Austin had some pretty good heels. Triple H, Kane, Undertaker, The Rock were all early heels for him. Then later on The Big Show and Kurt Angle. Not to mention Vince McMahon was a great heel, one of the best, people just love to hate him.
Austin’s early feuds were with Bret Hart and then Shawn Michaels. While great wrestlers, they were not huge draws. In fact, Michaels was one of the worst drawing champs in WWWF/WWF/WWE history. While this was going on, Undertaker and HHH were with the company. Everything changed when Austin was finally give carte blanche over his character and then they had the double turn against Hart. It then went to another level after the Montreal Screwjob and Vince giving the reigns over to Austin and more or less phasing Michaels out.
While I think UT and Michaels are very talented, their ability to draw was questionable at best before Austin. And then Austin sent the company well past WCW which had been beating them in the ratings for a year straight and eventually into the stratosphere. It also helped that Austin generally had a great attitude as the main event compared to Hogan, Michaels, Nash, etc…who were more concerned with being the top guy instead of making the company money.
The Iron Shiek was massively over in several territories before coming to the WWF where he was massively over as a heel. Piper was hugely over in Oregon, LA and the Mid-Atlantic before coming to the WWF. Andre was a spectacular draw that finally turned heel. Terry Funk was a huge draw in Texas, Memphis, Mid-Atlantic, Puerto Rico and Japan. Savage was hugely over in Kentucky, Florida and Memphis.
With Austin, he has some talented wrestlers, but none of them where proven, over, money-drawing heels like what Hogan had lined up for him. The only one I would put up there with the Hogan heels is Vince. He wasn’t exactly a proven heel, but he may have been had he been put in the position before. And I still wonder if Vince would have been as big of a heel if Austin was not so over as a face. Either way, look at the WWF’s business just prior to Austin versus its business when Austin shed the Ringmaster gimmick…then to Austin turning face….then Austin confronting Mike Tyson. The numbers don’t lie.
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