Pro wrestling roundup is stone cold

Chris Ledermuller

Fans, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is back and he's royally pissed. Well he's always pissed, but this time he has good reason.

At last year's "Survivor Series" pay-per-view, someone hit Austin with a rental car and put him on the shelf for over a year. Amazingly enough, someone in the World Wrestling Fed-eration's booking brain trust remembered this and had the great idea of turning it into an angle.

Now Austin is back and  looking for the varmint that ran him over. Austin, not exactly known for being the most level-headed SOB in the WWF, has accused everyone, even guys who were in World Championship Wrestling a year before he was hit.

The funny thing is, the WWF is actually scared of Austin!

So if you are a wrestler, would you be scared of a guy who has a broken neck and a predictable arsenal of a kick to the stomach, followed by the Stone Cold Stunner?

If it was Kane, I could understand. He is nearly 7-feet tall and could overpower anyone, except for his "brother," the Undertaker. A choke slam or tombstone piledriver from him lays you out.

But Austin, for crying out loud? In his condition, no wrestler should be scared of him.

Besides that, Austin's beat-down routine is so predictable. Play the broken glass introduction to his entrance music, have him storm to the ring, give the opponent the kick to the gut and Stone Cold Stunner combo, and finish the show by drinking a brewski.

After a thousand times of this, wrestlers ought to pick up on the routine and counter it. A great reversal would be to grab his leg as he is kicking, spin him around and give him a belly-to-back suplex.

Not only would such a pedestrian move further injure Austin's neck, but the injury would garner colossal heel heat.   Remember when Earthquake splashed Hulk Hogan on "The Brother Love Show" a decade ago, breaking his ribs? The incident made Earthquake a monster.

Of course, Austin would come back from the injury, hurt neck and all, to triumphantly destroy his opponent.

That would be better than what the WWF is likely planning, where Austin comes out at random intervals to Stunner any wrestler who happens to be in the ring. The New World Order used to do that, and WCW's product suffered as a result.

The WWF needs to look at history and not repeat WCW's mistakes, and, to quote Austin, "that's the bottom line."

Until next week, fans, keep watching.

Chris Ledemuller is a print journalism major.