10 WWE Gimmicks That Started Elsewhere
6. Stone Cold Steve Austin
In 1996, Stone Cold Steve Austin looked at the face of the earth in Planet WWE, decided he hated it, and bludgeoned with a promo so profound that it only took four months of nothing and Bret Hart returning for Vince McMahon to do anything about it.
Flippancy aside (because the company will keep doing that "and the next night, we saw all those Austin 3:16 signs and just had to go with it" bullsh*t long after The Chairman departs this mortal coil), 'The Rattlesnake' had something along those lines in his guts just waiting to be spewed - and he didn't to reach down deep to find them.
Austin borrowed from himself in 1996, taking the vitriolic edge from his ECW promos - themselves laced with biliousness for the manner in which he was let go by WCW months prior. With stored rage against both major organisations - he was none too pleased with the f*cking Ringmaster, to put it lightly - Austin 3:16 didn't just whoop your *ss, but McMahon and Eric Bischoff's too.