He then entered into a long rivalry with Bret Hart, a man he would induct into the Hall of Fame in 2006, and won the Royal Rumble in 1997, eliminating Hart last to seal the victory.  Wrestlemania XIII saw Austin turn face, while Hart turned heel in the same match, as Stone Cold passed out from blood loss in a Sharpshooter having refused to tap out, and subsequently refusing assistance to get backstage.  He faced Owen Hart for the Intercontinental Title at Summerslam, in which Hart’s piledriver broke Austin’s neck, temporarily paralysing him.

He won the 1998 Royal Rumble, and subsequently won his first WWF title at Wrestlemania XIV from Shawn Michaels (at the height of DX) with the help of Mike Tyson, and the Attitude Era was born.  Following an earlier incident during his first feud with The Rock, where he had thrown the Intercontintal Title into a river, his rivalry with Vince McMahon began. McMahon was given multiple Stunners, and punched in his so-called ‘corporate grapefruits’ during their rivalry, but finally managed to get the better of Austin after Kane and The Undertaker scored a double pinfall during a triple threat match with him, Austin was assigned as the guest referee in a match between the two, he was fired for refusing to count for either man.

Mistake?  Yep.  Austin kidnapped Vince, dragged him to the ring and held him at gunpoint.  When eventually he did fire the gun simply read “Bang! 3:16”.  This was in the lead up to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre after McMahon’s 1999 Royal Rumble win, with a steel cage match and the first appearance of The Big Show, who threw Austin into the cage so hard that he went through it... winning the match. 

In 1999, Austin was run over in the parking lot before a triple threat match with then champion Triple H and The Rock.  The culprit turned out to be... Rikishi.  I know, right?  This absence gave Austin the opportunity to have the neck surgery he’d needed since his match with Owen Hart in 1997.  Following a lengthy interrogation of the locker room (similar to Kane at the moment) Triple H later ‘confessed’ to masterminding the whole thing.

Austin went on to win his third Royal Rumble in 2001, going on to face The Rock at Wrestlemania.  He later revealed that the heel turn that occurred here, where he accepted McMahon’s help and destroyed The Rock with a steel chair, was one of the biggest mistakes of his career.  This led to him joining forces with Triple H, forming the Two-Man Power Trip, which ended when Triple H famously tore his quadriceps muscle during a Tag Title match, putting The Game out of action for the best part of a year.

This sped up the need for the Invasion angle.  McMahon wanted the old Austin back to fight the new enemy, even begging for a Stunner at one point, but Austin refused and left the arena downhearted.  Just before the Invasion PPV, Austin returned in one of my favourite moments in WWF history, delivering 7 Stunners to Alliance members.  This gave no indication to the swerve that was about to take place... Austin betrayed the WWF at Invasion, becoming the Alliance’s leader.  Eventually, at Survivor Series, Angle (who had joined the Alliance) betrayed his new team and earned the victory for the WWF, ending the Invasion.

This was the beginning of the end for Austin though, as shortly after a victory over Scott Hall at Wrestlemania X8, he failed to turn up for Raw citing exhaustion.   His later refusal to put over Brock Lesnar led to him walking out of the WWE.  He returned in 2003, losing to the heel version of The Rock at Wrestlemania XIX, before being “fired” on medical grounds, which was legitimate, with Austin later revealing he’d been wrestling against doctors’ advice since 2001.  He has reappeared in the WWE many times since, with a short stint as co-GM of Raw, and several guest referee appearances.  Another notable appearance was at the end of ECW One Night Stand in 2005, where he led a beer bash with Sandman and the rest of the ECW locker room and delivered a Stunner to Bischoff.

Stone Cold is one of my all time favourites, not because of his wrestling skills, which were admittedly limited, but simply because he was absolutely perfect at the role he played.  The role of the brawling redneck is one that nobody has even tried to copy since (assuming you don’t count TNA’s Shark Boy) simply because Stone Cold’s character could never be equalled.  He was inducted into the Hall of Fame by Vince McMahon himself in 2009, who said he was “The greatest WWE Superstar of all time”.

I've been The General, over and out.