Why did Scott Steiner leave WWE?
Scott Steiner might have broken out as part of a great tag team alongside his real-life brother, Rick, but he soon became an even bigger name in WCW by the time the company closed their doors.
The Steiner Brothers did have a run in WWE from 1992 to 1994 where they picked up the Tag Team Titles on two separate occasions. But WWE officials always saw a bigger place for Scott Steiner as a singles competitor.
Bruce Prichard revealed on his podcast, Something To Wrestle With, that Pat Patterson and himself wanted to make Scott Steiner a surprise entrant in the 1993 Royal Rumble and win the big match. This would have created a much different main event at WrestleMania 9, but it never happened because the Steiner Brothers expressed a desire to remain as a team.
So the Steiner Brothers remained a team until finally breaking up in WCW years later. The two brothers had glimpses of reforming but Scott Steiner soon became the Big Bad Booty Daddy and held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for 120 days in 2000.
Steiner was one of the several wrestlers who didn't make a jump to WWE when WCW was bought out. He decided to wait out his lucrative Time Warner contract at home instead along with so many other top names from WCW.
But when Scott Steiner finally appeared in WWE some say it was a little bit too late to make a real impression on the landscape. If you add in the backstage politics, it really didn't help matters much either.
Steiner's WWE singles run
In 2002, WWE decided to bring Scott Steiner in as he made his debut at Survivor Series by jumping Chris Nowinski and Matt Hardy during a promo. He was a free agent for a while as both Raw and SmackDown wanted Big Poppa Pump on their brand. WWE was really playing up Scott Steiner's importance but that wouldn't last for long.
Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff and SmackDown General Manager Stephanie McMahon wanted Scott Steiner but when Stephanie wouldn't give in to Steiner's romantic advances he chose Raw.
Chasing the title
As soon as Scott Steiner landed on Raw he started chasing Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship. This feud saw Steiner and Triple H going toe-to-toe in several classic pro wrestling bits like an arm wrestling contest, bench press competition, a push-up contest, and a muscular pose down in order to promote Triple H's cover on Muscle And Fitness Magazine.
You know, all of these things are crucial to any successful World Title program, especially if WWE is trying to hide the fact one of the competitors can't really wrestle.
But since Triple H was heavily involved in the Evolution stable at the time, this meant it would be hard for Scott Steiner to gain much momentum on the champion. In fact, Steiner had awful luck in their matches because as they say "the bell had to ring."
When paired against a guy like Triple H, Scott Steiner was totally exposed for his lack of in-ring ability. His persona was there and he was still jacked but he couldn't tangle with a guy like Triple H and come out looking like an equal no matter how hard The Game tried.
The 2003 Royal Rumble featured a WWE World Heavyweight Title match most would love to forget and their match at No Way Out the next month wasn't much better.
Freakzilla was exposed not only for having an injured foot and prone to get tired very quickly into a match, but his wrestling ability just wasn't up to par. If you add in the fact he should have never been a babyface in the first place, you've got the recipe for something not very many people were going to order. If they did order it, they certainly weren't asking for a second helping.
The rest of Steiner's WWE run
WWE tried their best to use Big Poppa Pump during the rest of his time with the company but nothing really panned out as all that successful. After a botched debate against Chris Nowinski concerning the war on terror, it was off to a couple of other lacklustre programs on WWE's mid-card.
WWE paired Scott Steiner with Test and placed Stacy Keibler as their manager. While this combination was something to see, it didn't pan out to be very popular in the end. The team ended up colliding when jealousy sparked in Test who was dating Keibler in real life.
Scott Steiner won the services of Stacy Keibler at Badd Blood but would then lose those same services later on during a rematch on Raw. But unfortunately, not very many people really cared, even with Stacy Keibler involved.
If that wasn't enough, Test and Steiner squared off again at Unforgiven for Keibler's services and Big Poppa Pump said he would become Test's "manservant" if he lost. Steiner lost the match thanks to Keibler's botched assistance and later on, he would turn on Stacy Keibler after an unsuccessful Tag Team Title match against the Dudley Boyz. It was a rather brutal display to see Scott Steiner hit Stacy Keibler with a belly-to-belly suplex but that's what happened.
After this horrible incident Test and Steiner were on the same page and bullied Stacy Keibler for a while in a program that really had no purpose but to upset people. This carried on for a while, but when Test and Steiner wanted Stacy Keibler to join their own Kiss My A** Club, Raw General Manager Mick Foley came out and fired the two on the spot.
Scott Steiner made one more appearance in the 2004 Royal Rumble match but he didn't last very long and was eventually eliminated by Booker T. One injury later, and Scott Steiner was wished the best in his future endeavours.
Steiner's singles run in WWE was marred by many mistakes in booking logic coupled by the fact time might have passed him by. He was working with an injured foot practically the entire time he was with the company during this run and his mic skills were never enough to make up for what he was missing when it came to ring-work.
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