For some reason I had the idea...

[hb2k]

I don't know why, but it struck me for some reason today how good this idea potentially was for the climax of the "Who ran down Steve Austin" angle that had a ton of momentum and wrestling fans everywhere talking, but had a bit of a strange end with Rikishi inexplicably being exposed as the culprit. So, here it is:

The majority of the built to the story would remain the same - Shane promises to reveal the attacker, swerves Austin, Austin triumphantly returns and beats the crap out of him, then tries to create his own brand of justice by beating the piss out of people until he finds the guy. Now, unlike in real life, he wouldn't stun Foley just yet, and wouldn't be "suspended" until the culprit was found. Have a lot of the same elements of small clues along the way. Instead of Billy Gunn saying the attacker had blond hair, have him say he was wearing a leather jacket. Built and built to the show Foley says he thinks he can reveal who did it. Austin is there, and have Foley come out and so very similar to what they did - have Commissioner Foley show the clip of Austin beating Shawn Michaels in his final match at Mania 14, and also a video showing the feud building up to it, ending on the clip from the episode of Raw back in March 98 when Shawn, wearing a leather jacket, superkicked Steve Austin, and he and Hunter (who was also wearing a leather jacket I believe), standing over him. Introduce Shawn Michaels, and do what ended up happening - Shawn says it wasn't him. Austin remains the thread of the show, getting more and more pissed off, until the last segment, when he gets in the ring and calls out the attacker, and out walks...Mick Foley. Foley steps in the ring and tells Austin not the get the wrong idea - he didn't do it, but instead lambasts Austin for running riot on the show when Foley is helping him out, asking what all the beatdowns and Stunner have gotten him, as he doesn't know who did it. Foley then tells Austin to face the fact that he's powerless to find out who did it, and the only guy that can reveal it is the driver himself. Foley gets a Stunner, as it isn't what he wants to hear, and Foley rolls out the ring, with Austin in the middle putting the mouth to him. Suddenly, from through the crowd, wearing his trademark leather jacket, Raven makes his debut, entering the ring, and standing totally still behind Austin, who has no idea he's there. JR is going crazy, yelling his name, the "what is he doing here?" and the "he doesn't work here" aspect of it. Austin turns around and gets a DDT. Raven stands over him with the crucifix pose, to end the show, JR screaming about "Has the attacker just revealed himself to the world?"

Now the explanation, which, when done by Raven would be his typical good stuff, would be that he took out the top guy in the business because it should have been him. He stood out of the limelight the entire time so his name wouldn't be considered (he left WCW in August 1999, and while he was in ECW, very few people saw it, and in real life debuted at Unforgiven, the same show Austin returned on). He did it because Raven looks at Steve Austin as the guy that bucked the system, didn't do what other people wanted, and became the most popular wrestler of all time, while Raven did the same thing and became an outcast. They were in WCW together, ECW together (and were real life good friends), but while Austin became the antihero and got everything, Raven was the same, but didn't. He didn't get the big comeback campaign, the WrestleMania main events, the t-shirts, the world titles ("What about Raven"), so he villifies Austin and wants to end his career. But he knew running him over wasn't going to keep him down, so he waited months and months for Austin to return to tell him eye to eye that he was going to end his career. And if you think being out for ten months with a broken neck was bad, wait until the next chapter. Quote the Raven, Nevermore...

The end result would be a new opponent for Austin, a new top guy that can cut top level quality promos and a chance for some really intense brawls, which would have been awesome to see.

Thoughts on the idea? And who would have been your choice for the culprit?