King of the Ring 96

By Scott Keith on April 19, 2014

I just finished watching King of the Ring 96 on the network, and I had a thought that I hoped you could help me with. Obviously, in hindsight, Austin was the right choice for winner, but at the time: Vader had been positioned as a monster heel and ended up main eventing Summerslam that year, Mero was being paid a pretty good sum of money, by all accounts, and Jake was on the nostalgia/comeback tour…by the time they got to the PPV, it seems like Austin was the 4th most likely to win the tournament. How did he end up getting the nod from Vince and company?

I don't know if there was any specific reason behind Austin winning other than Vince just deciding that he was the guy that day (and really they had no plans for him at that point anyway), but I do have to call attention to Meltzer at the time doing the most spectacular undersell of a business-changing moment:

7. Austin beat Roberts in 4:28 to win King of the Ring. The storyline was that Roberts was working on badly injured ribs. Ironically it was Austin who was hurt legit as he needed 15 or 16 stitches in the tongue and mouth (done backstage at the building, not in the hospital as was said on television). Austin worked the ribs for about 3:00 and Gorilla Monsoon came in to stop the match. Roberts begged for him to let it go, which he did. At this point they got a lot of heat and Roberts made a quick comeback before being cut off. Austin got the pin with the Stone Cold Stunner and did a strong post-match interview knocking Roberts religion and drinking problems. 1/2*

Yeah, it was a "strong post-match interview", that's for sure.

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