>>13956343The hard part here is 2-fold: Austin’s act had gotten stale, and the looming Invasion angle. There was a feeling Austin needed to change it up, so a heel turn would be needed. The problem is it came at a crap time when he should have been defending the WWE from the Invasion. Austin’s initial run with the 2 Man Power Trip got good heat but they made Austin look like a pussy. Furthermore, the Invasion sucked because they couldn’t get the best guys until the next year. They had to hot-shot the Invasion because HHH tore his quad and they didn’t want to buy out the big name contracts. The way I see it, WWE needed to commit to buying out the contracts or waiting a year for the Invasion. How you book Austin really depends on that.
The way I see it in hindsight, if you want to buy out the contracts, have the Invasion take place at Mania and completely take over the Austin-Rock main event. If you want to wait until after the contracts, turn Austin heel and have him do his heel run before the Invasion. Don’t make him look too weak, maybe have his arc be that he is feeling like he’s losing his mojo and have him complete the arc before the WCW guys arrive. Personally I prefer the former because WCW crashing Mania would be kino
