10 Things You Didn't Know About The Steiner Brothers
The tag team success of Scott and Rick Steiner saw the real-life brothers having a legendary legacy together. Fans witnessed the Steiner Brothers having stints in WCW, WWE, ECW, TNA, New Japan and even other promotions. Scott eventually had more singles success winning the WCW Championship, but their legacies remain linked together.
RELATED: The 10 Best Tag Team Matches Of The Steiner Brothers
Quite a few interesting tidbits have come out about the tag team since wrestlers have become more vocal about sharing stories from the past. There was more than meets the eye to Rick and Scott beyond just having great matches and controversial personalities. The following things about the Steiner Brothers will provide a deeper insight at their careers.
10 Rick Started First As Singles Wrestler
The Steiner Brothers are linked together so closely that everyone assumes they broke out as a tag team together. Rick actually started off first as a singles star who trained and became a pro wrestler before his younger brother.
RELATED: 5 Reasons Scott Was The Best Steiner Brother (& 5 Reasons It Was Rick)
Scott would start appearing ringside for Rick’s singles matches before they started their run as a team together. The tremendous run of the Steiner Brothers got them over together, but Rick laid that foundation on his own.
9 Road Warrior Animal Replaced Scott Teaming With Rick In TNA
The short reunion in TNA is often forgotten when looking back at the careers of the Steiner Brothers. TNA tried to book a dream match of Team 3D aka the Dudley Boyz vs the Steiner Brothers since three of the four wrestlers were signed to contracts.
Rick agreed to come back for a short program, but it was Scott who ended up missing the match. A severe injury to Scott in Puerto Rico saw TNA booking Road Warrior Animal as his replacement. The duo of Animal and Rick saw two halves of all-time great teams uniting to make up for Scott’s absence.
8 Other Wrestlers Were Terrified Of Them
The older eras of wrestling saw a lot of pranks and hazing reach cruel levels. Rick and Scott Steiner became known as the wrestlers you wanted to avoid running into in the wrong context. The pranks of the Steiner Brothers saw them drawing offensive things on the faces of wrestlers when falling asleep.
However, they also grew violent in the wrong instances when others dare tested them backstage. Arn Anderson is considered one of the toughest men in wrestling history, but he even admitted that he never wanted to get on the wrong side of Rick and Scott.
7 Teamed With Taz & Eddie Guerrero In ECW
An overlooked chapter of the Steiner Brothers’ career saw them having a short stint in ECW. Paul Heyman booked Rick and Scott Steiner during their short time in between leaving WWE and returning to WCW.
The ECW tenure featured them having a few unlikely partners. Eddie Guerrero and the Steiners teamed up in a six-man tag against fellow enemies. Another fun partnership saw Taz aligning with the Steiner Brothers, while Scott cut promos running down Shawn Michaels out of the blue.
6 Scott Steiner Vacated WCW Title When They Jumped Ship To WWE
WCW experimented with pushing both Rick and Scott Steiner in the singles roles in the early ‘90s portion of their careers. Scott won the WCW TV Championship as the company wanted him to have faith in his long-term future.
However, both Rick and Scott grew frustrated enough to leave WCW when their contracts expired. Scott did not care at all about his title reign and left before dropping it to join WWE with his brother. WCW vacated the TV Championship in embarrassing fashion of their champ heading for WWE.
5 Never Felt Happy In WWE
Bruce Prichard confirmed rumors that Rick and Scott Steiner didn’t enjoy their WWE stint as the top face tag team. Vince McMahon did book the Steiner Brothers to win the WWE Tag Team Championship twice as a dominant duo.
However, they rarely got to show elements of their personalities and was booked with less importance. WWE didn’t value their tag division as much as WCW did, and it led to the Steiner Brothers being unhappy in the biggest promotion.
4 Bill Watts Got Mad At Rick For Saving Lives In Fire
Former booker “Cowboy” Bill Watts has a polarizing reputation among the wrestlers to work for him. Watts had an old school mindset and would get upset at wrestlers for breaking character outside of the ring.
This reached absurd levels when Rick Steiner was criticized for saving lives on his off time. Rick witnessed a car fire on the road and saved a couple of people on the spot. Jim Ross confirmed on his podcast that Watts yelled at Rick for doing something heroic while playing a heel character on television.
3 Had 1991 Wrestling Observer Match Of The Year
The popularity of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter has seen wrestlers giving more public attention to his awards in recent years. Rick and Scott Steiner won the best match of the year award in 1991 for a great match against Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki.
WCW and New Japan running a super show together saw the Steiner Brothers thriving against the fellow-hard hitting team. The match of the year is usually a singles match, but all four wrestlers pulled off a tremendous match together.
2 Both WWE Tag Team Championship Wins Came At House Shows
The WWE tenure of the Steiner Brothers featured huge success, but there were some questionable booking decisions. Both instances of Rick and Scott winning the WWE Tag Team Championship came on non-televised house shows.
The Steiner Brothers defeated the Money Inc. team of Ted DiBiase and I.R.S. on a house show before losing it back to them. Rick and Scott won it back on another house show with all three title changes taking place within a few before their lengthy second reign.
1 Got Mad At Announcers For Referring To Frankensteiner As Hurricanrana
The Steiner Brothers struck fear into other wrestlers and employees backstage in various ways. Mike Tenay and other announcers witnessed this when they used the name hurricanrana over Frankensteiner for the top rope move.
Both Rick and Scott felt that Scott coming up with the Frankensteiner name first for WCW should have had it continue. Tenay used the hurricanrana name for the luchadors since that was the name of the move in Mexico. The fear for the Steiner Brothers saw the announcers making the Frankensteiner the more common name in WCW moving forward.
