Triple Threat Theatre - Steve Austin

Welcome to the first edition of Triple Threat Theatre, where we will highlight a specific wrestler and look at the three greatest matches of their career. In some cases, this will become difficult to narrow down to only three matches, whereas with others it might be difficult to come up with three. And when you are going to debut a new feature such as this, you no doubt go with the biggest star of all-time, so today we begin with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

3) WCW WrestleWar 1992 – War Games Match: Sting’s Squadron (Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes, Nikita Koloff & Barry Windham) vs. The Dangerous Alliance (Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton & Larry Zbysko)

Widely considered to be the greatest War Games match of all-time, this absolute classic had high expectations based on the talent within, as with the exception of Nikita Koloff, every single talent in the match was capable of putting on a clinic on any day. Yet, the match would still exceed every conceivable expectation, and still easily holds up today, nearly 30 years later. Likely the earliest example of Austin really being the man, this match is a must-watch.

2) WWF WrestleMania X-Seven – WWF Championship Match: ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin vs. The Rock

Occurring only days after the WWF purchase of WCW, an argument can be made for many things with this show. The greatest WrestleMania of all-time. The end of the Attitude era. The best Mania main event ever. Even before the questionable heel turn that closed the night, The Rock and Austin had both the crowd in the Astrodome and the crowd at home in the palm of their hands. It may not be the best wrestling match ever, and not even better than the preceding War Games match in terms of skill, but a combination of star power, where the business was at the time and psychology make this match a wonderful cap to an incredible night of wrestling and the end of wrestling’s biggest boom period ever.

1) WWF WrestleMania 13 – Submission Match: Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart vs. ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin

The perfect match. The best and most effective double turn in the history of the sport. Brutal in all the best ways. One could go on for hours about how great this match is. Austin himself has said this was his favourite match he ever performed in. Bret puts it right at the top as well. When the greatest in-ring storyteller ever mixes it up with the biggest star the business has ever seen magic is bound to happen. They put on a clinic at the previous year’s Survivor Series, but for this match, truthfully the only one really worth watching from the 13th WrestleMania, Bret Hart and Steve Austin put on quite simply, the greatest wrestling match of all-time.