The Importance of…5.15.09: Steve Austin

Posted by Mike Chin on 05.15.2009

Whether he was "Stunning" or delivering the Stunner, there's no questioning Steve Austin's importance to the wrestling business.

There are few professional wrestlers who have ever approached the star status of Steve Austin. Most fans remember him best as the beer-swilling, anti-authority hell raiser whose feuds with Vince McMahon, The Rock, Triple H, Bret Hart and others set the wrestling world on fire many times over. They remember him as the most popular star in the WWF—the man who dominated weeks, months and years of the product, and who's stand alone merchandise sales broke every record in wrestling. What these fans may forget are his humbler beginnings—the decade he spent in smaller promotions and in the mid-card before he exploded as "Stone Cold." Austin's glory years alone are enough to make him one of wrestling's most important figures, but taking into account a fuller picture of his career, it becomes all the clear what he meant to the business.

My earliest recollection of Austin comes from the late 1980s when he debuted in World Class Championship Wrestling, as Chris Adams' protégé. It wasn't long before he turned on him, leading to a poor man's Bruno Sammartino-Larry Zbysko program. In feuding with such an established star, Austin gained instant credibility, and performed well enough to soon get his shot on the national scene.

Austin arrived in WCW and spent most of the next four years in programs with stellar veterans like Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes, and lastly, Jim Duggan, centering around the TV and US titles. In the process, Austin grew established as an upper mid-card heel—not a main eventer, but a convincing guy to do battle with guys who were on their way up to that level, or on their way down from it. This role was underscored all the more as he played second in command to Rick Rude in the much vaunted Dangerous Alliance stable.

Perhaps the very best of Austin's time in WCW, though, came not when he was at his peak place in the card, but rather when the company couldn't figure out what to do with him, and relegated him to the tag team ranks. Austin paired up with Brian Pillman to form the Hollywood Blonds. What was set up as a throwaway pair became the team to watch during that period for WCW. With their trademark video camera hand motion, and their "your brush with greatness is over" catchphrase, the two got far more over than anyone could have predicted, and truly came into their own a program with the Horsemen, in which their "Flare for the Old" mock interview segments served to heckle Ric Flair back into the ring. In mocking the establishment, Austin and Pillman went a long way toward laying the groundwork for DX and nWo exploits in the years to follow. As it stood, though, the guys were getting more over than the talent WCW intended to push, and so, by WCW logic, this meant the team had to be split, leading to what began as a red hot feud, before fizzling to an anti-climax as the two moved on to resume doing nothing in the mid-card—much where the two had started before the team first came together.

In a now famous incident, Eric Bischoff called Austin while he was on the injured list, and fired him from WCW. From there, it was off to ECW. Though Austin's time in Philadelphia was brief, he made quite the impact, cutting a series of promos in which he expressed his anger by ripping apart Bischoff and the WCW establishment, indirectly bolstering ECW as an alternative to the corporate, mainstream crap of his previous employer.

Austin helped ECW in his time there, but in a matter of months he would change companies again, this time headed for the WWF. He debuted as the Ringmaster, a charge for Ted Dibiase. This role wasn't so different from the one he played in WCW as an upper-tier mid-card heel with an established manager doing a lot of his talking. It wasn't until Austin was split from Dibiase, though, that he came into his own.

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin was a foul-mouthed, tough guy heel who proved to be a hit with the fans. This new momentum, coupled with Triple H's punishment for the MSG Clique incident, paved the way for Austin to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, and in so doing, establish the Austin 3:16 catchphrase. Austin shunned the actual crown, and cape, though, laying down the groundwork for the Attitude era in which such cartoonish gimmicks lost stature in favor of realism and bad ass stars.

Austin continued to roll in the WWF, entering a heated old guard versus new guard feud with Bret Hart. Austin generally came out with the short end of the stick in this program, but there's little question that the program went a long way toward making him in the fans' eyes—hanging with The Hitman, leading up to their climactic showdown at Wrestlemania XIII, in which Austin refused to submit to the sharpshooter, instead passing out, a bloody mess in the middle of the ring. That moment made Austin a hero and Hart a villain, setting the stage for Austin's rise to the top of the card.

Individual ongoing feuds with Bret Hart and Pillman bled into Austin's war with the Hart Foundation stable, during which Austin also had his first confrontations with Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. Along the way, Austin suffered a serious neck injury due to an accident in a match with Owen Hart, but was just gutsy enough, or just cognizant enough of what this push meant, to tough it out and keep on rolling, all the way to this first world title, defeating Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XIV.

And so, Austin had arrived as the top face of the day. He went to continue his war with McMahon, and to enter an on-again off-again feuds with The Rock and Triple H that would cement the three as the biggest stars of the Attitude Era. This run culminated in a Wrestlemania XVII showdown in which Austin put down The Rock, and in so doing, turned heel for the first time in four years, doing the unthinkable and aligning himself with McMahon.

Austin's last heel run came to mixed results. On one hand, he was still a bankable star, and a credible leader for the WCW/ECW alliance. This led to a lot of great matches against a relatively fresh set of opponents, including Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Kurt Angle. On the other hand, fans still ached to cheer him, and the general lameness of the Invasion angle didn't help Austin's case in establishing himself as worthy of the fans' hatred. For all of these reasons, the WWF wasted no time in shifting Austin back to a face as soon as the angle was over. The move didn't make much sense from a storyline perspective, but fans accepted it because it was what they wanted to see.

As an in-ring performer, there wasn't much left to the Austin story from there. He was a top notch face without credible second-tier heels to face off with, while other guys were feuding over the big belt. He got a half-assed program with the nWo in which he handed Scott Hall and Kevin Nash their asses a few times over. Then, WWF put in the call for Austin to put over newly arrived Brock Lesnar in a free TV match, with no build. It was, allegedly, this booking that caused Austin to walk out on the company.

Austin would return, of course, and return in time to repay The Rock for putting him over in the past, by giving The Great One his win in what would be Austin's last real match at Wrestlemania XIX.

From that point, Austin started the next chapter of his career, as an authority figure and visiting legend. He had a run as co-GM with Eric Bischoff. It made for decent television, at the least, but was a bit bittersweet for the fans who still yearned to see Stone Cold in the ring. From there, Austin has faded into the background a bit, now surfacing only for the occasional promo, or guest referee spot. He has been effective in this role, adding a bit more weight to big-time matches like Goldberg-Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania XX, Bobby Lashley-Umaga at Wrestlemania XXIII or this past year's Cyber Sunday showdown between Batista and Chris Jericho.

And so, Steve Austin came a long way—from a quickly established and very talented mid-card heel in WCCW and WCW, to a source of credibility and extra chaos for ECW, to providing a true hero for a new generation of fans in the WWF and WWE—rebellious, disrespectful, bad ass and cool. Illogical as it seems, Steve Austin, as a person, has now arrived as the perfect company man—a legend, who helps the WWE product whenever he gets the call. Few stars have had such a career trajectory, and, indeed, no wrestler ever made quite the same impact when he arrived on top, as Stone Cold Steve Austin.

That's all for this column. Next week, we take a look at the importance of the new ECW. See you in seven.