Matt Hardy Knew Steve Austin’s WrestleMania 17 Heel Turn Was Going To Be Tough

On the latest episode of Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy, the TNA star talked about  Steve Austin’s divisive heel turn at WrestleMania X-Seven, saying he immediately recognized that Austin had reached a level of popularity where fans were not going to take to it as they should.

Austin defeated The Rock to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 17 while aligning himself with Vince McMahon. The turn famously didn’t work out and many people including Jim Ross have spoken about why. You can check out some highlights below:

On His Reaction To It:

“I remember thinking — because Steve went heel, I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be interesting. Kudos for attempting it.’ But even hearing the reaction afterwards, especially because we’re in Texas, I was like, ‘This dude is going to be swimming upstream, no doubt about it. This is not going to be an easy turn.’ Because this is a guy that has reached a level of popularity where it almost becomes impossible to turn him into a heel, because he’s so respected and he’s so legendary.”

On Austin vs. Rock:

“I thought they had a good match. They were always entertaining, they worked really well together. They could get in there, get real aggressive with one another, and they could do some stuff that was hokey but entertaining as s**t. It was good, and I thought it was a really interesting thing to try.”

On the Turn Not Working Out:

“As we learned, though, it just didn’t play out like they hoped it would, much probably like the John Cena heel turn. It’s just one of those things where you do something and you attempt to swim upstream to see if you can make something happen. But at the end of the day it doesn’t work, and you have to kind of hit the reset button.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.