#07  STEVE AUSTIN

Ring Performance - 8
Mic/Charisma - 9
Overall Impact - 7

Steve Austin is another obvious choice for the Top 10 wrestlers in history. He, along with The Rock, was the centerpiece of the WWF's second golden age (1995-2000). Steve Austin began his career in 1991 in the WCW as "Stunning" Steve Austin. He success quickly winning the WCW TV Championship in June of 1991. He soon formed the Hollywood Blondes with Brian Pillman and this is my first memory of Austin. The Hollywood Blondes were a great tag team winning the tag team titles soon after they were formed. Their gimmick was that they were beautiful and looking back at Steve Austin playing with his blonde hair is humorous now. I always admired Steve Austin partially because he and I look damn similar. I went to a WWF event and I had kids approaching me and asking me for my autograph, it was funny. He was never promoted correctly in the WCW. The WCW always had a reputation for pushing older stars and he became frustrated with the promotion and was released from the WCW in 1995.

He joined the ECW in 1995 and it was there that he developed his Stone Cold persona. He debuted on ECW with a series of spoofs and vignettes aimed at the WCW. He came out and talked about Monday NyQuil and started promoting the "Bottle of Geritol on a Pole" match between Flair and Hogan. He began his WWF career in late 1995 as the "Ringmaster" managed by all-time great Ted DiBiase. He hated this gimmick (it was terrible) and would soon turn into Stone Cold Steve Austin, a bad ass beer drinking, shit talking Viking of a man. This new persona was a huge hit and he became the first true "badass" face. He cemented this with a feud against old-school face Bret Hart where he said "If you put a S before Hitman that will tell you my opinion of Bret Hart".

Steve Austin is what I would call a self-made wrestler. He did not have elite athletic ability or size or agility for that matter. What he did have was aggressiveness and a willingness to job and take bumps. When Austin would get hit, he would sell it. His move set was straight out of the 1980s, he did not have any high flying or truly difficult moves. One of his trademarks was stomping someone in the corner of the ring...nothing special but he did it with flair. His finishing move "The Stunner" became the most feared move in wrestling and it was a good move, it could be executed quickly and on anyone who would stand near him. I think everyone even affiliated with the WWF was "Stunned" more than once including the McMahon family, including Sharon McMahon, Vince's benevolent wife.

Austin's place on this list is mostly due to his ability to captivate a crowd and steal the show. His charisma and mic skills were in the elite of all time. Stone Cold was not supposed to be face....but the crowd loved the character so much that the WWF had no choice but to make him a face. So with Austin as a face, the WWF needed to create a heel that was good enough to talk and wrestle with Austin and they turned to The Rock. The Rock became the Corporate Champ and started, in my opinion, the best feud in WWF history with Austin. The storyline was that Mr. McMahon hated Stone Cold for his white trash antics and wanted his boy, The Rock, to destroy him. This storyline unleashed the greatest feud in history. The feud was littered with white trash references from the Rock and pussy references from Austin.

— arthur@arthurshall.com