left and right hand who hate each other. If the quad tear never happens then they split and one heads the Alliance and the other the WWF. Austin stays on his own with both groups gunning for his title. When Rock returns he is on the WWF side but doesnt take orders from either. If H still s the quad tear then WWF has Taker lead until Rocks return.

I’m almost sure Austin himself said on his podcast that if he could do the ending of mania 17, he’d have stunned vince instead of shacking his hand.

[auph10imitated]

It would have been time to build up new challengers for him, making new main eventers in the process.

Eddie Guerrero
Chris Jericho
Chris Benoit

All getting PPV title matches, perhaps Eddie at Backlash. Jericho at Judgement Day and Benoit at KOTR, before transitioning into the Invasion and if you didnt do the Invasion I would have had Angle at Summerslam.

[Renslayer]

May 24, 2022 8:02:09 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

It would have been time to build up new challengers for him, making new main eventers in the process.

Eddie Guerrero
Chris Jericho
Chris Benoit

All getting PPV title matches, perhaps Eddie at Backlash. Jericho at Judgement Day and Benoit at KOTR, before transitioning into the Invasion and if you didnt do the Invasion I would have had Angle at Summerslam.

I agree with this, but not the sequencing. I could be wrong, but wasn't eddie only on European title level around spring 01? I would've gone Benoit first as he was still heelish at the time and would be a perfect foil for two months before moving to Jericho, a stronger Eddie, etc for the summer

[wildojinx]

Make him into a lone wolf who wrestles both heels and faces. If you have to, dont even let him compete in tag teams. Keep this going through the Invasion angle, where he has no loyalty to either the alliance or wwf.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Actually push the WCW guys

Turn some WCW guys like Jericho and Show

Feud him with Jericho, Show, RVD, DDP, Booker T

Make the InVasion last a sane amount of time so you eventually have Flair too

He wins the final InVasion match while still champion

The next night with WCW dead and buried, you turn someone - maybe Angle or Taker - heel on him and they win the belt and then he takes time off before returning to win it back