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| Edited By: Pranav Joshi |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Sep 29, 2017, 06:42 PM IST
Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the biggest stars in the history of professional wrestling. On Thursday, Steve Austin celebrated his 50th birthday.
For many adult WWE fans, Steve Austin defined a generation. He rose to prominence during the late 1990s, playing the gimmick of a blue-collar employee who routinely disobeyed his boss (Vince McMahon), beat up others at will, drank beer in the workplace and mouthed obscenities you usually won't hear in public.
It was this 'Stone Cold' character that WWE pushed as its top face from 1998 to 2001. Fans loved Steve Austin, as every week he entertained fans with some act of rebellion. His music - which began with the sound of shattering glass - always evoked an enormous ovation from live crowds. Steve Austin was also hugely successful in making money for the WWE, becoming arguably the biggest draw in the history of professional wrestling. He has been credited with drawing WWE out of near bankruptcy and making it a multi-million dollar company, and in the process driving its competition - World Championship Wrestling (WCW) out of business.
Austin's career was replete with moments that remain unforgettable to this. His rebellious antics have become the stuff of legend. On his birthday, we list seven such moments that became hugely popular with fans.
7) Holding the owner hostage: Steve Austin and WWE owner Vince McMahon always disagreed with each other. McMahon thought Austin was unfit to be WWE champion because he was too foul-mouthed, uncontrollable and unrefined. The fans loved Austin and Austin refused to change his behaviour to suit his boss.
Steve Austin had been cheated out of the WWE title by McMahon at WWE's monthly event titled 'Breakdown' in September 1998. In October, McMahon made a match between the Undertaker and Kane for the vacant WWE title at an event called Judgment Day. He appointed Austin as the referee and declared that if Austin refused to declare a winner, he would be fired. Duly, Austin ended the match by attacking both competitors, and was fired.
Next evening on WWE Raw, McMahon began to gloat about firing Austin. Later, when he was backstage, Austin, who was not supposed to be in the building, took McMahon hostage. Apparently Austin was carrying weapons, and eventually dragged McMahon out to the ring for an interrogation. Here's what happened next:
6) Returning at Backlash 2000 to help the Rock: Steve Austin had been out with a legitimate neck injury in late 1999 and early 2000. The injury required surgery, so Austin was unable to compete for several months. At the WWE event Backlash, however, Austin was scheduled to return. The main event - a WWE title match between the Rock and Triple H - was to have Steve Austin 'in Rock's corner'. Triple H was the champion who was also the hated villain going into the match.
Come match time, it was announced that 'Austin's flight had been delayed' and he might not make it. This was of course a ruse. Towards the end of the match Triple H and the McMahon family were beating up the Rock senseless, who looked poised to lose. This is when Steve Austin returned, and all hell broke loose. Listen to the ovation:
5) Destroying Mr McMahon's car: Who has experienced the fun of destroying their boss' new car in a fit of rage? Steve Austin has. On an episode of WWE Raw in late 1998, Steve Austin entered the arena in a cement truck (!) and proceeded to fill his boss' brand new Corvette with cement. Here's the crazy segment:
4) Turning on his fans at Wrestlemania: Throughout the 1997 to 2001 period, Steve Austin was the most popular star in professional wrestling. Fans loved him like no other, and he drew crowds even more than the Rock did. After returning from neck surgery in late 2000, Austin began to harbour dreams of becoming WWE champion again. This finally culminated in a match with the Rock at WWE's biggest yearly event - Wrestlemania. The 2001 Wrestlemania event was held in Austin's home state of Texas, which meant the fans were even more behind him than usual.
Towards the end of the match, Vince McMahon, who had always been Austin's arch nemesis, decided to help his enemy win the WWE title. Then Austin along with McMahon viciously attacked the Rock, with Austin defeating him after a series of failed attempts. Austin's career had been built on on-screen enmity with his boss. To see him join his enemy was extremely shocking to most WWE fans. So popular was Stone Cold though that the Texas crowd cheered Austin on his way to victory.
3) Driving a beer truck into the ring: This happened in the run up to Wrestlemania 15 in 1999. The Rock was the WWE champion, a villain, and part of Vince Mcmahon's coterie. During a segment just six days before the mega event, the Rock and the McMahon family had come out to the ring to gloat about themselves and disrespect Austin. In the middle of the segment, Austin entered the era driving a beer truck, took out a hose, and proceeded to spray beer on all the people inside the ring. It was a crazy moment that made the crowd go wild:
2) Becoming a megastar at Wrestlemania 13: Before Wrestlemania 13 in 1997, Steve Austin played a bad guy, though he was always the same anti-hero character. However, at Wrestlemania 13, Austin turned into a fan favourite for the first time during a brilliant match against Bret Hart. He refused to give up under intense pain from Bret Hart's submission move. The visual of Austin writhing in pain with blood running down his face, yet refusing to give up has become iconic in the annals of professional wrestling history. He finally passed out but never gave up. After the match, Hart began to kick and stomp Austin, thus endearing Austin further to the audience, who had loved every moment of his resistance. Hart turned villain and Austin turned hero that very night, kickstarting the Texas wrestler's rise to superstardom.
1) Austin 3:16 speech: This is an extremely controversial moment yet the breakthrough moment in Austin's wrestling career. At WWE's event King of the Ring in 1996, Stone Cold defeated Jake 'the Snake' Roberts to win the King of the Ring tournament. Following this, he made these highly controversial remarks:
Austin's comments were cheered by the crowd, even though he was supposed to be playing the bad guy back then. The very next night, 'Austin 3:16' signs had appeared in the crowd. WWE took advantage of the situation to create an 'Austin 3:16' t-shirt. The t-shirt remains to this day the highest selling piece of merchandise in professional wrestling history. Even today, you can see hundreds of fans sporting 'Austin 3:16' shirts in the audience.
Stone Cold Steve Austin also changed the landscape of professional wrestling by making it a far more edgy, adult-friendly product that incorporated threatrics and over-the-top action to augment the matches in the ring. Though the WWE of today is a very benign product directed at younger fans, Austin's legacy remains unforgotten and has no parallel in professional wrestling. Along with the Rock, Austin became a pop culture phenomenon in the late 1990s and helped wrestling achieve significant mainstream popularity.
Disclaimer: Professional wrestling is a lot like movies - it is a make-believe world in which events are predecided and there is no real hatred between rivals or opponents. Many actions which constitute the heart and soul of modern professional wrestling would constitute criminal activity in real life. In no way should this article be seen as an endorsement of such activity or an encouragement to follow Steve Austin's example in the real world.
