During a segment on the last Monday Night Raw, Michael Cole announced his special guest referee for his match against Jerry “The King†Lawler at Wrestlemania 27. He then stated that whoever signed the contract would be the special guest referee for his match against Jerry Lawler. He teased him picking Stone Cold as the referee by saying he’s a Texan and ex WWE champion, but he picked JBL, who is also a Texan and ex-WWE champion, instead. This was JBL’s first appearance in the WWE since he lost a match at Wrestlemania 25 against Rey Mysterio where he stated after the match he was quitting.
JBL cut a promo about how he’d call the match fairly and how he was flattered by Michael Cole for standing up to bullies like Jerry Lawler. Everything was great for JBL and Michael Cole until Stone Cold came out. He ended up stunning JBL and then signing the special guest referee contract which JBL never signed, making Stone Cold Steve Austin the special guest referee.
Pros: Anytime Stone Cold comes back it’s a great site to see even if he’s simply going to referee a match. The WWE will benefit from this because Stone Cold Steve Austin is a shoe-in for the second biggest draw in not only the WWE, but wrestling history (just behind Hogan, although Hogan doesn’t draw anymore at all). Plus, every match Stone Cold has refereed has been entertaining too. With all the intangibles in this match, it is a given he will get psychically involved. Most likely, he will stomp the mud pile, Thez Press, and then stun Jack Swagger, something that never loses its shelf-life.
Cons: The more WWE adds strings to this match, the more it renders the moot of the Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole feud. They are trying to add  bags-of-tricks to the match to make the match better when they don’t even need to.  Everyone knows the match will not be good and nobody is paying to see a good match.What they are paying to see Michael Cole, arguably the most annoying person in the WWE right now, get beat up until he cannot move.
Although I don’t think a special guest referee is needed in this match if there were to be one, it should be JBL rather than Stone Cold simply because JBL is a heel and Stone Cold is a babyface. With Austin refereeing, it gives an advantage now to Jerry Lawler when Michael Cole should be getting heat on Lawler every week until Wrestlemania.
All they needed to do with this feud is book it as simple as possible and make sense out of it. However, they are trying making it too complex with all these unneeded added elements to the match. Hopefully, it will just stop here so they do not ruin the match’s purpose before the bell even rings. I am not saying I do not want to see Stone Cold at Wrestlemania. I like seeing Stone Cold to this day whenever he comes back and he will help out Wrestlemania’s buyrate, but the point still remains that he doesn’t belong refereeing this match because (a) he’s a huge babyface (b) he isn’t a heel and (c) there is no need for this match to have a special referee for this match… unless he was a heel referee.
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