A Legacy to Drink to

In the mid to late ’90s, even if you didn’t watch professional wrestling, you knew who Stone Cold Steve Austin was; sometimes, that’s all you knew. Channeling Generation X’s rebel-ocity and brashness towards rubric and rules, the “rattlesnake” became a pop culture icon and a hero to millions who dreamed of giving their boss a wave hello in the morning with one finger or telling their peers how they really felt about things.

Embodied in the three-disc set “The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin,” the WWE has done a great job making this DVD the definitive collection of one of its brightest stars. Deviating from its traditional method of story telling, it’s a refreshing departure from the “documentary on one disc and two discs of matches” formula the company uses on most of its releases, making it a truly special compilation.

As a result, if you’ve ever found yourself chanting “3:16,” this is a documentary worth owning.

Feeling like your standard WWE documentary at first, this collection spices things up by quickly getting to some of Austin’s early singles matches in WCW against Ricky Steamboat and a handful of other opponents, which Austin introduces as some of the most important of his career. Soon after, a nice transition is made to his memorable tag team run with Brian Pillman, followed up by more discussion on his time with the company and his eventual arrival in ECW.

It is here where the DVD begins to shine, as Austin’s frustration with WCW’s management is made apparent  not only by his new testimony, but some of the best promos ever produced in the history of ECW. Used by ECW chairman Paul Heyman to publicize Eric Bischoff’s tactics of keeping the young talent in WCW down, Austin not only brought an extra level of controversy to the company, it’s arguably here where the seedlings of his future “Stone Cold” character was born.

To see this development unfold is yet another reason to pick this set up.

Unfortunately, discs two and three, in spite of being chock full of content, lack the same amount of charisma and depth. While the match selection isn’t the best (his epic with Scott Hall isn’t included, while a throwaway match from a Smackdown taping between he and Eddy Guerrero, is ), there is no mention as to how Austin decided to use the stunner as his finisher, a move that essentially was just as important as his persona change.

These small missing pieces aside however, this set has virtually every memorable match featuring the quintessential anti-hero and more than enough candid conversation to satisfy any hardcore fan.

Get your Steveweisers ready, this is a compilation to have a drink with.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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