[1999-04-12-WWF-Raw] Steve Austin and The Rock

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Shane McMahon will be the guest referee for Austin-Rock at Backlash. Austin wants Rock to return the Smoking Skull belt back or there will be hell to pay. Rock interrupts via Titantron and tells Rock to meet him on the Roody Poo Bridge. Rock gets a 3:16 page yet again and we get a series of vignettes throughout the night with Rock waiting on Austin to show up. Austin finally finds Rock and they end up brawling on a bridge. Rock throws Austin off the bridge and then throws the Smoking Skull belt into the water too. So awful.

[Tim Evans]

I liked this. Nice call back to a year and half earlier when Austin threw the title off the bridge. Now dummy Austin goes over the bridge.

[soup23]

This was right at the edge of being ridiculous but I ended up enjoying it. One for the callback aspect and two for the Rock and Austin actually having some new issue against each other from Mania besides the fact that they just fought.

[mprice]

This was one of the first things I remember seeing on one of the Saturday night shows (was it still Shotgun at the time?) It is basically where I finally said "I can get into watching this," though it took me a little while longer to really get into the swing of things.

[PeteF3]

Austin plunging into the river was a step or eight too far, but I did like the callbacks to December of '97--both the concept, and the re-do of the "316" page. Once again Austin and Rock make something out of material that could be generously described as subpar. And yes, this is in some ways better than, "Rock has a rematch clause, so he's going to use it" as far as a storyline for a second PPV.