“I just let it loose” when Steve Austin recalled his famous Austin 3:16 promo
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Steven James Anderson popularly known as Stone Cold Steve Austin is a former WWE Champion who is regarded by many as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Steve Austin who had been a lifelong wrestling fan decided to pursue wrestling as a career and made his debut in 1989 against Frogman LeBlanc wrestling for WCWW. In 1991 Steve Austin signed with World Championship Wrestling and just weeks after his debut defeated Bobby Eaton to win the WCW World Television Championship which was his first title of his career.
Later Steve Austin along with Brian Pillman formed a tag team named Hollywood Studs who went on to win NWA and WCW World Tag Team Championship. Steve Austin would go on to defeat Dusty Rhodes in a two out of three falls match to become the United States Champion for the first time in his career. Steve Austin was later fired from WCW with Eric Bishoff labelling Austin as hard to work with. Steve Austin the signed for ECW for a short stint before signing with WWE.
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Stone Cold Steve Austin recently returned to in ring action at Wrestlemania 38 against Kevin Owens
Steve Austin signed with WWE in late 1995 and made his televised debut in the same year after winning he was awarded The Million Dollar Championship by his manager Ted Dibiase. Soon Austin released that the ring master gimmick wasn’t working and decided to shave his head and grow a goatee. Austin also started using the prefix Stone Cold before his name.
The 1996 King of the Ring tournament was the turning point in the career of Steve Austin and also in the growth of WWE. Triple H was supposed to win the tournament but due to the infamous Curtain Call incident he was punished by Vince McMahon and that gave Stone Cold Steve Austin an opportunity to shine. Steve Austin after winning in his first match was taken to the hospital to get some stiches and was set to face Jake Roberts in the finals of the tournament. Jake Roberts who was playing a religious role at the time cut a promo on Austin. Later after defeating Jake Roberts Steve Austin cut the famous Austin 3:16 promo which propelled him to instant stardom.
On 3:16 day, Stone Cold Steve Austin joined The Rich Eisen Show shared details about the whole incident and how he came up with famous Austin 3:16 line :
They had decided I was going to be that guy to get the push and the first match of that night I was wrestling Marc Mero, he did this fancy move and he ended up kicking me in the mouth and split my mouth wide open,” Austin said. “They ended up taking me to the hospital to get stitched up, so while I’m gone to get about 14-15 stitches in my upper lip, Jake Roberts was going to be my next opponent.
As soon as I stepped out of the ambulance coming back, I just had a pair of shorts on with my gear on and everything and Michael Hayes came up to me and says ‘hey, I just want to let you know while you are gone, Jake cut a religious promo on you.’ He kind of told me words to the effect of what he said and I said as soon as he said that, Austin 3:16 popped into my mind.
“Back in the day, the old football days, they always had the John 3:16 posters behind the field goal attempt and I said ‘Oh man, I’ve got one for [Jake’s] ass.’ I just spun that thing together and when we went out, we went out there and I wrestled Jake, it was a short match. Go over there and do the promo with the guy who told me about the Jake promo and I just let it loose. Pretty much an ad-lib, one of those things you just let it go on the fly and gold starts happening.
“I said ‘Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass!’ And as I kept on, Vince was doing the announcing and I knew I needed a button on the end of that promo. Something I just pulled out of thin air… ‘And that’s the bottom line cause Stone Cold said so!’ I got two trademarks. I hit two grand slams at two at-bats at an event I was never supposed to win. It was just something I capitalized on, the timing was right, I was right and I was ready. Magic happened that night.”
Steve Austin after that night went on to become a megastar and achieved great things in his career before retiring due to a serious neck injury.
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Aditya Baisane
(103 Articles Published)