Stone Cold STEVE AUSTIN Stuns The Alliance

Welcome back to Huge Crowd Reactions in Wrestling. This series is basically an excuse for us here at Pro Wrestling Stories to revel in some of the moments that made us lose our minds. I mean, we’re all pretty huge wrestling fans. We live for those huge crowd reactions. Even as at-home viewers, those are the moments we crave. We want to be on the edge of our seats, or even out of them entirely.

For this installment, we’ve decided to go with a moment that absolutely floored us. It happened during the legendary WCW and ECW invasion of the World Wrestling Federation. WWF was besieged. Their formal rivals no longer had television ratings to worry about. All they had to do was come onto Mr. McMahon’s programming, and make life a pain in the ass for him.

Of course, not long before this started, Stone Cold Steve Austin turned heel at WrestleMania X-Seven, and joined forces with the evil Mr. McMahon. As Jim Ross put it on commentary, Stone Cold shook hands with, "Satan himself."

Stone Cold Stuns The Alliance! [Photo courtesy of WWE.com]

Heel Stone Cold, admittedly, had much less of an edge than classic Stone Cold. He was Vince’s best friend in the back. They had multiple comedy segments together, along with Kurt Angle.

It wasn’t what we were used to, but it provided some really entertaining segments!

Let’s fast forward to July 16, 2001, the night the following video was filmed. Shane and Stephanie McMahon, the owners of WCW and ECW respectively, were leading their armies on WWF turf. It looked hopeless.

See, before this went down, Vince went to Stone Cold and told him he needed the old version of Austin. He needed The Texas Rattlesnake, not the chap singing songs and bickering with Angle. This, unfortunately, upset Steve, who thought he had a friend in his boss. In response, Austin simply left the arena and headed to a bar, where he stayed throughout the show.

That meant he wasn’t there while the battle began. Unfortunately for him, the bar he went to decided to pop on Monday Night Raw, and he was forced to watch as his WWF compatriots were overrun by their ECW and WCW rivals. Eventually, the reluctant badass could stand by no longer. That’s when he angrily snapped a pool stick into two pieces, and then got back into his truck, and headed back to the arena.

Listen to the crowd response in the following video!

Our favorite part is how they explode for each and every Stone Cold Stunner.

YouTube video

How amazing was that? The crowd in Providence, Rhode Island were absolutely electric. It doesn’t matter if you saw this for the first time now or sixteen years ago. This is the kind of action that gets fans fully torqued.

That’s why our hearts broke at the Invasion pay-per-view when Stone Cold turned on WWF and joined The Alliance (WCW and ECW). Say it ain’t so, Stone Cold! Say it ain’t so…

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Joseph Finnegan, a longtime contributor to Pro Wrestling Stories, is a published author and produced screenwriter with a BFA in Creative Writing from Full Sail University. Recently, he starred in, co-directed, and co-wrote a feature film called Interstate that is coming to Red Bank, New Jersey on November 16th, 2024, at 2 PM. Get your tickets via the link above and support a talented independent filmmaker.