 The following is an epic musical journey through the career of the Texas Rattlesnake, Steve Austin. Steve Austin is one of the biggest badasses to ever step foot inside the squared circle. At his apex, Austin was the most oversuperstar in the history of sports entertainment, but it wasn't always sunshine and Stevewizers for Stone Cold. Along the way, he tweaked his overall character presentation several times, including from a musical standpoint to the tune of multiple theme song changes. However, Austin persevered, vaulting to the top of his profession and along the way transformed himself into a pop culture phenomenon. From stunning Steve to Stone Cold, let's take a look behind the themes. Austin began wrestling under his legal name of Steve Williams in the late 1980s. Under the tutelage of one gentleman Chris Adams and his wrestling school, Austin learned all the technical aspects of the business that would help him to win the coveted Pro Wrestling Illustrated Rookie of the Year Award in 1990. Now going by stunning Steve Austin, after USWA Booker Dirty Dutch Mantel changed Steve's ring name to avoid confusion with another more famous Steve Williams, aka Dr. Death, and Steve began using Running with the Devil as his first entrance theme song. Now little did anyone realize back then that this opening Sonic Boom off Van Halen's self-titled debut album of hard-hitting rock and roll tracks would not only introduce the world to guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen and their over-the-top lead singer slash entertainer Diamond David Lee Roth, but also to one of the most popular wrestling superstars of all time. We all know that Stone Cold is a loud and proud Texas Redneck who loves his beer cold and his steak bloody rare, so wouldn't you think that his theme music of choice would be something a little more twangy with less electric guitar? Well truth be told, as Austin would tell you, if Steve was traveling the territory back in the day, it goes without saying that he'd be picking and grinning to country music legends like George Straight, Meryl Haggard, and Conway Twitty. But Austin could also rock and roll all night and party every day to the likes of KISS, the Motor City Madman Ted Nugent, and Van Freaking Halen. And how can you not get fired up after listening to Eddie's opening riff on Mean Street? Van Halen's groovy rhythm guitar work is on point here, but Austin only walked this stinking street a handful of times before choosing a new theme that was more in step with his stunning character. Steve's first bit of fame came thanks to his teacher versus student conflict with Chris Adams. You see, the gentleman had been one of the top stars in Texas throughout the 1980s and was arguably the most popular wrestler whose last name wasn't Von Erich. Their rivalry soon turned into the craziest and best feud in wrestling, chock-full of sleazy tabloid ridiculousness with catfights, ex-wives, and even some old nude photos. In fact, the national examiner actually wrote a legitimate article about the feud, which was basically like a daytime soap opera. And this funk rock song by Sir David Bowie, co-written by John Lennon, helped Steve display more of a swagger as he walked to the ring with then-girlfriend Jeannie Clark, aka Lady Blossom. The most dangerous pair in wrestling were too cool to fool, and they soon looked to take their talents elsewhere. After a year or so in the Lone Star State, Austin would pack his bags and head to Atlanta GA to join World Championship Wrestling in 1991. Just a few weeks after debuting, Stunning Steve won his first WCW Television Championship by defeating beautiful Bobby Eaton. Everyone could see that Austin was more than capable as an in-ring technician, but his gimmick of being a handsome man who relied on his good looks, flashy robes, and flowing blonde locks was already occupied in WCW. Plus Steve was seemingly void of charisma back then, but that didn't stop management from pushing him as a nature-boyed light in the mid-card. I tell you what though, what's so stunning about Stunning Steve? Well it's this entrance music. Sounding like it's being performed at the grand opening of a Roman chariot race, WCW obviously plucked this track from the Turner Music Library in an attempt to groom Austin to be the next Ric Flair. Sandwiched between the glory years of the Four Horsemen and the invasion of the NWO, Paul E. dangerously conspired a plan that would shake the very foundation of WCW. As a result of being kayfabe-fired, dangerously decided to lash out and began to form one of the most heralded heel-stables of all time. This faction would become known as the Dangerous Alliance, and the group officially debuted as a unit on the November 23rd, 1991 edition of WCW Saturday Night. Consisting of a young, stunning Steve, ravishing Rick Rude, beautiful Bobby Eaton, Arne Anderson, Larry Zabisco, and Medusa, the Alliance became a well-oiled machine and dominated WCW for the better part of a year. Each of these six members was famed for being excellent in the ring, but this theme was the most excellent. Believe it or not, the song was originally used by the dynamic dudes, the horsemen, and AA and Zabisco when they were known as the enforcers, and while the Alliance did come out to other themes during their short run, songs like Fillmore and Frantic, this theme was the bee's knees. Near the one and only person doing the work associated with a documentary type YouTube channel, you spend a lot of time writing and researching until your eyes feel like they're about to pop out of their socket. And one of the common threads that many wrestling historians and fans alike tend to always come back to is the vast mismanagement that WCW was famous for. Take for instance the seemingly thrown together almost at random coupling of Steve Austin and Flyin' Brian Pillman that were then split up less than a year later. The Hollywood Blondes turned an unlikely pairing into a brush with greatness, practically gelling as a team overnight, and one of the reasons they were so over is because of how incredible their entrance theme was. Called Satan's Sister, this jammy jam with its menacing sneer of guitars and repetitive riff throughout was quite the rocking tune for these two as they mugged for the camera. Now WCW recycled the theme a few times during the Nitro years, but this banger will always belong to the Blondes. Speaking of WCW mismanagement, the unceremonious firing of Steve Austin from WCW via a phone call from Eric Bischoff was quite possibly EZE's most epic error, citing reasons that Austin wasn't very marketable, that he was injury prone, and also that he was just someone who was difficult to work with behind the scenes. The silver lining that Steve was able to glean from all of this was an opportunity that former Dangerous Alliance head honcho Paul Heyman gave him in the upstart renegade wrestling promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling. Having a good sense that Austin was pretty pissed off, Paul Lee gave him the platform to vent his frustrations and air his grievances in a series of vignettes that turned out to be the genesis for his stone cold character. However, before being hired by the WWE, Steve underwent another nickname change, becoming Superstar Steve Austin and entering the EC Dub Ring accompanied by this classical piece of symphonic music written by Andrew Lloyd Webber from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Today's Stone Cold Steve Austin is considered by many fans to be the greatest WWE superstar of all time. However, upon his arrival to the E in late 1995, Austin was a talented yet directionless mid-card worker just looking for his big break. Paired up immediately with the million dollar man Ted DiBiase playing the role of his manager, Vincent Company thought that they were doing what was best for business, but in reality they were only weighing Steve down with an unnecessary mouthpiece. On top of that, Austin was given the bland and boring gimmick of the Ringmaster. Although he wasn't a master of ceremonies introducing various circus acts underneath the big top, although that may have been better than being pigeonholed as a prodigy wrestling superstar who knew every move and hold in the book and could wrestle circles around other competitors, having this hall of fame themed song also wasn't a good fit and was quite possibly worse than kissing the bearded lady. After initially seeming as though he would resume his regular status as a solid but respected mid-card performer, Austin was surprisingly slated to finish in the final four of the 1996 Royal Rumble. But thanks to Rikishi Fatou and a lot of excess baby oil, Steve slipped over the top rope and was unable to hang on accidentally eliminating himself from the match. As we've mentioned in videos here before, 1996 was a monumental year for pro wrestling. Razor Ramon and Big Daddy Cool jumped ship over to WCW, the Hulkster turned heel and the NWO made it hip and cool again for closet wrestling fans to re-emerge from the embarrassing early 1990s wrestle crap. Now Austin saw some moderate success but he really despised his gimmick and he'd go on to abandon the Ringmaster name, the Million Dollar Championship, and also the Million Dollar Man, freeing Steve up to become the biggest star in the business. And while this is an unused mix of the Ringmaster theme that was actually used, this particular version never appeared on television, despite being released as part of the WWE Uncaged series. The 1996 King of the Ring pay-per-view is seen by many as the date the Ringmaster transformed into Stone Cold Steve Austin. But the seeds were already being sown a few months prior. By the time of the tournament, Austin had already shaved his head, grown a goatee and had begun using his now inseparable identity moniker. Stone Cold's change of character thankfully didn't go by the way of the laughable WWE creative names of Chili McFreeze and Fang McFrost, but it wasn't until Austin's theme song changed that his new persona was complete. This first go-round for Jim Johnston gave us just a sample beer flight of what Stone Cold's entrance music would become. A much slower and clean sounding tune with heavier bass and a flimsier glass break worked fine for a while. But when Austin's popularity exploded and he became the mother effing, hell-raising, bad-ass Texas rattlesnake, a much more overproduced business is about to pick up anthem became a necessity. One of the most iconic opening sound effects in professional wrestling history is that, oh shit, it's about to get real sound of glass shattering. Meaning that you were about to see someone's ass get kicked and while Stone Cold's hell-frozen-over theme was the save and grace of his WWE career, it morphed into this classic song that WWE fans know and love today. I won't do what you tell me is not only Jim Johnston's greatest contribution to the WWE, but it's also the most recognizable wrestling theme song of all time. It always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy from the top of my head down to my nether regions whenever Austin would do a run-in to dish out some stunners, because it meant we got to hear this song for a few precious moments every time. And what more can we possibly say about a song that still creates goosebumps and makes wrestling fans pop harder than The Undertaker at a Pit Bull concert? Having a theme song that routinely lands in the top five overall wrestling themes of all time list after list after list, one might think that it would be inconceivable that Stone Cold would stop using that song. Well, let me tell you something, brother. That's exactly what happened between September 2000 and July 2001. When Austin used this amped-up banger from the heady metal rock band Disturbed, Glass Shatters was released during the period of time when the WWE was desperately trying to make Austin a believable heel. He'd lay out Lita with a chair, he'd beat up JR, joint forces with Triple H, I mean he'd do anything to generate any sort of heat on him. Now this theme is totally polarizing because you either love it or you loathe it. But a little fun trivia fact for you, David Drehmann, the lead singer of Disturbed hated recording this song. There was an interview a while back where he said that it was just three to four lyrics repeated over and over and that he despises doing that because it wasn't real music. And this is coming from the dude who basically sang over and over again. Now where do I even begin with this? You've heard the saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Well, that's pretty much the bottom line when it comes to Austin's plethora of themes during his reign of terror as the leader of the Alliance. Before Jim Johnston was like the climax blues band because he just couldn't get it right, Stone Cold racked up a mind-boggling, seven theme songs in four months, which has got to be some kind of world record. Dangerous, Alliance leader, Hell on Earth, Paranoid, Bionic Rattlesnake, Venom, Cold Blooded, all were stinkers designed to stop the WWE Universe from going bat shit crazy every time they heard the glass break. But thankfully once the invasion angle finished up and Austin was magically returned to being a face again, he reverted back to his legendary theme song and has not flirted with changing it since. And that's it for this documentary. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I look forward to taking you further behind the themes in future documentaries. Now if you have any suggestions or recommendations for us, please leave a comment down below and don't forget to give this video a massive thumbs up. Go ahead and also share it with a friend who you think might also like it because it really helps our channel grow and reach new people. Also, if you haven't already, please consider subscribing for weekly wrestling theme song content and don't forget to follow us on social media so you get all our latest updates and we'll see you next time wrestling behind the themes.