I recently re-watched this great match again in it's entirety and it got me to thinking... not only is this the greatest match of BOTH Stone Cold & The Rock's career's, but could this quite possibly be one of the greatest matches ever?


Backlash 1999
WWF Champion "Stone Cold" Steve Austin
vs.
The Rock
for the WWF Championship
No Holds Barred
Special Guest Referee: Shane McMahon

This was during the days when The Corporation was feuding with Austin, which led to some of the greatest stories and hi-jinks ever on RAW, some of the more famous moments with The Rock throwing Austin off a bridge, and his 'Smoking Skull' title with him, as well as the Stone Cold eulogy as The Rock wanted to lay to rest 'the biggest piece of trailer park monkey crap'. Austin also showed up with a monster truck to crush The Rock's limo, then proceed to drive it into the arena.

Which led to this match.

The match is absolutely non-stop action. Both go all out, and just give it their all. One of the cool moments when The Rock gets cocky and steals a camera, then captures himself getting a stunner through the announce table.

Long story short, the match finishes with a corrupt Shane McMahon refusing count Austin's pin. Vince interferes by hitting Shane with Austin's title belt, and bring Earl Hefner(now with TNA) out to the ring to count a legit count, he does, resulting in Austin winning back the WWF title.

I don't know if this is the greatest match ever, but it's certaintly got to be ONE OF the greatest matches ever, and certaintly the greatest, in my mind, of The Rock & Stone Cold's career, which is a pretty tough feat for Stone Cold considering his classic matches against Bret Hart.

Is it on Youtube? I would like to see it again.

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5I0Iw5VgUg

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iK57GP7clc...feature=related

Part 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TR7DTJcKMg...feature=related

Yea i have to agree this is one of the best matches in wwe,i remember it

Then after this everything changed and Rock and Austin became allies against HHH and Undertaker,it was an exciting time!

It was a great match. I just needed to watch it over again. I agree its at least one of the best ever.

I was watching alot of other stuff too, and it's just say sad now compared to then. Even for mid-card matches, guys like Stone Cold or The Rock or Bret Hart would go all out. RAW matches then, look like PPV matches now.


The only guy that goes out there, I think, with the same pure work ethic like that is HBK & Taker - despite their age. They did it then, and they do it now.

Shawn Michaels still runs circles around most of the younger guys. Thank god he came back in 2002. We didn't know then that Austin & Rock would be gone very soon.

Really the only other time you could have seen that was back in old school TNA. But i agree that HBK kicks most of the younger guys ass. He's like that though and you don't see much of that as you said work ethic anymore.