How would you guys rate Steve Austin's performance as company ace? By this term, I am excluding the time in 2001 when he was WWF heel champ for most of the year as I strictly want to talk about his babyface run. Most people, when talking about great company aces, (this excludes drawing) talk about Shawn and Bret as great, consistent main event aces. Dylan said he might consider Cena to be the best company ace.
I think Austin is unfairly shunted and excluded in these discussions. True, if the sole metric is matches, then he does not hold up as well as others. His time on top was short, and his body was broken down by them. However, analysing his performance week-to-week, he does a fantastic job, in my opinion. Austin was so good with his facial epressions, and, for all the talk about his changing the dynamics of faces and heels in WWF, he was a fantastic babyface. He was great at evoking sympathy from the crowd, and getting over the heels he was wrestling as credible threats. He was brilliant as a fiery babyface making comebacks and milking comebacks to the last little drop. it is telling that he was booked just as strongly as every company ace, yet he had no problems appearing vulnerable, something which not many have been able to do.
Thoughts?
