' What If '

WHAT IF....Steve Austin hadn't been fired from WCW?
by Bauer Mc

Steve Austin. His name conjures up a multitude of memories for almost all wrestling fans. The first time he hit Mr. McMahon with the Stone Cold Stunner. Throwing The Rock off a bridge. Stunning both Brock Lesner and Bill Goldberg at WrestleMania XX, winning the World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Title from Shawn Micheals at WrestleMania XIV and perhaps above them all the image of a bloody Steve Austin screaming in pain while in the Sharpshooter being applied by Bret Hart in their now legendary match at WrestleMania XIII. But those moments almost didn't happen as there almost wasn't a Stone Cold Steve Austin.

He started in World Class Championship Wrestling(WCCW) as a student of Chris Adams. He first wrestled under the name Steve Williams. I can remember EXACTLY where I was when he made his TV debut. I was in Murfreesboro, TN shopping with my grandparents on a Saturday afternoon. I would usually find the tv section of whatever store I was in and see if I could find wrestling. Scary that now I can watch it on a phone I can carry in my pocket. Anyways. We were at Big Lots. I was watching the weekly WCCW program on a local station when they said "...coming up next Steve Williams". As a true wrestling fan I knew that meant only one thing....Steve DR. DEATH Williams. So when they got back from commercial out comes this long blond haired muscular guy calling himself Steve Williams. THAT'S NOT DR. DEATH I remember saying out loud. Little remembered fact(thanks Wikipedia) Austin(replacing Terry Gordy) teamed with Dr. Death at Halloween Havoc in a match to unify the WCW and the National Wrestling Alliance(NWA) World Tag Team Titles. The fought Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windom to a 30 minute time limit draw. But I watched anyway, thinking I would continue to be disappointed. Instead I could see there was a lot of promise and potential and made a note to myself that this guy could turn out to be something one day. Soon after he also started showing up as Steve Austin on Continental Wrestling Association action from Memphis. I became a big fan of his work quickly and was in hopes he would someday make his way to World Championship Wrestling(WCW). I wouldn't have to wait long as he would sign with WCW in 1990.

Austin would work for WCW from 1990 to 1995. He captured gold fairly quickly by winning the WCW World Television Title from "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton. He would feud with the likes of Eaton, Barry Windom and Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat before moving on to reluctantly moving on to tag team action.

Austin would next form the Hollywood Blonds tag team with "Flyin" Brian Pillman. They became a hit quickly and won the WCW World Tag Team Titles in March of 1993 from Steamboat and Shane Douglas. They would have many tremendous matches with Steamboat and Douglas but what really put them on the map as a team was a feud with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. Pillman would get injured and Austin along with substitute tag partner Steve(now William) Regal would lose the tag titles to Anderson and Paul Roma(worst Horseman ever?). Against the pairings wishes they would start a feud upon the return of Pillman. With this now out of the way Austin would make his way back into the WCW singles title scene and win eventually win the WCW United States Heavyweight Title from Dustin Rhodes in 2 straight falls at Starrcade 1993. From here it was to eventually lead to time as WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Then fate stepped in. Just around 2 years from this moment Austin would be making his debut in the World Wrestling Federation(WWF).

Austin held the WCW US Title for almost a year, feuding with many over that time, but his biggest feud over the US Title was with Ricky Steamboat. In August of 1994 Steamboat would win the title and this was the start of the downward spin that lead to Austin being fired. He was suffer several injures during the next year. Those injuries, along with Eric Bischoff thinking Austin wouldn't be marketable, lead to Easy E calling Austin and firing him. This was not a popular move amongst those that had worked with Austin. There was at one time plans in the works for Austin to work a feud with then WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair then some guy named Hulk Hogan joined WCW and that was scrapped. So he went from one of the top young names in the industry to a multiple time champion that was going to feud with Flair and perhaps win the WCW World Title to FIRED. He would soon show up in Extreme Championship Wrestling and use the emotions from his firing to start the birth of what would become the persona of Stone Cold Steve Austin. By mid 1996 Austin was the winner of the King of the Ring and on his way to becoming the biggest name in the history of the industry.

So.....WHAT IF STEVE AUSTIN HADN'T BEEN FIRED BY WCW?

Would he have eventually gotten that singles feud with Flair or perhaps someone else for the WCW World Title?
Would he have been stuck on the mid-card level for several years in then still eventually let go or fired?
Would he have in someway been involved in the new World Order(nWo) storyline?
Would he have been inspired to create the persona of Stone Cold Steve Austin or even have the need to do so?
Would he have stayed in WCW long enough that the if the rest of history stayed as is that the WWF would not only lose the Monday Night Wars but go out of business instead of WCW?
Would he have become the universally known household name that he is today?
Would the Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley and many of those that feuded with Stone Cold become as big a deal as they did without the interaction with him and would they even be major players in the industry?

I say the feud with Flair would have happaned but not as a main event, World Title feud. I would like to think he would have gotten a feud with Hogan for the WCW World Title but history tells us he wouldn't have. I think he would have played some role in the nWo angle but not as a main player in it. I would also say that Uncle Eric would have eventually seen enough in him to not let him go to the WWF but I don't have much faith he would have held.

Easily the biggest impact on history would be that WCW, not the WWE, would have won the Monday Night Wars and that the WWE would now be out of business. Yes, you could say WWE would have eventually figured it all out and swung business back their way. Or perhaps you could say WCW would still have found a way to lose. But I say that without Austin there to feud with Shawn Micheals there would have been no Mike Tyson in the WWF and involved in the main event of Mania XIV. There would have been no one to takes Austins place in the feud with McMahon and there may not have even been a feud by anybody with McMahon. And WWE would have lost the war. Who knows, perhaps both would be out of business right now and TNA would be your only option(God that's a scary thought). I for one look back at this and say that I am very glad things went the way they did for Austin. I wish that WCW was still around and that wrestling was as big a deal as it was during the Monday Night Wars but Austin didn't kill WCW, it was moves like letting guys like Austin go that helped kill WCW and had they not then there are a lot of great wrestling memories that wouldn't have taken place.

That's all for the first WHAT IF....

To all those lifelong wrestling fans out there this is BauerMc saying as long as there is both a future and a past there will always be a what if moment out there, and I'm just the guy to talk about.
SO LONG EVERYBODY!