3:16 Stone Cold Appreciation

[Elusive]

On a third round of appreciation posts. This one hits a personal home for me.

Stone really set the tone for what I loved about WWF.

I remember very very fond memories of me and my Dad, having wrestle mania nights and doing the voice announcer yells as we yelled who was there. Doing father son wrestling matches.

Watching those matches with him, with steve just doing what Steve does. I loved it. He was my wrestler, just being a badass and telling everyone no and just fucking around and having fun.

I knew it was fake in the end. But he just had so much fun.

My dad's no longer around but I'll forever remember those moments with him.

Thank you stone cold and to this day,

Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!

 

[VashTheStampede]

Stone Cold was definitely an icon and belongs on the Mount Rushmore of the biggest stars ever. Wrestling is worse off today if he never had that insane run at the top.

I'm the weirdo who liked him as Stunning Steve Austin back in WCW in the Hollywood Blondes and then didn't quite put together that he was the same guy as the Ringmaster/Stone Cold for waaaaaaaay too long.

 

[Webster]

 

[VashTheStampede]

If only fans hadn't taken that godforsaken "What?" chant and applied it to every wrestler that used that basic cadence while speaking.

 

[Cole]

HOT TAKE INCOMING

without Steve Austin, I'm not sure wrestling would exist in the way that we know it today.

the WWF Attitude era was a product of a lot of things of course, but NOTHING more than Steve Austin. Steve Austin was the culmination of a world of unrest, a world tired of their bosses, and tired of the traditional "good guys". Vince wanted Austin as a heel, big time. And no matter how hard he tried, the fans just fell in love and they had no choice. The Bret Hart vs Austin Wrestlemania double turn is one of the greatest moments in wrestling history and it forever changed the landscape.

Austin started the attitude era, and without the attitude era, there's a good chance WCW wins the war. but WCWs problems were a lot deeper than people realized at the time, and I think there is a REALLY good chance WCW still implodes a few years later anyway. if WWE doesn't survive the lack of attitude era, I'm not sure where wrestling goes.

If you ask any wrestling fan over the age of, say, 25, for their most memorable wrestling moments and a solid half of them aren't Steve Austin, they weren't paying attention. The stuff he did that was so amazing is SO amazing that it feels like any answer you give is the most obvious answer to give.

KOTR Austin 3:16 speech
The beer bath
The cement truck

and my absolute personal favorite, and in my opinion, the largest crowd pop in the *HISTORY* of wrestling.



there hare been a lot of huge pops, and I think with modern microphones and high definition cameras some have sounded bigger (I know Vash has mentioned there have been a few AEW debuts/returns that have been huge), but in my opinion, that is the biggest pop in wrestling history. The entire crowd, every single fucking person, pops the second that glass cracks.

 

[Webster]

without Steve Austin, I'm not sure wrestling would exist in the way that we know it today.

And without the Curtain Call incident months earlier, Stone Cold would've never been given the 96' KotR title; per the Tropes...

On May 19, 1996, the WWF put on a house show at Madison Square Garden in New York; this show was Kevin Nash and Scott Hall's last show with the company before they jumped ship to WCW. Levesque and Nash were working as heels at the time, and Michaels and Hall were faces. At the end of Michaels and Nash's steel cage match, Hall and Levesque came out to hug them goodbye in the middle of the ring.

This was a serious problem.

The vast majority of the wrestling industry were calling for The Kliq's heads, since they'd broken kayfabe in front of the cameras (by showing that faces and heels were actually friends outside the ring, rather than mortal enemies). Vince McMahon had few options for punishment, however: Hall and Nash were leaving for WCW, Waltman wasn't in on it, and Michaels was (at the time) the WWF Champion and a big name headliner. The punishment ultimately fell on Levesque, who languished for well over a year in the midcard, jobbing to wrestlers such as The Ultimate Warrior. He was eventually allowed to shine as one of the founding members of D-Generation X (which happened due to Michaels' influence).

Levesque's punishment for the Curtain Call, ironically enough, was directly responsible for the meteoric rise in popularity of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Austin won the 1996 King of the Ring tournament — which Levesque was scheduled to win before the Curtain Call — and delivered his infamous "Austin 3:16" speech after the tournament winning match. Austin's incredible popularity following his victory eventually led to the Attitude Era a year later.