Mike Reviews Hell Yeah – Stone Cold’s Saga Continues

Happy Friday Everyone

About 6 weeks ago we reviewed Cause Cause Stone Cold Said So here on the Blog of DOOM, a home video release showing clips of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s WWF career from 1996-97. Today we’ve got Hell Yeah, a tape released in 1999 that covers further exploits of the man from Victoria, Texas. I personally enjoyed Cause Stone Cold Said So quite a lot, and I’ve been told that Hell Yeah is even better, so let’s open up some Steveweisers and give it a looksee!

Thanks to my local Fish and Chip shop for making this review possible. If you want some good wrestling then it’s the perfect plaice to visit (sorry, not sorry)

Michael Cole is narrating the action, saying that the WWF crew got to spend three days with Stone Cold as part of this tape. We then get an intro set to H-Block X’s “Oh Hell Yeah” showing Stone Cold raising heck, as he was wont to do. Stone Cold tells the camera crew that he’s not really aping anyone else and is just doing his own thing (aside from necking beers of course, which Sandman arguably popularised in ECW. Although we don’t mention that here). We get to see some clips of Stone Cold out of character backstage, laughing and talking with the production crew. We then get clips of Austin’s match with Shawn Michaels back at WrestleMania XIV, set to the them the Hardy Boyz would eventually use. This match being so good was actually a bit of miracle considering that Shawn had a destroyed back and Austin had a damaged neck and bad knees.

We get to see Austin getting ready backstage, laughing and joking whilst asking for “Coffee, Diet Coke and 7-Up” throughout, which looks to be a gag he was using a lot backstage at the time. Stone Cold comes across as likable non-pretentious person here, which is always nice to see in these personality tapes. We then head to King of the Ring 1998, where we get the full pre-match hype video package for Kane Vs Stone Cold, leading to the two battling in a First Blood bout. This contest was of course ridiculously unfair considering that Kane’s entire body and face is covered, meaning that even if Austin made him bleed it would be unlikely that anyone would get to see it. Austin was actually working the bout with a staph infection on his right elbow, meaning that he was seriously slowed down. It also didn’t help that the fans were burnt out following the ludicrous Mankind Vs Undertaker Hell in a Cell match earlier in the evening. Speaking of Mankind and Undertaker, both of them get involved and Undertaker accidentally clocks Austin with a chair, leading to Kane winning the match when Austin bleeds a gusher as a result.

Stone Cold admits that he knew his chances were slim of defeating Kane with such a stipulation, and we get clips of Austin challenging Kane to a rematch on Raw is War the following night, leading to Austin getting the Stunner for the three count. Austin then lays out Undertaker with a Stunner to set up the Main Event of SummerSlam 1998. We then get a bit dedicated to Austin’s vehicular shenanigans over the years, such as driving a Zamboni into an arena so that he can attack Vince McMahon. We also get to see Austin destroying Vince McMahon’s corvette with a cement truck, and a few instances of him crushing things in a Monster Truck. It should shock no one to learn that Vince Russo was writing the TV when most of this stuff was happening. The WWF put the corvette on display at Titan Towers following its destruction by Austin, although I’m not sure where it would be now seeing as WWE has since moved its base of operations to Florida. Stone Cold is doing the interview bits for this mostly in character, but you also get to see him out of character at points as well, which is decent balance for a tape like this I feel. Interestingly, Austin says that he often learns how to drive these vehicles on the day of the show, which makes his success rate behind the wheel rather impressive.

Next up we move on to SummerSlam 1998 and the Highway to Hell, although sadly the WWF Home Video department hasn’t bothered paying for the AC/DC music rights, which takes away from it somewhat. Anyway, Undertaker and Stone Cold have a bit of a disappointing bout, which Austin attributes to him clocking heads with Taker early on and having to stagger through the rest of it. Austin being refreshingly honest about his performance not being up to much is interesting to hear in a business that is often about self-aggrandization above all else. We then get a story about Austin getting rid of the circular WWF Title (my personal favourite World belt ever) in favour of the Smoking Skull belt instead, which Stone Cold says was down to him not liking the design of the other WWF Title. I remember my friend Jim had a toy Smoking Skull belt back in the day, but for some reason he cut the Velcro out for some kind of project, meaning you could never actually wear the thing, which seemed to defeat the purpose in my eyes at the time. That being said, there’s a bunch of SNES games I own where it’s just the cart on its own because I was too dumb to try an preserve the cardboard boxes for them, so sometimes we’re just reckless in our youth I guess.

We then go back in time a bit to May 1998, so we can cover the Over The Edge Main Event between Dude Love and Stone Cold. It’s an iconic video package, with the Brawl For All theme playing over the top and clips of Stalin and Mussolini so they can get across how much of a dictator Vince McMahon is. This remains one of the better Dog and Pony Shows that the WWF has ever put together, with them chasing the high of it many times afterwards to varying degrees of success. ECW ultimately popularised that style of wild storyline brawl based bout, and the WWF pinched it to successfully kick the Attitude Era to another level. Austin eventually retains the belt once again, using Vince’s own hand for the count, meaning we get Breakdown in September 1998, where Austin defends the belt against Undertaker and Kane in a glorified handicap match, where neither Taker or Kane are allowed to pin one another. This was an example of the WWF VHS boxes duping me, as I just saw it was a Triple Threat Match and got excited to see the show, but I had no idea about the stipulation and, had I known, I probably wouldn’t have bought the tape.

Austin ends up getting pinned by both Undertaker and Kane at the same time, leading to the belt being held up. All this does is up the ante in the Vince Vs Austin feud, with Stone Cold attacking Vince in the hospital in one of the best Attitude Era segments ever. Vince was in the hospital due to Undertaker and Kane attacking him, so Vince punishes all three of his enemies by booking Taker Vs Kane for the vacant belt, with Austin as referee, so that Austin will have to humble himself and crown a new champion. After an awful match at Judgment Day in October, Austin beats up both Brothers of Destruction and declares himself the winner, leading to Vince McMahon firing Ol’ Stone Cold on the spot. The next night on Raw, Vince tells the roster that no one is bigger than Vince McMahon (which you have to think he believed wholeheartedly in real life). Stone Cold kidnaps Vince McMahon though and makes Vinnie wet himself after threatening him with a fake gun.

It’s been mostly highlights and video packages for a sustained period on the tape now. This is okay to a certain degree, as Austin was a huge star and it’s important to see why by taking a look at his wrestling exploits. However, the outside the ring stuff on this Hell Yeah tape has actually been quite good and has done a good job of humanising Austin and making him seem likable, so it might have been a good idea to have a bit more of that mixed in. Anyway, following Austin’s firing at the hands of Vince, Stone Cold finds himself hired back thanks to the surprising assistance of none other than Vince’s son, Shane. Austin notes that he didn’t really trust Shane McMahon, but he was just happy to be rehired. We then see clips of Austin being proven correct for not trusting the product of Vince’s loins, as Shane cheats Stone Cold out of a match at Survivor Series 1998: Deadly Game (Cause it’s a Deadly Game). We then get clips of one of the lowest points in Stone Cold’s history, as Undertaker kidnaps Austin and tries to embalm him alive. Austin normally didn’t do a lot of silly stuff like that, so this felt like a really dumb angle for such a serious character.

This takes us to Rock Bottom in December 1998, where Taker and Austin have a rubbish Buried Alive Match to decide whether Stone Cold can make it into the Royal Rumble bout. Interestingly the music they use for the highlights here is the same bit of production music that WCW would use as the theme for Bash at the Beach 1999, another notably awful show from this time period. They do their best with the clips to try and make this match look exciting though, so kudos to the production team. Eventually Stone Cold buries Taker in the grave thanks to help from a digger and Kane, although they omit the Kane assistance from the clips here in order to make it look like Austin won all by himself. The WWF re-writing history you say? Perish the thought! Anyway, Austin’s “improbable” win in a stipulation bout that Undertaker often loses, leads to another terrible show where Stone Cold ends up finishing runner-up to Vince McMahon in the Royal Rumble itself thanks to interference from The Rock.

This swerve was done so they could build to a Vince Vs Austin pay per view bout at the February 1999 pay per view event. Austin does his best to explain away the out of character behaviour from him shown at the Rumble, by noting that he made a rookie mistake due to hating Rock so much. Stone Cold at least being willing to admit how dumb the finish was and put the blame on himself gives something bordering on a reasonable explanation if nothing else. This leads to Vince McMahon stupidly giving up his #1 contender status though, leading to Shawn Michaels giving the shot to Austin. Austin puts the Title shot on the line at St. Valentine’s Massacre against Vince in a cage though, leading to a bit of a disappointing pay per view buy rate actually, as the money was seemingly more in Austin fighting Vince’s array of goons rather than Austin fighting Vince himself. The cage match is remembered mostly for Vince taking a ludicrous bump off the cage through a table and for Paul Wight debuting in the WWF and flinging Vince through the wall of the cage, leading to Stone Cold picking up the victory and Vince being foiled.

I must give credit again to the folks putting the highlight packages of the matches together here. Outside of them cutting out certain salient points (such as the Kane run-in at Rock Bottom) they’ve done an excellent job of making these matches feel exciting and fun to watch. They use the theme from Royal Rumble 2000 for the Vince Vs Austin highlights and it suits the action perfectly. Even when WCW was the top promotion in North America, they still couldn’t match the WWF for production excellence. ECW worked wonders considering their budget, but the WWF’s video package team were undefeated in the 1990’s. Stone Cold says that no one gets to change the radio when he’s driving, noting that he likes lots of different genres, saying that his iconic entrance music was based on Austin telling Jim Johnston that he wanted something that sounded like Rage Against The Machine. Austin notes that adding the glass break was Johnston’s idea and he gives Johnston full credit for adding that in, noting that it was a great accompaniment and I think most would agree. Austin seems happy directing praise elsewhere and not just to himself on this tape, whilst also being prepared to be critical of himself when required as well, which certainly helps with humanising him.

We move on to Rock Vs Austin at WrestleMania XV next, as The Hardy Boyz music makes a return for the highlights package. This was indeed a good match, and one that a pretty sub-par Mania event really needed. Despite the interference of Vince McMahon, Austin manages to see off Rock and picks up the three count with the Stunner, with Mankind getting to count the pin and payoff his feuds with Rock and Vince as well. As the clips continue, we move into Hardcore Holly’s theme getting played, which is interesting as I think he was already using that theme at the time this tape came out whereas I’m not sure The Hardyz had their signature entrance music yet. The music suits the clips well at least, although it does highlight how cannibalistic the WWF was when it came to reusing production music at the time, as they could reuse a piece of music at anytime. On the bright side, the production music from the 1990’s was generally fun and exciting at least, which is better than the generic music they use in the 2020’s. We then get clips of Austin doing interviews, TV show appearances and public appearances, with him noting that you have to do as much as you can because you never know when it might end.

Don Johnson from Nash Bridges appears to put Austin over, saying that he’s awesome. We get to see Austin having fun with the crew on the show, which again makes him look like a fun guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is always a good direction to go with in one of these character focused tapes. Everything certainly looks a lot more authentic than the Sable tape we reviewed about a month ago. As a personality piece it’s been very effective when they’ve dedicated time to that aspect. We then move on to Austin wanting his Smoking Skull belt back, but neither Shane McMahon or The Rock want to comply, leading to the Main Event for Backlash 1999 getting set up, as Rock takes on Austin with Shane O Mac as the referee. One of the best lines in the build-up is Austin showing up in a Monster Truck to ruin Rock’s funeral ceremony for Stone Cold, leading to Jerry Lawler yelping “This no way to show up for your funeral!”. Austin does some in-character stuff in the car, saying that Rock made him angry so he had to come to Backlash and get his belt back.

This leads us to clips from Backlash 1999, set to the theme for Royal Rumble 1998, as Rock and Austin tear the building down in another great bout. Interestingly, Vince McMahon seemingly turns babyface by taking out Shane at one stage after Shane swore on the life of his grandfather that he wouldn’t cheat, only to then cheat like the despicable Heel that he is. As has been the norm with the highlight packages on this tape, this is another really good one that makes the match look super exciting. Heck, if I hadn’t seen Backlash and watched this I’d totally be considering picking up a copy so that I could see this contest in full. Austin gives us a brief recap of where he’s been in his career, only missing out his stint in ECW for some reason. He could have mentioned it to be fair and they edited it out. That’d be strange though seeing that Cause Stone Cold Said So actually had footage from ECW on it. We close with clips of Austin driving off into the sunset whilst a gaggle of fans cheer him on and he talks about how much he loves his job. Michael Cole asks Austin how he handles the fan adulation, and he says that if nobody showed up for him then it’d suck.

We get the “Oh Hell Yeah” song again and that’s the end of the tape.

In Conclusion:

Hell Yeah was an excellent personality piece that mixed in real-life footage of Steve Austin with plenty of blood pumping highlights from his in-ring career. The personality pieces did a good job of making Stone Cold come across as a likable person, with them humanising him well, whilst the highlight packages did a good job of showcasing why Austin was such a big star at the time. My only critique would be that it would have been nice to see a bit more of the personality pieces, and for them to be spaced out better. As good as the highlight packages were, sometimes it might have been nice to have more frequent breaks between them and the personality aspect of the tape. On a couple of occasions it felt like the tape was bludgeoning me with highlights and nothing was really given any time to breathe. That’s only a small criticism though and I’d heartily recommend Hell Yeah for any fans of Steve Austin and/or fans of the Attitude Era, as it works as both a personality piece for him and a recap of one of the WWF’s most profitable eras.