8 Terrible WWE Attires One Tweak Away From Excellence
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin
When: Monday Night Raw, 29 July 1996
One Tweak: Keep it simple(r), Stone Cold.
Steve Austin was sort of kind of maybe a bit getting a push in 1996 after his King Of The Ring victory saw him cut an instantly iconic promo that was... not actually that capitalised upon until much later in the year.
Despite every profile or documentary you've ever seen on the subject, 'The Rattlesnake' was not strapped and destined for the moon despite the Austin 3:16 promo and subsequent glut of signs that appeared in arenas after the fact. Vince McMahon knew he had something in Austin but that something was for the most part just a gifted midcard heel rather than a transcendent paradigm-shifting babyface.
To this end, Austin experimented with his look (for one of the only times) just to add what he assumed would be a bit of extra flavour. A hulking great "Stone Cold" logo on his a*se wasn't as intimidating or as in-character as the plain black trunks and boots, but, like McMahon and the company at large, he'd get there eventually.