It baffles me that anyone thought this was a good idea. Here's how they should have turned Austin heel without tanking viewership:

>Instead of McMahon, have Triple H interfere in the match with one chair shot to Rock
>Austin is 'confused', Trips goes to the back and the match carries on, Austin wins still as a face
>on Raw, Trips is vague as shit and says he had his "own reasons" for interfering; Austin pretends not to know what happened and says he's going to open a can of whoopass on the Game
>silence on the matter for a week
>Hunter gets booked against Jericho for the IC title at Backlash
>Austin interferes in this match, again with a chair shot to Jericho
>everyone now suspecting an alliance between Trips and Austin (which is what they were doing IRL anyway)
>Edge and Christian booked against Undertaker and Kane for the Tag Titles on the same show
>both Austin and HHH interfere to help Taker and Kane win
>new heel stable is formed with Austin, HHH, Taker and Kane - they were all conspiring to commandeer every main title as an 'indestructible' group
>have them be 'technically' undefeated for like 10 months, terrorizing the entire roster with underhanded tactics and clutching out victories by the skin of their teeth
>Start smashing over honourable babyface opponents to contend with them in the main event picture like RVD, Jericho, Jeff Hardy, Benoit, DDP, Booker T, Edge, along with obvious veterans The Rock, Hogan, Big Show, Angle and Flair
>eventually by WM18 they end up slowly bleeding all the titles, Austin gets blamed, so he stunners the other 3 and goes back to being face
>result: Austin never lowers himself to joining forces with his McMahon, loads of 'midcarders' get promoted to main-eventers (which they all would in the next few years anyway) which gives jobbers a chance to be promoted to midcard

Would have drawn infinitely more than the retarded Invasion angle.

Also due to the butterfly effect, Triple H no longer injures his quad.