Well before "Stone Cold" Steve Austin rose to legendary status in the professional wrestling industry, the WWE creative team had to come up with the perfect ring name for him.

The WWE Hall of Famer went by "Stunning" Steve Austin during his brief tenure in WCW. After signing with Vince McMahon's promotion in 1995, Austin started out with "The Ringmaster" gimmick.

The Ringmaster obviously didn't catch on nor get over with the fans. But this character and ring name certainly wasn't as silly compared to some of the other ideas WWE creative had for Austin.

A&E's Biography: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin premiered on Sunday night. In the documentary, some of the initial ring name ideas for Austin were revealed (h/t Andy Datson of WrestleTalk.com).

These names included Snowman, Fang McFrost, Cruel Luke, Chilly McFreeze, Cool Cat, Ice Dagger and Otto von Ruthless. But perhaps the silliest suggestion of them all? Mr. Freeze.

That's right. The creative team pitched the idea of naming Austin after the popular Batman and DC Comics villain.

"That’s a tricky situation, when you’re fairly new in the company, Mr. McMahon has agreed to give you a character change and you’re given a list from creative," Mick Foley said in the documentary, via Datson. "The fact that I can rattle off more of Stone Cold’s names than the terrible names that I was given, speaks to just how bad they were."

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steve austin

Before the start of the Monday Night Wars with WCW, WWE assigned a plethora of humorous gimmicks to their superstars. This included The Goon (a hockey player), Repo Man (a clear knockoff off the Riddler from the Adam West Batman television series), Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, Doink the Clown and The Mountie.

But WWE eventually settled on The Ringmaster. And in short time, Austin recycled the gimmick and began his run as The Texas Rattlesnake. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Mr. Freeze Wouldn't Have Gone So Well

With all due respect to the WWE Hall of Famer, it's impossible to imagine how a "Mr. Freeze" character would have worked in the wrestling world. How would the fans take a wrestler named after a comic book villain so seriously? Fortunately for Austin, he never had it assigned to him.

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