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whadu · Level 47: Snake Eater **Posts:** 31396 **Timestamp:** Sat Jun 21, 08 12:16 PM

The Invasion (2001)

Steve Austin was paired with Kurt Angle and feuded against Jericho and Benoit. This culminated with a triple threat match at King of the Ring, in which Austin faced the former tag team champions (who had just been dethroned by The Dudley Boyz three days earlier). In a match which saw all three men beat each other severely and eventual outside interference from WCW's Booker T, Austin scored the victory and retained his championship. The feud ended at that point, as Benoit had neck surgery after the match, sidelining him for the following year.

As soon as July 2001 began, with Benoit out for surgery, the Austin/Jericho feud was dropped without a mention. With Triple H out and The Rock still away making movies, the WWF desperately rushed out the plans for The Invasion. As The Invasion storyline began and progressed, Vince McMahon had been begging for Stone Cold to return to his old Texas Rattlesnake persona. Austin refused though, as he was developing into a more comedic character. But the week before the InVasion pay-per-view, the old Stone Cold Steve Austin "returned," delivering stunners to the Alliance members. This was all part of a swerve at the event, where Austin betrayed the WWF team and partner Kurt Angle to help the Alliance win, as Austin assumed leadership of the group.[5] The reason why Austin did this was because he felt that WWE didn't care about him anymore, especially Vince McMahon and Kurt Angle.

Austin lost and regained his title in a feud with Kurt Angle, who was put over by Austin as a legitimate threat. Austin lost the title to Kurt Angle at Unforgiven 2001 before regaining it on the October 8, 2001 episode of Raw.[5] Angle then joined the Alliance.[5] As the Invasion angle dragged on, it was ultimately decided to bring the plot line to an end with Austin and a group of ECW and WCW wrestlers facing The Rock and a group of WWF wrestlers at that year's Survivor Series. Austin and his team lost after Angle betrayed him and that was the end of the Invasion angle. The next night on Raw, Mr. McMahon was about to award Kurt Angle with the WWF Championship for actions at Survivor Series when Ric Flair came out and announced that he owned half of the WWF and Austin came out and attacked Angle and McMahon, regained the WWF Championship and had a beer bash with Flair, turning Austin face once again.[35] Austin had decided to walk out again because of bad storylines that were presented to him by the creative team.[36] This time though, he did not return for almost 9 months. Bored and run down, Austin began to create problems backstage as the WWF rehired Eddie Guerrero for Austin to feud with, while prepping Austin for a feud with Brock Lesnar. Austin, however, vetoed any matches that would result in him losing and ultimately walked out of the company when the writing staff wanted Austin to lose to Lesnar.[36] Austin later explained that he thought hot-shotting a victory did no favors to either side, as it made Austin look weak losing to a rookie, and did not give Lesnar a proper stage for such a big win over a star of the magnitude that Austin holds. Austin later publicly stated that at the time, his anti-social attitude behind the scenes were the result of him dealing with chronic knee and neck injuries that had never properly healed. Further fanning the flames amongst Austin's growing number of detractors was a well-publicized domestic dispute incident between Austin and his wife Debra.[36] Austin served probation time for the offense and has not discussed it publicly since.

Austin's final match against The Rock at WrestleMania XIX.

In February 2003, he returned to WWE at No Way Out in a short match against Eric Bischoff. Austin was finally defeated by The Rock at WrestleMania XIX, which ultimately became his last official match in WWE to date. The night after on Raw, Bischoff "fired" Austin on medical grounds, however he was brought back by Linda McMahon as the "Co-General Manager" for Raw. The move to the role of "Co-General Manager" was a way to keep Austin on-camera while limiting Austin's in-ring performance. On the November 17, 2003 edition of Raw, Austin was "fired" from Raw as the result of a stipulation in a match at Survivor Series 2003 where Austin's hand-picked team of wrestlers failed to beat Bischoff's team of wrestlers. Austin quickly returned to WWE television before the end of 2003 when he was part of a Christmas special taped live in front of U.S. troops in Iraq, posing as Santa Claus and stunning Mr. McMahon. He finally came back on Raw on December 29 as its "Sheriff."

Austin appeared on and off as 2004 began, culminating in him being the special guest referee for the match between Brock Lesnar and Goldberg at WrestleMania XX. Then, on April 17, WWE put out a press release on their website claiming that Steve Austin and WWE were unable to settle long-running contract disputes and had again parted ways. This was reportedly over a contract dispute about WWE's control of Austin's non-WWE projects, such as movies. Austin could thus no longer use "Stone Cold" to promote himself, as that name is trademarked by WWE. Austin had to correct many people in interviews to ensure they did not refer to him by that moniker.

Stone-Cold-Steve-Austin, WWE, Wrestling

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