Constructing His Own Bible Of Austin 3:16 (Stone Cold Steve Austin)

Member Name: Smark1985

Product:	Stone Cold Steve Austin
Date:	18/02/01 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Seemingly changed wrestling overnight, most popular wrestler ever

Disadvantages: Completely misused early in career

Steve Williams, sorry to break the illusion, but that is his real name, broke into wrestling over a decade ago. A decade seems a long time looking back, but actually living the decade was as slow as The Hardy Boyz crowd pops.

Steve Williams was trained in the late eighties by Chris Adams, a legendary wrestler in his time. Within a few years, Steve was packaged up and sent away to WCW, World Championship Wrestling. Steve was a relative newcomer, but was already in the big leagues. Sadly, WCW incredibly misused, or misjudged Steve. A thought that I'm sure has WCW turning over at night.

"Stunning" Steve Austin was introduced to the world in 1991. He was slowly making waves and getting noticed with his camp hairstyle, beautiful ladies and titles around his waist.

Thats right, Steve was the WCW Television just a few months into his career. This title reign had huge potential, but was sadly never realized.

After feuding with Johnny B. Badd (Marc Mero in the WWF) for most of 1992. Stunning Steve was put in a tag team with another extremely promising newcomer, "Flyin" Brian Pillman. Unfortunately, Brian tragically died in 1997 due to a heart disease.

All through 1993, the Hollywood Blonds (as Steve and Brian were known) were taking the tag division by storm. At one point they even held the Tag Team Titles. In an amazingly stupid move, the duo were split up and slowly, each wrestler drifted into the lower echelons of WCW.

In late 1995, Steve left WCW for a chance with WWF. The reason, a wrestler who wore black tights and black boots was unmarketable and was unable to get "over" with the fans. Getting "over" is a wrestling term for how much reaction a wrestler gets from the crowd.

As WCW were uttering these words, I am sure they didn't realize that the very wrestler they were firing would go on to be the most marketable wrestler of all time and the most popular wr
estler who ever lived.

The Ringmaster entered the WWF in early 1996. He was managed by Ted Dibiase.

The Ringmaster was given a fair push at success early on in his career but never really took off.

That all changed when The Ringmaster dropped the name and manager and became "Stone Cold".

Stone Cold Steve Austin was born in the summer of 1996. King Of The Ring, June 1996.
Stone Cold Steve Austin was still not a big thing in WWF, he was still at the bottom of the card wrestling such perennial losers as Savio Vega and Waylon Mercy.

But the June night of 1996 changed not only Steve's life, but also the wrestling industry forever.

Steve had defeated Marc Mero in the semi finals and was against Jake Roberts in the final. Jake was injured due to an earlier match with Vader and Steve took advantage, he beat Jake to become the 1996 King Of The Ring. But what changed everything was his post match victory speech.

Jake Roberts was a born again christian, and was always quoting bible excerpts such as John 3:16. Stone Cold got on the microphone and spoke the words that will live forever.

"you go on and on about you bible and your psalms, and your little John 3:16. Well, Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your @$$!"

Immediately, fans all over the U.S were holding up signs of Austin 3:16.

The strange thing about Austin's meteoric rise to the top was that he was originally meant to be a heel (bad guy). For some reason, fans loved him for his defiant attitude to everything, his beer swilling and middle finger gesturing.

Austin 3:16 T-Shirts were the fastest selling T-Shirt in history. Many claim that Austin redefined wrestling as a whole. That June night was the starting point of WWF Attitude. An era where emphasis was placed on violence, backstage scenes and nudity. Attitude saved wrestling, Austin saved WWF.

Austin has now been back in the W
WF after a year out due to injury, he is currently involved in the best feud for a long while with Triple H. He seems to be just as popular now as he was before he was injured, maybe even more so.

Austin managed to break the wrestling mould of the usual "good guy/bad guy" storylines and created an entirely different wrestling product.

From his attack on Mike Tyson, to his legendary feud with Vince McMahon right up to his 2000 return, the book of Austin 3:16 is far from over...

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