WWE Royal Rumble Winner’s Circle: Steve Austin (1997, 1998, 2001)
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With the 2011 Royal Rumble approaching, we found it appropriate to pay homage to those who managed to go over in the 30 man over the top rope classic without their feet hitting the floor.
If Shawn Michaels was the glue that held the WWF together during their temporary, yet near-death, struggles against then white hot WCW, Stone Cold Steve Austin was the cement that would later formulate into the cinder block and bludgeon Team Turner into oblivion.
It can be easily argued that the Royal Rumble’s very prestige materialized during the mid to late nineties. During this period, not only was the Royal Rumble contested for the WWF Championship, but the dawning of the no. one contendership era coincided with the forging of the legendary careers of Bret Hart, Lex Luger Shawn Michaels, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, who won the Royal Rumble a record three times in his own legendary career.
While the Shawn Michaels’ and Bret Harts of the world used the Royal Rumble to showcase their resiliency, resolve, and spirit, Steve Austin saw the event as an annual platform to open his patented can of whoop ass on an array of WWF/E Superstars.
The Royal Rumble fit a character like Steve Austin perfectly. Steve Austin enjoyed the mass appeal of the often fickle WWE audience because of the simplicity of such a character. Stone Cold Steve Austin was nothing more than a pugnacious individual who unapologetically eviscerated anything and anybody who stood in the way of his goal. His goal, simply put, was the WWF/E Championship.
Such a basic narrative of one man’s desire for the richest prize that the world wide leader had to offer enhanced the value of the WWF/E Championship as Austin’s connection to a mass viewing audience translated into a shared desire for the WWF/E’s major championship.
The most accurate microcosm of the Stone Cold Steve Austin character was depicted during events leading up to Royal Rumble 1998 in San Jose, California. The build up to the event focused around ‘Pulp’ Austin’s rampage through the WWF roster, at random moments throughout RAW broadcasts, in preparation for the Royal Rumble match.
Austin’s sporadic attacks of various WWF Superstars, babyface or heel, only helped his popularity as he headed into the 1998 Royal Rumble match as both the favorite and public enemy number one.
Despite being the biggest target in that year’s Royal Rumble, Steve Austin managed to earn perhaps his most important Royal Rumble victory, with Mike Tyson in attendance. Austin would go on to Wrestlemania to subsequently capture his first WWF Championship when he defeated Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XIV in Boston, Massachusetts. Austin’s victory was one of those rare changing of the guard moments in the ego-driven industry of professional wrestling.
The most accurate depiction of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s character came during the 2001 Royal Rumble in New Orleans, Louisiana. In perhaps the greatest Royal Rumble of them all, Austin was booked to fight back from beating suffered at the hands of Triple H, as Austin was on his way to the ring, and eventually eliminate Kane who had put forth the single most dominant performance in Royal Rumble history that night.
The transcendent effort by Austin reinvigorated the ‘Rattlesnake’ character, while creating an intriguing Wrestlemania X-Seven matchup between Austin and The Rock despite that match being the Wrestlemania main event just two years prior.
Austin’s three Royal Rumble victories is a record that should never be broken, even though he blatantly cheated to secure his first Royal Rumble win in 1997. Any active WWE Superstar with the chance to break Austin’s record for Royal Rumble wins wouldn’t truly embrace the record, but rather parade around with a superficial statistic that doesn’t suit them.
Austin made his hay in kickin’ ass and taking names. Never did he get a greater opportunity to do celebrate his smash mouth style of brawling than in the Royal Rumble match.
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Tags: 1997, 1998, 2001, Bret Hart, California, Louisiana, New Orleans, San Jose, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, WWE Royal Rumble Winners, WWF
