The BEST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2026)
31. 1996 | Austin 3:16 Says
There were two options to consider here.
Hulk Hogan’s heel turn at WCW Bash At The Beach 1996 was shocking, iconic, and had a more immediate and profound impact on the industry. And, despite botching the very name of the “New World Organisation” of wrestling, Hogan’s promo was sensational. The temerity on the guy to say that he was “bored, brother” of WCW: that was inspired. It elicited pure, indignant, rage. You’re bored? You? We’re bored of seeing the same old cartoonish WWF routine!
The ring littered with trash; Gene Okerlund’s palpable disgust; Kevin Nash and Scott Hall selling it like they had unleashed a nuke on the entire company: it was great. One of the single most shocking and transformative nights in the history of the sport.
WWE has retrospectively overstated the impact of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s King Of The Ring 1996 acceptance speech, but it’s impossible to overstate its brilliance.
Austin casually invented his two greatest catchphrases on the spot in a seminal promo powered by a cult leader-level conviction. The disdain for the “WWF superstars”; the contempt for that “piece of crap” Jake Roberts; the scathing way in which he effectively said that you can pray all you want, God can’t save you from Stone Cold: the reason people buy into the idea that he got made there and then is because, watching this promo, it’s impossible that he wasn’t.
The WWF didn’t even print the first Austin 3:16 t-shirt until months and months later, and he worked the dark match slot at the very next PPV - but you can hear the murmur of the crowd on June 23, 1996 when Austin first said the immortal line. Something actually was happening, even then.