The WWE Attitude Era was chock-full of legendary moments (some of which haven't aged so well), and it’s little surprise that so many of them revolved around Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Texas Rattlesnake was more often than not positioned as the face of the company over this period of years and delivered as a positively electric performer in the ring, on the mic, and pulling off unconventional stunts like soaking his enemies with a beer truck, driving a zamboni to the ring, or assaulting Mr. McMahon with a bedpan in the hospital.
Related: 10 Weirdest Moments Of Steve Austin's CareerOne of Austin’s more passive, but no less memorable doings saw him get run over by a car in the parking lot on his way into the building for Survivor Series 1999. The incident set him up to disappear from WWE television for ten months to follow and set up one of the biggest mystery angles in wrestling history.
The Stage Was Set For Stone Cold Steve Austin Vs. The Rock Vs. Triple H At WWE Survivor Series 1999
When fans consider the top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and Triple H are near-unanimous picks to populate anyone’s Mt. Rushmore. Yes, stars like The Undertaker, Mick Foley, Mr. McMahon, Chris Jericho, and Kane belong in the conversation. But Austin, Rock, and Helmsley were all stars who clawed their way to the top to become household names in one of WWE’s hottest periods, main event WrestleManias, and deliver in the ring and on the mic alike.
So, the idea of Austin vs. The Rock vs. Triple H in a Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship at a Big Four PPV was especially appealing when WWE announced it. Each of the men involved had feuded with each other to varying degrees already, but seeing them all in the ring at once all but promised an iconic encounter. Indeed, one of the critiques of Survivor Series 1999 was that, in canceling the bout at the last minute, it was one of the more noteworthy times WWE dropped the ball during The Attitude Era.
Stone Cold Steve Austin Had Been Working Hurt
At WWE SummerSlam 1997, Stone Cold Steve Austin infamously took one of the ugliest bumps in WWE history. Despite working with a highly skilled, experienced opponent in Owen Hart, things went awry with Hart executed his sit-out, inverted piledriver incorrectly, badly hurting Austin’s neck. Fans tend to forget Austin missed significant time in the ring over the months to follow, given the degree to which he remained a featured character on television, and WWE even concocted a storyline of Mr. McMahon keeping Austin out of the ring against his wishes to lay the foundation for their feud.
Indeed, to capitalize on how white-hot Stone Cold was with the WWE audience at the time, he wrestled hurt for quite a while, including winning his first world title at WrestleMania 14 in 1998, and proceeding with his legendary rivalries opposite McMahon, The Rock, The Undertaker, and others. By 2000, though it was time to tend to the neck issues he had put off. As Austin explained in a YouTube Q&A in 2012 (h/t WrestlingInc), "When I had my C3 and 4 fused back in 2000, they cleared out some space there in my spinal canal, took the bone spurs that were growing into to spinal cord off.” To tend to these matters, Austin missed over ten months of ring time and the vehicular assault against him at Survivor Series 1999 was both the kayfabe rationale for him being gone so long, and a built-in storyline for him when he came back to seek revenge against whoever had hit him with the car.
The Aftermath Of The Angle Of Stone Cold Getting Run Over
As former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz discussed in an interview with Ariel Helwani (h/t ComicBook.com), there actually was not a clear-cut plan around whom the mystery driver who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin at Survivor Series 1999 was. Gewirtz suggested quite a few names were in the mix, singling out Tazz as one interesting option for who it might have been. When it came to discussing Rikishi as the man selected, Gewirtz said, “Rikishi is a Hall of Fame performer, but he's just likable and a natural babyface. People want to like him. Sometimes you just don't know until you try. And then ultimately it was Rikishi, but Triple H was behind it all along and it went back to the natural order of things."
Related: 10 Things About Stone Cold Being Hit By A Car That Made No SenseIndeed, in terms of using the mystery spot to catapult someone into the main event picture, there was a reasonable case for Rikishi to be the choice, even though he didn’t pan out so well as a top heel in practice. The big man nonetheless had a respectable enough run working matches with the likes of Austin and The Rock before shifting back to the mid-card and ultimately his babyface persona.
Stone Cold Steve Austin getting run over in a garage made for a captivating mystery angle in its time. Sure, if a number of fans were disappointed with The Big Show replacing him in the Survivor Series Triple Threat Match against Triple H and The Rock and enjoying a couple-month title reign to follow. Just the same, it’s a testament to the depth of the roster and the quality of the storytelling WWE pulled off at the time the company stayed as hot as it did throughout 2000 without its tip-top star in the mix. Austin would return to a featured role in late 2000 and dominate the main event scene in 2001.
