WWE Hall of Fame 2009 : Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Rattlesnake is the first member of the Class of 2009. Career highlights, best matches, best quotes, personal views and more!
Rumours had been circulating for a few weeks that Stone Cold was going to be amongst this years of Hall of Fame bound former Superstars, and on last weeks Monday Night Raw (12/01/2009) it was confirmed.
For over 10 years Stone Cold Steve Austin has raised hell in the WWE and although he has had many ups and downs with the management both on and off screen, he played a huge part in making the company what it is today and some might even argue that without him it may well have been WCW on our screens every Monday and Thursday night.
Before reading on, why not check out my Suite101 article which gives an impartial look at Austin’s rise from a college drop out to a 6 time WWF/E World Champion and (sort of) Hollywood star. Here’s the link:
WWE Hall of Fame 2009 Stone Cold Steve Austin
On with the show….
Personal Views
Stone Cold appeared in the first main event I watched when I got back into wrestling in 1999. Up until this point I didn’t have satellite tv and so had followed wrestling vicariously through a friend that did, asking what had happened and borrowing tapes every so often.
The event was the now defunct Fully Loaded, and the main event was Stone Cold Vs. The Undertaker in a First Blood Match for the WWF Championship, with the stipulation that if Austin won Mr. McMahon would leave the company, and if The Undertaker won Austin would never get another shot at the title.
Throughout the night both Austin and The Undertaker were busted open by each other, building more hype for the main event. I don’t think I have ever got into a match more than I did that one. I watched it with a friend and we were both cheering every Stone Cold punch and booing every time Taker came back, at 3am, in a house full of people.
Ever since that event Austin has been one of my favorite wrestlers, his best match in my opinion being against The Rock at Wrestlemania XV. Despite changing his wrestling style from technical to all out brawler when he injured his neck, his matches never seem to get boring in my eyes and his promos always hold my attention despite being very similar recently.
His rivalry with the McMahon family was epic and should he ever return to the WWE (unlikely in a wrestling capacity, but perhaps as a backstage talent) I’m sure it will be something that we all get to enjoy again. There is so much info surrounding the McMahon/Austin feuds that I haven’t even attempted to cover it here or in my article, they really aren’t something you can read about and enjoy as much as you can watching them so I’d reccomend getting an Austin DVD if you want to follow this.
I think he is as deserving of a Hall of Fame place as anyone in the company, without his influence on the Attitude era (which I think would still have happened but not been as revolutionary without him) WCW could have easily won the Monday Night Wars and gone on to be the successful brand.
Didn’t make the cut
The main problem I had when writing this article was the sheer amount of information that had to be squeezed into a fairly short article. Stone Cold did a lot in a relatively short space of time, and the majority of what he did was either very important for his career, or very important for the development of the WWE as a promotion.
In this section I’ll try and cover most of the important stuff I either skimmed over in the article, or simply left out due to the word limit.
‘Stone Cold’ Steve Williams
Although being born Steve Anderson on Dec 18th 1964, his parents divorced and his mother re-married a man named Ken Williams who adopted Austin and his siblings, changing his name legally to Steve Williams.
Austin was always destined to be a sportsman of some variety, being in an all-star baseball team in High School and gaining an American Football scholarship at the University of North Texas. Despite also being skilled academically Austin dropped out of college just 17 credit hours short of graduating, choosing instead to join Gentleman Chris Adams wrestling school.
Extreme Austin
Shortly after being fired by Bischoff for lacking marketability and having a tricep injury Austin had a short but memorable run in ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) where he first began to display his ‘Stone Cold’ persona, taking shots at Bischoff and WCW in a number of promo segments. Still feeling the effects of the tricep injury Austin wrestled only a handful of ECW matches, against The Sandman and the current ECW Champion Mikey Whipwreck, before leaving for the bright lights of the WWE and the chance to hit Bischoff where it would hurt him the most, the ratings.
Out of Ring Experiences
Austin was a master at cutting promo’s, practically everything he did was gold and as a result there are far too many to mention them all here. While his finest promo is no doubt the 3:16 speech, some of his other most notable out of ring moments feature:
- Destroying The Rock’s Bentley with a monster truck
- Throwing the Intercontinental Championship belt into a river
- Riding out to ringside in a beer truck and hosing down Vince McMahon
- Attacking Vince McMahon while he was in a hospital bed
- His assault on Brian Pillman’s house
- Kidnapping Vince McMahon and holding him hostage in the middle of the ring
There are many more and although a lot of the more recent Austin segments tend to follow the tried and tested ‘Stunner the heel, celebrate with the face, Stunner the face, celebrate with lots of beer’ format, they are still well delivered and have enough novelty factor to get past the fact they are predictable and samey.
The Darker Side of Stone Cold
I purposely left everything in this section out of the original article, because Austin getting into the Hall of Fame should be a reason to celebrate all the good things he has done for the wrestling business and not some of the, shall we say, less scrupulous things he has done.
Refusals and Walk-outs
Austin’s rise to fame in the WWE is said to have given him a somewhat Hogan-esque ego, and would allegedly refuse to lose to certain Superstars.
In 2001, the nWo had re-formed and standing against them were The Rock and Stone Cold. At Wrestlemania XIII The Rock fought Hogan in what would be the most promoted match on the card, while Austin took on Scott Hall in a rather unmemorable bout further down the card.
It had originally planned that Austin would take on Hogan, but when presented with the idea and told he was going to lose, he refused to do it and the writers focus switched instead to The Rock. Although scheduled to appear on the following nights episode of Raw, Austin walked out of the company due to ‘creative issues’ and a number of injuries.
Austin returned to the company in 2002 to feud with The Rock and then Bischoff, becoming a Co-GM and ‘Sheriff’ of Raw. History repeated itself following Wrestlemania XX, after being the special referee in the Brock Lesnar Vs. Goldburg match Austin was told he would lose to Lesnar in a match some time in the near future.
Again he Vito’d this, saying a victory for the up-and-coming Lesnar would not be beneficial for either party, serving only to make himself look bad with little gain for Brock. Austin again walked out on the WWE, only to return a year later when he signed a 3 year deal with WWE Films.
Austin’s final walk out came in 2005 when he was told that he would be beaten by The Coach at Taboo Tuesday (I can’t blame him on this one). He was replaced by Batista and the match was a forgettable mess featuring Goldust and Vader.
Austin and Debra
In 2000 Stone Cold married Debra Marshall, a WWE Diva mostly associated with either being Jeff Jarret’s valet, or for being the inspiration behind Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler’s constant use of the term ‘puppies’. Although there doesn’t appear to be any concrete evidence, it is thought that Jarret’s departure from the WWE in late 99 was due to the growing relationship between Austin and Debra, neither man liking the other.
In 2002 police were called to the Austin household, where they found Debra hysterical and bruised. Austin pleaded no contest when it came to court and received community service and a $1000 fine. She later claimed it was a result of Austin’s seroid abuse, and the pair were officially devorced in February of 2003.
Gold Run
Austin held almost all of the ‘big’ titles and was only a European Championship away from being a ‘Grand Slam Champion’ using the original definition (WWE Champion, Intercontinental Champion, European Champion and World Tag Team Champion). Here is a list of his title achievements in the ‘big two’ promotions:
WCW
2 Time United States Champion - 27.12.93 and 18.09.94
2 Time World Television Champion - 03.06.91 and 23.05.92
NWA Tag Team Champion - 02.03.93 (with Brian Pillman)
WWE
6 Time WWF/E Heavyweight Champion - 29.03.98, 29.06.98, 28.06.99, 01.04.01 and 08.10.01
2 Time Intercontinental Champion - 03.08.97 and 09.11.97
4 Time World Tag Team Champion - 25.05.97 (with Shawn Michaels), 14.07.97 (with Dude Love), 26.07.98 (with The Undertaker) and 29.04.01 (with Triple H)
The End
If you got this far, then thank you for reading through everything. Sorry it was so long, but as I said before Austin has done so much in his career, even this and the suite101 article only began to scrape the surface of all that he has done.
If you want to find out more about Stone Cold I suggest getting a few DVD’s. ‘Oh Hell Yeah’ is pretty old now but features a lot of his best segments as well as interviews etc. and you should be able to pick it up quite cheaply somewhere on the net.
Thank you again and remember to keep checking back for more on the WWE Hall of Fame 2009, new inductees are announced each week.
JayD
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