411’s WWE Rivals Report: ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker

-Rivals is back for another season and is part of WWE’s 3 hour block on A&E on Sundays. I have been a fan of this show and it’s always an easy watch. Let’s get to it!

-Gabriel Iglesias is our host and is joined at the table by Natalya, JBL, Kevin Owens, and Sean Waltman.

-JBL notes Austin and Taker have a long history together and we see Steve and a young Taker under a mask working against each other in Texas. That’s awesome and I want to see the whole match now.

-We skip WCW and just go to Undertaker showing up at Survivor Series 90. Damian Priest mentions Taker’s aura and how it was intriguing. He will never forget Taker locking Warrior in a casket. You and me both buddy! Michelle McCool (Mrs. Taker) says she was intrigued by him, but never wanted to meet him.

-Taker says he lived the gimmick 24/7. Waltman puts Taker over as the Iron Man who always worked injured and we see Phantom Taker! We have to make sure we complain about WCW buying everyone as they opened their check book and took Hogan, Savage, and Luger. WWF was getting buy and brought in Steve Austin.

-Kevin Owens loved the Ringmaster and says he was so different than anyone else at the time. Even as The Ringmaster he was still just a wrestler with boots and trunks and wasn’t a gimmick. Ringmaster disappears and Stone Cole is born! It wouldn’t be an Austin bio without King of the Ring 96 and even Miz is now saying the next day it was Austin’s moment. Again, my man was on the pre-show of SummerSlam against Yokozuna. Miz then makes me want to pull my hair out as he says Austin needed the right opponent and rivalry to get him there and that was The Undertaker. What even is this? I understand this is about Austin/Taker, but you don’t have to lie to get there. It was the Bret Hart feud that got Austin to the Main Event level as we all know.

-RAW: June 24, 1996: This is the night after King of The Ring and Austin is having his first match as our new King against The Undertaker. I have no recollection of this at all, but I was probably watching Nitro. Austin talks about Taker’s entrance and how it made him forget everything he wanted to accomplish in the match.

-JBL says Taker was the barometer and gatekeeper and this match was a test for Austin. Taker says you can see Austin was getting a push and you can either slow that down and help him excel faster. Taker said he was going to do the best he could to make him look like the star he was going to be. Goldust interviews as he had issues with Taker and that leads to a DQ. Apparently this was some big moment for Austin as he didn’t have to take The Tombstone and lose. I mean, it would be stupid to have the new King of the Ring lose 24 hours after winning the crowd. JBL with more crap as he says from that moment you felt Austin could be the guy. Taker knew he could give Austin that rub down the line. I can’t with this retconning of history. How hard is it to just touch on this match and then get to Austin challenging Taker a year later for the WWF Tile. There is no need to go back and give a throw away match on RAW so much importance.

-Austin talks about his first t-shirt and wanting to use a skull on the back, but was told that was Taker’s deal. Austin asked Taker and was cool if Taker shot it down, but Taker told him to run with it.

-Hey, the Bret Hart feud! They bring up the famous WrestleMania XIII Match and that is the one where Austin was off and running as the future of the company. At that same show, The Undertaker beat Sid to win the WWF Title and Prichard says it positioned Taker as the man to lead them in the next generation.

-RAW: May 5, 1997: We are building to In Your House: Cold Day in Hell and the Main Event is Taker defending his WWF Title against Austin. They were in a lose lose situation here as neither man was in a position to take a real loss.

-Cold Day in Hell: May 11, 1997: KO notes he was afraid this match would send Taker the other way as it’s hard to bet against Taker. The Miz again as he says the way to find out if Austin was ready and the guy was a PPV Main Event against Undertaker. I don’t know man, stealing the show in an all time classic with the crowd losing their mind against Bret Hart at Mania might have been enough proof, but what do I know. Weird they also didn’t touch on Austin and Taker being in the Main Event together months earlier at Final Four (that 4 way was an amazing match as well). Taker gets the win as Austin continues to lose thanks to The Hart Foundation, but Miz says winning and losing didn’t matter that match. It was about Austin winning the crowd and he did that night. I get it that they wanted to test Austin with Taker. They have done the same with a lot of guys as they were on their way up the card.

-Austin takes off form there and is the face of The Attitude Era. We get clips of middle fingers and Stunners. CM Punk, nice to have him on these shows as a talking head now, says Austin is the bad ass everyman. Taker brings up all the Austin shirts and how Steve could have lived comfortably on just the money he was making off his merch. No kidding and probably can do that still today.

-Austin wins the WWF Title at WrestleMania XIV and JBL calls him the hottest wrestler in the history of the business. You can put his name on a show in an armory in the Melbourne, Australia and it will sell out. Make your own AEW Grand Slam jokes!

-Taker says Austin was the golden ticket and everyone wanted to get in that spot to work with him. We see video of Austin on ManCow in the morning and he calls Austin the wrester to lead the business into the new millennium. What’s wild is that really didn’t happen as injuries cut down a lot of Austin’s peak years after winning the WWF Title.

-Everyone knows the big money match they have for SummerSlam is Austin vs. Taker and Taker demands a shot at the WWF Title. Austin: “Undertaker says I pissed him off. I was born pissed off.”

-Foley says it’s not rocket science as you just put the two biggest stars in the company against each other. They were past the days of good guys vs. bad guys. Prichard says it was an obvious choice, though it wasn’t a traditional choice since both guys were popular.

-Some trivia as it seems Austin came up with The Highway to Hell tag for SummerSlam that year. We see the video shoot of Austin and Taker walking through streets and wrecking havoc.

-Damian Priest says he was in NYC when SummerSlam happened. If I remember, that was the first WWF show with the padded security walls instead of the old steel railings. That set was fire with the traditional MSG walkway and swinging gate that opened. Kevin Owens says he didn’t have cable, so he bothered his friends parents until they let him come over to watch.

-JR dig on commentary as he says no WWF Champion has ever gotten that kind of ovation in MSG. Obviously a dig at Hogan and knowing Vince, probably one at Bruno as well. Taker notes during the match, Austin kicked Taker and when his head snapped up he clipped Austin and knocked him out.

-Austin says he doesn’t remember much from that night and it was the first time he was knocked out. Waltman notes they didn’t have the protocols then as they do now. KO says Taker was the best person to be in the ring with Austin at that point. Taker had a spot in case things weren’t going well to get the crowd into the match and it was the famous Leg Drop off the top rope through the announce table. Taker mentions he never practiced the move and when he got up there he realize it was a heck of a long way to jump. Austin assumed since he was knocked out, they wouldn’t do the spot, but there he was on the table. Austin ended up fine, but Taker broke his tailbone. With all the problems they crowd didn’t care and they pulled it together. Honestly, this might be the best match in their long series together even with all the issues. Austin gets the win and Taker hands him the WWF Title, which Priest mentions was something new. It made Taker look human, which didn’t happen. Austin wishes the match would have been better and he feels he let Taker down. That still haunts him to this day. KO wonders what could have happened if Steve didn’t get hurt, but notes it was still a really good match.

-JBL notes you have to stack the deck against your babyface and that is hard to do against someone like Austin. Their idea was to put Taker and Kane together. Kane says the WWE audience always wanted to see them together. Mr. McMahon tells Austin he has to defend the WWF Title against Taker and Kane in a Triple Threat. The table jokes that Austin was literally fighting hell.

-Breakdown: Sept 1998: Austin compares Kane and Take to comic book characters. I mean, Kand and Taker together is certainly a threat to Austin, so that worked. We get the weird double pin and nobody knows who is the real Champion.

-The next night on RAW, Steve Austin drives a Zamboni to the ring. KO laughs as Austin hit the ring and notes it could have sent the ring crashing. I remember the inflatable punching bag that got thrown into the ring.

-We jump ahead as Taker cracks Austin in the head with a shovel on RAW. Taker was reunited with Paul Bearer at this point and he was full heel. Austin was in a hospital and gets smothered by Taker and kidnapped. Yep, this happened! JBL says they did crazy stuff back then. Taker tells Austin this is is his last ride.

-The next week, Austin blasts Taker with a shovel as part of the build to Rock Bottom and a Buried Alive Match.

-Rock Bottom: Dec 13, 1998: Prichard gives us the rules of the match. Taker notes the audience knew that was his match, but this is Stone Cold. Austin says Taker takes a lot of pride in being able to go and you know the match is going to be a grind. He says they were tough matches and you had to work your ass off to get the crowd where you wanted them to be. Foley compares it to a really good monster movie. Austin hits a Stunner that sends Taker into the open grave. JBL says they learned from the first match that six guys with shovels can’t fill the hole, so they had a backhoe to use this time. Taker notes that even if it is his match, he didn’t win very many of them.

-Takers says that match was the exclamation point in the rivalry. That wasn’t the end, but I guess it is as far as this show is concerned. Priest notes they always found ways to get back to each other. Drew says he doesn’t remember the matches, but remembers the moments. That makes sense! They do include Austin giving Team WWF a Pep Talk during The Invasion Angle where it seemed like his main goal was to break Taker. 

-We see Taker and Austin shooting the breeze about their SummerSlam match at WrestleMania 38. Michelle says they are two good old boys from Texas. Nattie says we are still talking about the way they elevated each other and the industry. Austin says throw out World Championships and Taker is up there with the best and he considers him to be one of the GOATs. Taker says he saw Steve take a horrible gimmick and become one of the biggest stars in the history of the business. He is grateful for being able to work with Steve.

-Again, I always enjoy this show and I may have sounded a bit annoyed while watching, but I still found it to be a solid watch. I just didn’t understand the need to make it seem like Taker is the one that launched Austin up the card. Their match at SummerSlam was massive and that alone should have been enough. With that said, the talking heads were fun and it’s nice having wrestling fans on here like Priest, Punk, and KO. Austin and Taker were honest with their thoughts as well. Easy show to watch as always and nothing ground breaking, but it doesn’t have to be. Thanks for reading!