10 Amazing Stories Behind One-Off WWE Attires
4. CM Punk's Stone Cold Shirt
CM Punk's iconic pipebomb has been analysed ad nauseum over the past eight years to the point of total exhaustion, though one aspect which hasn't really been considered in much detail is the speaker's decision to wear a Steve Austin shirt - mostly because the reason is seemingly blatant.
Except it isn't. The automatic assumption is that Punk picked the merch of one of WWE's straightest-talking shooters owing to their anti-establishment synergy, and it makes all the sense in the world. As Punk rattled off his litany of grievances regarding the company, he might as well have been a subversive Steve Austin butting heads with the boss. Yet there were much more practical - and prosaic - reasons for his Austin-inspired outfit.
Speaking in an interview GQ Magazine, Punk explained that he'd thrown his usual merch away the previous night, and asked a runner to see if they could fish him out another. An XXL shirt was plonked in his hands.
"I'm going to be swimming in this," he recounted. "It's always creepy when you're wearing wrestling trunks with a shirt because it doesn't look like you're wearing any pants." So he pulled out a Steve Austin shirt he had in his back, and fortunately, it fit.
"I chuckled to myself and put it on. 'Am I planting seeds? I don't know. I can't guarantee to anybody that that match is going to happen.'"
That match didn't happen - but the promo continues to be discussed to this day. The sneaky but not-so-subversive shirt certainly helped.