Steve Austin shot to superstardom in the late 1990s, saving WWE from bankruptcy, turning it into a billion-dollar entity, and ultimately helping put WCW out of business. He was the most popular star the wrestling industry had ever seen, or has seen since. His contribution to the film industry has been slightly less impressive, mind. Austin's first starring role came in WWE Studios' The Condemned, which was the company's first major flop and lost nearly $16,000,000 at the box office. Austin acknowledged that, for all his success in wrestling, he was still a rookie in the world of film and would have to work his way to the top. Direct-to-video releases The Stranger, Hunt to Kill, and The Package did little to give him a foothold in the industry, but die-hard wrestling completists still made sure to see "Stone Cold" in action.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
