Steve Austin

Steven James Anderson formerly Steven James Williams better known by his ring name Stone Cold Steve Austin is an American film and television actor and retired professional wrestler currently signed to WWE Austin wrestled for several wellknown wrestling promotions such as World Championship Wrestling WCW Extreme Championship Wrestling ECW and most famously the World Wrestling Federation WWF which later became World Wrestling Entertainment WWE in 2002 Billed as The Most Popular Superstar in WWE History he gained significant mainstream popularity in the WWF during the midtolate 1990s as Stone Cold Steve Austin a disrespectful beerdrinking antihero who routinely defied his boss Vince McMahon This defiance was often shown by Austin flipping off McMahon and incapacitating him with the Stone Cold Stunner his finishing move McMahon inducted Austin into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 Austin held nineteen championships throughout his professional wrestling career and is recognized by WWE as a sixtime world champion having held the WWF Championship on six occasions and the fifth Triple Crown Champion He was also the winner of the 1996 King of the Ring tournament as well as the 1997 1998 and 2001 Royal Rumbles He was forced to retire from in ring competition in early 2003 due to a series of knee and neck injuries sustained throughout his career Throughout the rest of 2003 and 2004 he was featured as the CoGeneral Manager and Sheriff of Raw Since 2005 he has continued to make occasional appearances In 2011 Steve Austin returned to WWE to host the reality series Tough Enough On August 14 2002 Austin was arrested and charged with domestic abuse He pleaded no contest on November 25 2002 and was given a years probation a 1000 fine and ordered to carry out 80 hours of community service Marshall told Fox News that Austin beat her three times and that the 2002 incident was the result of roid rage She also stated that WWE knew of the abuse working to conceal the bruises on her face and kept her from revealing that Austin hit her as it would cost the company millions of dollars During his early years as a wrestler Austin was a technical wrestler However after his neck injury against Owen Hart in 1997 he changed his style from technical to brawler His most famous finishing move is the Stone Cold Stunner or simply Stunner During his time as The Ringmaster he used the Million Dollar Dream as finisher since it was Ted DiBiases finisher During his time in WCW Austin used the Stun Gun as finisher One of Austins taunts during the Attitude Era was to show the middle finger In August 2001 Austin cut a promo debuting his catchphrase What which is used today by fans when they want to mock wrestlers during promos