The Bell Centre in Montreal, was rocking during the 2003 No Way Out Pay-Per-View. You could have sent out my mailman and
the crowd would have blown the roof off the building! I miss those days. But that's a subject for another day. My focus here
is a match that basically gave Stone Cold Steve Austin his onscreen retribution after being fired by Eric Bischoff years
earlier, Austin versus Bischoff.
While he's disputed the reasons since, Bischoff fired Austin during their time in WCW. Dealing with an injury at the time,
Bischoff seemingly saw an opportunity to rid the WCW of a performer he considered unmarketable and hard to work with. If he only knew! Long story short, Austin goes to ECW, cuts some solid promos, mocks Bischoff in the "Monday Nyquil" skit then proceeded to the WWE where he eventually became the biggest draw in the history of the company (sorry Hulkster). Me
personally, I thought Bischoff was nuts. At the time, I thought Austin showed plenty of personality as a member of the
Hollywood Blondes and beyond. But what do I know? Bischoff had a vision for WCW that played out historically well. It eventually crumbled into dust, but the first few years, flying colors!
Where was I? Oh, right, Austin becomes a huge star. WWE takes over the ratings war from WCW and doesn't look back. Bischoff gets fired from WCW, comes back, leaves, tries to buy WCW only to have it snatched up by WWE. Then it happened, Vince hired Bischoff as an on air personality (GM of RAW). Bischoff was there not even a year, before the WWE decided it was time to take advantage of this real life drama in the ring.
The build was simple, Eric Bischoff was the GM of RAW, Vince wasn't pleased with his performance and gave him 30 days to do something that would shock the world. Of course, what better way than to bring back the Texas Rattlesnake? Austin came back right as time ran out on Bischoff. It was actually good ole' JR that broke the news to Vince. What does Vince do from
there? He sets up a match between Bischoff and Austin at No Way Out.
You knew it wasn't going to be much of a match, but the build was solid and the back story definitely had you interested.
Also, a little added bonus was Jim Ross joining the Coach (eeesh) and Jerry Lawler in the booth. Ross was bullied and
bloodied by Bischoff heading into the event, attempting to draw the ire of Stone Cold.
Bischoff tried to plead with Austin to start the match, but to no avail as the Rattlesnake layed it on pretty thick. A beatdown in the ring turned into a beatdown outside of the ring. A few stunners here, another stunner here and that was about it. Bischoff had a failed attempt on offense that had Austin smirking, otherwise it was a squash of epic levels! The match didn't give you much in terms of wrestling technique, but the crowd participation, Austin's theatrics, and Jim Ross's ridiculous, over-the-top, mark out call of Austin's win make this a must watch!
-Steve
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