WrestleMania Reflections: WrestleMania XVII (Patreon)

WrestleMania XVII

Houston, Texas

April 1, 2001

The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin No Disqualification Match

Official Attendance: 67,925

By: Bruce Mitchell

We’re going to slip off the calendar gimmick by a day or two to cover a seminal main event in both the history of WrestleMania, and the lives of the two biggest stars in both the modern history of pro wrestling and the entirety of pop culture. I mean, hell, it’s the twentieth anniversary of the match, after all.

One of the participants was the single-highest grossing professional wrestler ever, the other right behind him in drawing ability and now the biggest movie star in the world. The two were the most popular mainstream wrestling stars in this country’s history.

The Rock vs, Stone Cold Steve Austin

No Disqualification

This match, their final battle, would change both their lives, and the business itself, in profound ways.

Let’s begin, though, with the end. The finish of the match, of this WrestleMania, of their historic rivalry, came when Mr. McMahon handed a steel chair to Stone Cold and he proceeded to hit The Rock with sixteen straight chair shots all over his body and pinned him for the win.

Here’s what Austin didn’t do at that point: He didn’t drop the chair again after a couple of shots and go for a near pin, so The Rock could inevitably pick the thing up again and take another turn with it.

Austin just wore Rock’s ass out with SIXTEEN steel-chair shots. He did what anybody who picked up a steel chair to use in a fight would have done. He kept beating the other guy with it until that guy didn’t move anymore. (It’s also why most people who get in fights don’t pick up steel chairs to use to begin with. The guy not moving any more most likely meant the guy wielding the chair was going to jail for a long time. This was wrestling though, so the guy taking the chair got to wrestle the next night.)

The overuse of the chair in professional wrestling - the full-force chair-shots to the heads and 'you were a pussy if you put your hand up for the slightest protection', the concussions, the long-term damage, the “safe” chair shot,. The mannered way guys would offer up their backs for a safer, less-likely-to-get-concussed blow and then someone so angry they would hit a guy with a steel chair in the back, but not so angry they would hit them in the head and, you know, hurt them, the steel chair as just another in-ring transition. All of this has added up to now making the chair shot the fakest spot in pro wrestling.

It was over-used twenty years ago, too.

This time, Austin and Rock got the most out of the steel chair, the way that by this point in their career they got the most out of everything they did, and those sixteen chair shots looked more dangerous than they actually were, because of all the variations of how they were landed with that loose hand and how they were sold.

You know, pro wrestling…

And about Mr. McMahon sliding that steel chair to help not The Rock, but Stone Cold Steve Austin - it was one hell of an exciting, shocking moment, one that created great heat at a record-breaking show.

The decision to turn Stone Cold Steve Austin, the greatest Character Babyface in wrestling history heel opened up a host of new storyline possibilities and skit opportunities for Steve Austin, opportunities he took great advantage of in subsequent months.

More importantly, historically, it also led to a major drop in both WWF and professional wrestling revenue and popularity, a drop that neither has ever really recovered from. It’s only been the changes in the TV business and Wall Street that has led to WWE prospering and maybe even surviving in the modern era.

Wrestling fans wanted Stone Cold Steve Austin more than they wanted to be What-Ifed or swerved or “shot”. It was why, after this night, they never really accepted Steve Austin as a heel or a comic singer or a Special Enforcer or Special referee or a guy who wrestled (and lost) to announcers or hosts or to play support to the week-in-week-out stars or anything else but the Coldest guy in the business.

What added even more to the importance of this event was the anxiety Steve Austin felt about his ability to live up to the physical, bloody demands of the WrestleMania main event. Austin was the best worker in WCW all those years before he became the biggest star ever in WWE. He certainly had put the work in, with all the consequences therein. That had all taken a toll on Austin, who had been paralyzed in the ring earlier for significant seconds during a match with Owen Hart, an incident that led to him refusing to work with Hart again.

To this day, he has to take special care with his neck and spine.

Austin was very anxious, almost to the point of not being able to perform, both about performing up to expectations, his own, the wrestler’s, the company’s, and the fans’ and the risk to his short-term and long-term health. The attendance, pay-per-view, and financial records WM 17 set meant he had to deliver at the highest level and the physical risk he faced was substantial.

He had a very difficult week leading up the event.

He and the Rock delivered on the massive expectations, though, and then some. That both were so over in their roles with fans meant all the twists and turns, the No DQ stipulation added suddenly at the beginning of the match, the ref bumps, the near-falls, the unexpected appearance of the villainous Mr. McMahon, the precision and timing of everyone involved, the all-in emotion in the peak work of one of the great pro wrestling announcing teams, Jim Ross and Paul Heyman and the match just changing gears, not once, but several times leading to its exciting climax just kept adding to the heat. Austin and Rock’s star-power laid the foundation for all that working this well.

This was the last great match of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s career.

Then there was what this match meant for The Rock. It was his last WrestleMania main event as a full-time professional wrestler. He left the WWF after the next night’s Raw to film his surprisingly successful at the time lead -role in the movie, The Scorpion King.

The WWF would end up later not renewing The Rock’s contract, motivating Dwayne Johnson even further to pursue a movie career, which led to the bizarre Part-Timer gimmick being used for the most expensive pieces of talent in the professional wrestling business.

WrestleMania XVII was a hell of a capstone for one of the greatest times in professional wrestling history.