There would be no Austin rebel character without Vince screwing Bret.
Michaels means nothing. He bombed his whole main event run..especially in his prime.
Austin was already a rebel character.
He was marketed originally like the iceman and he was fukk'n psycho originally.
Vkm was so dense he waited to long to actually put the title on Austin. If vkm, knew how to book outside of this fiasco. With a desperate fan base hoping the wwf would recover. He would have still had Austin and he would have still been as large of a draw as he was. Without the controversy and without being behind the nwo drawing eightball as well. Instead he Continued to cling to his long term booked champion bullshyt carryover ideals from Bruno to Hogan. That till the screwjob came, he would have never pulled the trigger on Austin soon enough. If it was up to vkm he would have continued to strap up huff ass hbk as champ. We would have been waiting for Austin forever and it would have never happened. If there was no screwjob, we would have never got Austin because vkm was fukk'n inept as fukk. To realize that Austin was that over already. Only thing that saved vkm was including Tyson. Which felt like a new Gen callback to siphoning off the light of Mr t, rocky, eye of the tiger.
I think people forget that entire time after and before bloodstone. That scsa should have been the champ but we had to wait cause vkm was fukk'n inept. That till a fateful casket changed hbk's physiology we would not have gotten Austin at all.
Just like this year we sat through three misses to change dynamics in champions this year with Samoa Joe and braun stroman. Plus the missed narrative that fit right into wwe's burial by booking design. When shinsuke nakamura should have won the title to face Brock at ss. Instead we had to watch two hot potato title changes to both male and female titles to make a card which already had a dominant narrative. In the domestic retelling of the greatest youngest champs in njpw history versus the original youngest champ narrative in WWE for Brock. Before WWE rescinded Brock as the youngest because he left previously, for Orton.
Real talk,...i don't think we would have ever gotten scsa as the champ if not for that casket changing everything.
Art Barr