WRESTLINGFEUDS

Steve Austin

Steve Austin appears in eight storylines documented on WrestlingFeuds, as a principal in seven, spanning 1996–2003 in WWF and WWF/WWE.

Feuds and rivalries

New Generation·WWF·1996–1997

The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels vs. Sycho Sid (Jul 1996 – Jan 1997)

Shawn Michaels spent his 1996 WWF Championship reign defending it against the same handful of opponents, until his one-time bodyguard turned attacker turned ally, Sycho Sid, chased off a rival at ringside and earned a title shot of his own. Sid beat Michaels for the belt in front of a Madison Square Garden crowd that booed the champion out of the building, and Michaels won it back two months later in San Antonio while running a fever, only to forfeit the title three weeks after that over a knee injury Bret Hart never believed was real.

Shawn Michaels · Sycho Sid · Vader · Ahmed Johnson · Jim Cornette · Owen Hart · British Bulldog · Bret Hart · Steve Austin

New Generation·WWF·1996–1997

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Bret The Hitman Hart (Sep 1996 – Jul 1997)

A rising loudmouth with a busted knee and the returning technical champion he mocked built a program that ran through a stolen pinfall, a phantom Royal Rumble elimination, and a WrestleMania submission match where Bret Hart talked Steve Austin into bleeding, then turned heel on him in the same match that made Austin a star.

Bret Hart · Steve Austin · Ken Shamrock · Sycho Sid

New Generation·WWF·1997

The Hart Foundation vs. The United States (Mar 1997 – Nov 1997)

Bret Hart turned heel by attacking Steve Austin's fans instead of Austin, reformed the Hart Foundation with his real family, and spent 1997 getting cheered across Canada and Britain while getting booed everywhere in the United States, an angle that peaked in front of a delirious Calgary crowd and ended in the same building where Brian Pillman was found dead and, five weeks later, in Montreal.

Bret Hart · Owen Hart · British Bulldog · Jim Neidhart · Brian Pillman · Steve Austin · Ken Shamrock

Attitude Era·WWF·1997–1999

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon (Sep 1997 – Jul 1999)

A boss-versus-employee rivalry born out of Steve Austin's real neck injury and Vince McMahon's new on-screen villainy, escalating from a single Stone Cold Stunner into a year and a half of Corporation ambushes, rigged tournaments, and stipulation matches that defined the Attitude Era and turned around the WWF's fortunes against WCW.

Steve Austin · Vince McMahon

Attitude Era·WWF/WWE·1997–2003

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Rock (Dec 1997 – Mar 2003)

Austin beat him in five minutes over the Intercontinental title in 1997 and threw the belt in a river the next night. Six years later, on a night Austin had spent in a Seattle hospital, The Rock finally beat him at WrestleMania, and neither of them wrestled a full schedule again.

Steve Austin · The Rock · Vince McMahon · Shane McMahon · Mankind · Kurt Angle

Attitude Era·WWF·1998–2000

The Rock vs. Triple H (Jul 1998 – Jun 2000)

Dwayne Johnson and Paul Levesque spent two years trading the Intercontinental and WWF Championships across a ladder match, a strap match, a Fatal Four-Way, and a sixty-minute Iron Man match with Shawn Michaels as referee, a rivalry that grew out of real backstage friction between two ambitious young stars and ended with both of them running the company's next decade.

The Rock · Triple H · Chyna · Vince McMahon · Shawn Michaels · The Undertaker · Steve Austin

Attitude Era·WWF·1998–1999

The Rock vs. Mankind (Nov 1998 – Feb 1999)

Vince McMahon rang the bell on Mankind at Survivor Series to hand The Rock the WWF Championship, and the two of them spent the next three months trading it in a No DQ match on Raw, an empty arena during the Super Bowl, a ladder match and an I Quit match in Anaheim where Foley took eleven unprotected chair shots with his hands cuffed behind his back while his wife and children watched from the front row.

The Rock · Mankind · Vince McMahon · Shane McMahon · Steve Austin · The Big Show

Also appears in

Attitude Era·WWF·1996–1998

The Undertaker vs. Mankind (Apr 1996 – Jun 1998)

Mick Foley debuted as Mankind by ambushing The Undertaker the night after WrestleMania XII, took Paul Bearer away from him inside a boiler room, and two years later took two falls off and through a sixteen-foot cage in Pittsburgh that reset what a WWF main event was allowed to look like.

The Undertaker · Mankind · Paul Bearer · Terry Funk · Kane

Featured alongside

Key events