10 Cringey Scott Steiner Moments We Completely Forgot About

Scott Steiner is one of the most provocative personalities in wrestling history. After relatively quietly plying his trade as half of a tag team with his brother for years, he broke out with physical transformation, heel turn, and perhaps most notably of all an explosion in how he carried himself and conducted promos. While these shifts cemented him as a main event player, particularly in WCW, they also produced their share of moments that haven’t aged so well, or didn’t land correctly at the time either.

Related: Scott Steiner’s 5 Best WCW Rivals (And 5 Worst)

From real life choices, to wild creative, the nebulous space between in which he chose his words in interesting fashion, Steiner has more than once made wrestling fans cringe.

10 Scott Steiner Confronted Hulk Hogan’s Wife At An Airport

While most of Scott Steiner’s worst moments came in character, one of his most uncomfortable choices came in real life. Shortly before WrestleMania 31, he confronted Hulk Hogan’s wife. There were allegedly threats slung that led to Steiner being banned from the Hall of Fame induction ceremony at The Hulkster’s request. For his part, Steiner acknowledged the confrontation happened, but that he criticized Hogan inducting Randy Savage, and didn’t cross any lines. He cited, as evidence, that no police report was filed, and claimed Hogan was just scared of him.

9 Scott Steiner Kidnapped Goldberg’s Girlfriend

Particularly in the late stages of WCW, top stars weren’t above behavior that would get them arrested, but Scott Steiner took things to an extreme. In the heat of his issue with Goldberg, he kayfabe kidnapped his girlfriend, in a move that clearly crossed the line from heelish antics to objectively illegal behavior that went too far for a wrestling storyline.

8 Scott Steiner Turned On Stacy Keibler

As Scott Steiner slid down the WWE card in 2003, he found himself positioned to play Stacy Keibler’s white knight against bullying boyfriend Test. After Steiner lost a match to enter Test’s servitude, he didn’t play the conflicted or downtrodden ally to Keibler.

Related: 10 Things Fans Forget About Scott Steiner's WWE Run

Instead, Big Poppa Pump leaned into heeldom, becoming as much a domineering jerk to her as Test had already been toward Keibler, with no clear storyline explanation.

7 Scott Steiner Sicced His Dogs On Sting

The Steiner Brothers found themselves in league as heels in late stage WCW. I’m feuding with Sting, they didn’t settle for badmouthing him on the mic or beating him down by conventional means, but rather sicced their Doberman Pinschers and then a large Rottweiler on him for an over-the-top scene. The moment was excessively brutal in concept, but borderline comedic in its execution.

6 Scott Steiner Brought Issues With DDP And Kimberly Public In A Promo

An ugly scene arrived behind the scenes when Kimberly Page accused Tammy Sytch of bringing illegal substances found backstage. Steiner took up for the former-Sunny against Page and her real life husband Diamond Dallas Page. Big Poppa Pump verbally went after Kimberly, purportedly chasing her out of the arena, then took the issue more public, addressing DDP and his wife with shoot comments in a televised promo. That’s where Steiner crossed the line, using his access to a live mic and large audience to escalate things inappropriately, leading to an altercation between him and Page in the locker room afterward, a forgotten moment from DDP's WCW career that he'd probably rather leave out of the public memory.

5 Scott Steiner Facilitated Buff Bagwell’s Deception

Buff Bagwell seemed to turn a corner, both as a performer and as a character, if he suffered a legitimate neck injury off a botched bulldog by Rick Steiner. WCW seemed to understand fans would instinctively get behind the inspirational story of someone coming back from getting hurt that way, and planted seeds with his nWo allies badmouthing him while he was down. The moment was ripe for Bagwell to come back a babyface and finally break the glass ceiling to move up the card. Instead, he set up Rick Steiner for an attack by Scott and other nWo members. The moment was utterly disappointing, in poor taste, and counterproductive in immediately returning Bagwell to his mid-card heel role. Big Poppa Pump’s part in the terrible segment can’t go unnoticed.

4 A Gassed Scott Steiner Attempted His Double Underhook Powerbomb Against Triple H

Scott Steiner was a work horse who combined remarkable strength and athleticism during his days teaming with his brother, and would eventually return to that form for parts of his Impact Wrestling run. When he showed up in WWE in 2003 to challenge Triple H, though, he was far from his best self. WWE made the mistake of booking the duo in a lengthy encounter for the Royal Rumble PPV, and by the late stages it was painfully obvious Steiner had run out of gas. The worst moment of the match came when he attempted his signature double underhook powerbomb and simply didn’t have the strength left in him to properly execute the move, botching it instead. It was a low light amidst one of WWE's worst world title feuds.

3 Scott Steiner Tore Apart A Straightjacket

Straightjacket Matches became one of the oddball gimmick matches of late-stage WCW, with the premise that the winner locked the loser in the eponymous restraint, after which he could punish him as much as he liked, the loser defenseless. One of the highest profile instances of this match transpired inside Caged Heat (WCW’s answer to Hell in a Cell). Steiner undermined the gimmick by simply busting out of the straightjacket once it was on him. While the moment may have sold his incredible strength, it also made a mockery out of the straightjacket concept the company had tried to sell as dangerous.

2 Scott Steiner Pretended To Retire

During his 1999 feud with Sid Vicious, Scott Steiner appeared to get hurt and in turn moved to announce his retirement. While there have been some successful fake retirement angles in the past, like Mark Henry drawing massive heat for his emotional speech in his salmon blazer, only to attack John Cena, Steiner’s case fell pretty flat.

Related: Would Scott Steiner Be A Big Wrestling Star Today?

Indeed, whether it was the unlikelihood of Steiner actually retiring at that time, or his limited acting chops, hardly anyone believed it and the entire angle felt both predictable and forced before the outcome everyone saw coming of Big Poppa Pump jumping Vicious.

1 Scott Steiner Debated Chris Nowinski

There is some appeal to the idea of Scott Steiner taking a podium to engage in a debate, if only because his over-the-top promo style lends itself to intensity and comedy (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not). Within the stricter confines of WWE, though, Big Poppa Pump didn’t tend to do his best work, and a debate segment with Chris Nowinski was all but bound for failure. Add in that they weren’t debating a wrestling topic, but rather the real world prospect of the US taking military action in Iraq, and the guys were in way over their heads. Steiner arguing in favor of this war, as the babyface, has aged particularly poorly, and is painful to go back and watch now.