• Old School WWF Legend Celebrates His Birthday
Old School WWF Legend “Stone Cold” Steve Austin (Real name: Steven James Williams) celebrates his 55th birthday today.
He joined Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling in 1991 as “Stunning” Steve Austin and stayed with the promotion till he was fired by WCW president Eric Bischoff in 1995.
After a short stint in Paul Heyman’s Extreme championship Wrestling, Austin joined the World Wrestling Federation in late 1995 as ‘The Ringmaster’, managed by WWF Legend “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase and given the Million Dollar Championship.
He soon became known as “Stone Cold” and DiBiase left for WCW, which gave Austin a chance to talk and do promos himself, which leveled the way to the famous “Austin 3:16” promo during the coronation ceremony, after he won the King of the Ring 1996 tournament.
A Legend was born and Austin went on the have legendary battles with Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Shawn Michaels and many others, winning the WWF World Title in the process, but nothing made him more famous than the legendary feud against the evil heel promoter Mr. McMahon, which arguably played a major part in the WWF winning back the weekly TV-Rating war with WCW, after losing for 83 weeks in a row.
While the official numbers show without a shadow of a doubt, that Hulk Hogan was the single greatest long-term draw in professional wrestling history, Steve Austin was clearly by far the biggest short-term draw (most drawing power in just a couple of years) of all time.
In 2009, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by his long-time rival, WWF/E promoter Vince McMahon.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STONE COLD!
• 2 Returns Being Planned For Royal Rumble 2020, Update On Lars Sullivan’s Return
According to Fightful, Nia Jax and Ruby Riott are almost done recovering from their injuries and are expected to make their return to WWE programming at Royal Rumble 2020 in the Women’s Royal Rumble match:
“Nia Jax is back at the WWE Performance Center preparing and training for a return. WWE’s internal list has her as 1/2020. Ruby Riott internally was listed as the same date.”
Speaking of retuning from injuries, it looks like Lars Sullivan is going to miss about half of 2020 as well:
“Despite Lars Sullivan being seen training, he’s nowhere near a return, we’re told. Internally, he’s been listed as June 2020 as a return date. We’ve also heard that his recovery was going slower than originally expected, as of a few months ago.”
WATCH: WWF Diva Sunny Shows Off Her Bare Buns:
