[CaptainCrunch]

3) Stone Cold Steve Austin



There is nothing electrifying then the sound of shattering glass followed by the opening bass bars of his theme song. Steve Williams aka Steve Austin was a rarity, a wrestling prodigy born to the game. It doesn’t seem like it, but Steve Austin was on the rise far before he came into the WWE. Though it was the stupidity and blindness of Eric Bishoff and the WCW that put the final pieces of the puzzle together on one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time.
So why is Stone Cold firmly ensconced in the CaptainCrunch Mount Rushmore of wrestling? He had it all, the technical ability, the determination, the fact that to this day he still sells more merchandise then any other wrestler in history and that he was one of the great money generators in the game.


Trained by Gentlemen Chris Adams in the late 80’s Austin bounced around Texas with the independence establishing himself as a cocky heel who could work almost any style. He was big, strong, athletic, and understood the psychology of the game.







He gained attention when he joined the Dangerous Alliance with Paul Heyman in the WCW as Stunning Steve Austin. He quickly won the TV title, but bounced around the WCW lower card until he was teemed with Brian Pillman and they formed an amazing tag team called the Hollywood Blondes. If you go back and watch the Blondes in action, it was an exceptional heel tag team that had a very technical style combined with the ultimate dirt bag tactics. Unfortunately Bischoff not knowing what he was doing broke up the team for reasons that are still a mystery, and Austin started the WCW bounce around of terrible bookings and bad ideas and then was fired by Bischoff while on the shelf with a triceps injury. Bischoff thought that Austin wasn’t marketable and piled on later when Austin started seeing success in WWE by calling him a big fish in a small pool of talent. Austin would later help destroy WCW during the Monday Night Wars.











But what saved Stone Cold’s career? Or rather who? While on the shelf, he received a call from the mad scientist Paul Heyman who bought him in to do interviews and promos and not to wrestle for about $500.00 a night. So why did ECW save Austin’s career. There were two reasons. 1) At the time Austin was highly resentful of WCW and wrestling in general and his promo’s showed it. He blasted WCW, he blasted their workers and he blasted the industry. 2) We saw the development of the Stone Cold Steve Austin character in style. He became an incredible promo artist, we saw the blunt no nonsense somewhat caustic character that would rise to the Wrestling during the Attitude Era.











After Austin heeled from his injury he was bought on board with WWE during the great talent raids of ECW. But it was clear that WWE had no idea what to do with him, making him the bland Ring Master and teaming him with Ted Dibiase, as a technical wrestling assassin who didn’t say more then a few words and let Dibiase talk for him.







Austin asked to redefine his character, shaved off his hair, grew his goatee, and based his new character around Richard Kukinski and started his rise as WWE superstar Chilly McFreeze . . . . well if WWE had their way that would have been the name of his character. However Austin stumbled onto the name Stone Cold thanks to his wife at the time and a cup of tea and the rest is history. Sort of.


Austin still stumbled around the lower mid card for a while, until fate struck. That fate was the famous curtain call at Madison Square Garden that got HHH de pushed as punishment and shot Austin to the top of the card because he suddenly won the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, created the infamous Austin 3:16 catch phrase and never looked back.





From that point on, Austin rose to the top of the merchandising charts, became must see TV during the attitude era where the ratings were huge. Sold out everywhere he went and became the face of a new generation of Wrestlers.



But he needed one more thing to really happen. How do you take a top selling heel and make him a face. Enter the man and other Mount Rushmore entrant in Bret “Hitman” Hart. Anyone that’s anyone can go back to Wrestlemania and watch that double turn with Hart firmly becoming the companies top heel and Austin the companies top face and not marvel at it.






Austin continued to be the face of the company, though he hadn’t reached the stratospheric heights until Bret intervened again by leaving the company. Vince was forced into his villainous role and his natural feuding partner became the anti-authority, Steve Austin. Their feud propelled WWE past WCW in the Monday night wars and WCW never had an answer though they tried.


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Austin also showed an incredible ability to adapt. Due to a botched spike piledriver by Owen Hart, Austin was forced to change his style to the brawling without taking a lot of bumps and learned to rely even more on psychology and story telling then work rate. But his injuries were beginning to slow him down. A botched WCW invasion that had Austin calling WWE booking garbage created heat with McMahon until late 2002 when Austin was told to do the job to Brock Lesnar with no advanced build up or story, Austin instead went home and pretty much ended his full time career. Sure, he returned later on and every time it was an event, but he acted as the Raw GM or made special appearances to stun people and drink beer but the Austin era did end with more of a whimper then a bang.






But there’s no question that Austin changed the sport, or that he was a key reason for the death of WCW. Austin was incredibly adaptable and one of the best story tellers in the history of the business. He defined a era of wrestling and bought WWE out of one of its lowest points in its history.



And for that, he belongs firmly in the middle of the Mount Rushmore of Wrestling.




Next up the fourth and final member followed by some discussion on who I didn’t put up.