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Steiner was looked at as a future main event star in his early years and Sports Illustrated even once did an article on him that tabbed him to have a successful Bruno Sammartino like career. He didn’t ever seem right as a face and his true calling meant Scott would have to achieve success as a heel.
He was at his best when he became Big Poppa Pump and joined the nWo. As much flak as the nWo got, they did actually benefit Steiner though. He may have been a star before that as a tag team with Rick, but Scott’s heel turn and joining the nWo finally set him on the path to achieve singles gold in WCW. He went on to become one of WCW’s most over monster heels.
But for some reason, Steiner never achieved much singles gold despite being a solid character. He finally won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship Belt in 2000 but that would prove to be his only main event championship belt reign as it was overshadowed by the turmoil of WCW letting the inmates run the asylum, and personal problems with Ric Flair, DDP and Kimberly before spending the rest of his wrestling career as a washout who bounced around the WWE, TNA and the Independent Circuit based on his bad backstage reputation.
If anything, could it be that Steiner threw away his monster talents to waste of his own doing because he badmouthed legends like Flair, HHH, HBK, Vince, Stephanie and now Hogan and Bischoff over him being held down from reaching his full potential? And his defiant non-conformist rotten backstage attitude may very well be a reason for his acrimonious relationships with more than half his peers.
What are your thoughts as to why Steiner was originally intended to be a future building block for the NWA but failed to live up to the expectations that Sports Illustrated envisioned for him? A Bruno Sammartino type career was not in the cards since Steiner can’t connect with audiences as a face. He had to be strictly a heel to achieve most of his singles success.
