Mike Reviews Cause Stone Cold Said So

Happy Friday Everyone!

We’ve got a review of Cause Stone Cold Said So today, a WWF Home Video tape from 1997, and the first time that Ol’ Stone Cold got his own personal tape (he would of course go on to get MANY more over the years, including a multi-disc DVD release at one stage).

Video Tapes like this essentially filled the role of what compilations on the WWE Vault YouTube channel do now, whereby they’d put some clips together of the past year or so of a wrestler’s career and maybe throw in some special commentary or whatnot in order to make the tape feel like more than just a rehash of stuff we’d already seen.

Cause Stone Cold Said So reviewed well back in the day and is still considered one of the better tapes that the WWF released during this timeframe, so let’s see how it holds up. Thanks as always to F&C for making this available, as sadly my VCR doesn’t work properly anymore so watching it as originally intended wasn’t an option.

We open up with a video package showing Austin raising heck, as he was want to do, with dramatic production music playing over the top of it and shots of Austin looking at the camera in an intimidating fashion spliced in. This was a good collection of clips that laid the table nicely for what we could expect from the tape.

Stone Cold lets us know that we’re not going to see anyone dancing around whilst sparklers go off on this tape, and then sends us to footage from King of the Ring 1996, so we can see where the Austin 3:16 thing came from. Austin narrates over the action, as he defeats Marc Mero in a really good match in the Semi-Final stage whilst standard WWF production music plays over the top. We don’t really get to see much of Mero doing anything here, which makes sense I guess seeing that this is Austin’s tape and all. Austin getting annoyed at the commentary whilst narrating is good fun.

We then see Stone Cold working over Jake Roberts in the Final, with Jake not having much of an answer for the clattering he receives. There wasn’t much to the match outside of Austin winning, so we get to see a few clips and then we head over to the post-match promo, where Austin says that Jake can talk about John 3:16 but Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your A$$, after which many of many of MANY shirts were sold and lots of lots of LOTS of money was made. This of course HAD to be included on a tape like this. It’s funny to think how this wouldn’t have happened either if Triple H hadn’t had to carry the can for the whole Curtain Call fiasco.

Next up we get clips of Austin being mean to production staff and other assorted civilians, with even some cops getting called out at one stage, as Austin hilariously points them in the direction of Dunkin’ Donuts (other cop friendly pastry selling establishments are also available). We of course get to see Stone Cold flinging a poor production hand into a ladder during the Autumn of 1996 whilst he was building up his feud with Bret Hart, as well as Austin chucking some of Brian Pillman’s friends into a paddling pool. Gorilla Monsoon actually stands up to Austin at one stage, and is allowed to survive, but only because Stone Cold feels like it.

We then get some clips from ECW, before WWE actually owned their tape library, so ECW and the WWF must have cut some kind of a deal for this footage to be able to appear here. We get to see The Stevester, Monday Nyquil, and Austin telling Woman not to get angry at him because she married a midget. So we get clips of Austin making fun of Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff and Kevin Sullivan all in one section, all of whom were prominent figures in WCW at the time. Fancy that eh?

Following that we move onto Austin’s feud with Brian Pillman, as Austin gets annoyed at Pillman for talking about Bret Hart and attacks Pillman’s ankle with a cane before trapping it in a chair and stomping said chair, leading to the term “Pillmanising” entering the Professional Wrestling lexicon. We then get a montage of Austin beating people up so we can get a first hand example of what opening a Can of Whoop A$$ actually entails (it seems to mostly involve brutally beating people up). Included here is a great clip of a young Triple H doing a fantastic sell job of the Stone Cold Stunner.

After that we head to the 1997 Royal Rumble, where Stone Cold is the undisputed star of the bout, as he throws a bunch of people out and then controversially “wins” the whole thing after previously being eliminated, only for the referees to miss that important fact. Austin narrating over him eliminating people by yelling stuff like “WHAM! See you later punk!” is very funny. We don’t get to see why Austin’s win was disputed, which does kind of make sense in that this is Austin’s own tape, so why would he show that? However, for those not au fait with the WWF storylines who might have been new viewers, it’s a bit confusing as to why Austin wasn’t allowed to get his title shot despite winning the Rumble.

We get a montage of Austin insulting Bret Hart, including the iconic line of “If you put an S in front of Hitman, then you get my feelings on Bret Hart”. We then head back a couple of months to see clips of Austin’s excellent bout with Bret at Survivor Series 1996, where Bret managed to sneak a win with a pin counter to Austin’s Cobra Clutch hold. The feud of course continued following this bout, with it all building to WrestleMania 13, where the two met in a violent I Quit bout.

We get clips from that match next, a match that still ranks near the very top of my favourite matches ever and, depending on the day, it sometimes takes the #1 slot. In a nice touch, they don’t just go straight into playing music over the clips here and actually show us footage from the match with the original audio playing so we can sample just how intense the battle between the two wrestlers was. At times this match resembles a gritty fight scene from a pulp action movie, especially a wonderful moment where Austin is choking Bret with some cabling and Bret manages to clock Austin with the nearby ring bell just before he passes out. Them presenting the clips from the match in a more straightforward manner rather than trying to splice in the music and Austin commentary was the right choice in my opinion, as this is a match that very much speaks for itself.

Those of you familiar with the career trajectory of both Bret Hart and Steve Austin will know that the result of this contest at WrestleMania 13 led to a double turn, with a bloody Austin showing bravery and intestinal fortitude by choosing to pass out in the Sharpshooter rather than submit to The Hitman. That finish, combined with Bret’s post match attack on Stone Cold, led to Bret leaving Mania as a hated villain whilst Austin left as a beloved anti-hero. It would be a dereliction of duty not to include this bout on a tape like Cause Stone Cold Said So, and not only was it included but we got to see a decent chunk of the contest itself, making this tape a good alternative option to purchasing Mania 13 if you liked Stone Cold and only really cared about seeing that match.

We move onto the Raw following Revenge Of The Taker, as Austin is now the #1 Contender to the WWF Title courtesy of a DQ win over The Hitman at the pay per view the prior night. Austin isn’t satisfied with that though and wants another piece of Bret on Raw. Bret makes Austin wait for that of course, and when he shows up he has his family goons Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith attack Austin first. Austin rallies though and destroys Bret’s leg with a chair to send Bret to the injured list for a couple of months. Austin even sneaks into the ambo that is due to take Bret to the hospital and works over Bret even more.

However, at A Cold Day In Hell, Stone Cold has his bout with WWF Champion The Undertaker seemingly won, but Brian Pillman distracts the referee to prevent a three count and that leads to Taker planting Austin with a Tombstone Piledriver for the three count in order to retain his belt. The Hart Foundation attacks the babyfaces following the contest, just to make their evil presence felt even further. Sadly they don’t include the footage of Austin giving Undertaker a post-match Stunner after they clear the ring, which was a cool moment that highlighted that, even though he was now technically a babyface, Stone Cold didn’t do friends and everyone on the roster was still a target, regardless of his or their alignment.

We head over to a further recap of the issues between Brian Pillman and Stone Cold following that, with Austin giving The Loose Cannon a swirly at King of the Ring 1997 after previously trying to break into Pillman’s house in the Autumn of 1996. After that we get clips of Austin and Shawn Michaels winning the tag belts in a great match, with Austin then leaving Shawn high and dry so that he can attack Bret whilst The Hart Foundation is distracted by destroying HBK, which is another great moment that highlights how Stone Cold’s babyface act was still that of a psychotic loner who always prioritised his own interests over those around him.

And that’s where we end the tape, with Stone Cold not getting along with babyfaces Shawn Michaels and Ken Shamrock, despite them needing to unite against The Harts going into the summer of 1997. In one last great funny moment, the credits are all changed to show Stone Cold as the director, head of graphics, head of business affairs etc. It’s a suitable way to end a tape that was never without some character and personality to it.

In Conclusion

Cause Stone Cold Said So is a fun video and a breezy watch at around 60 Minutes. Having Austin be such a presence on the tape and adding his narration to things helps make the tape feel more than just a compilation of clips. Including some ECW footage was very cool as well, mainly because the WWF didn’t tend to acknowledge that other companies existed prior to the Attitude Era, so seeing them not just reference ECW but include footage from ECW shows was unusual for the time and gave the tape a special feel to it.

The only critique I could throw Cause Stone Cold Said So’s way is that it would have been nice if we could have got to see a bit more in-ring footage from Austin’s matches, especially as Austin had so many good bouts from 1996-97 that were either brushed over or not even included at all on this release. That being said, this was still an entertaining use of 60 Minutes and did a good job of getting across why Stone Cold was such a popular character in wrestling at the time. It was also much funnier than I initially expected it to be, especially with Stone Cold’s narration, the ECW footage and the gag with the credits at the end.

Recommended Tape!