Marc Mero Comments on His Role in Helping Give Birth to the Austin 3:16 Era

– During a recent interview with Fightful Overbooked’s Jeremy Lambert and SP3 on In The Weeds, former WCW and WWE wrestler Marc Mero spoke about his match with Steve Austin at WWE King of the Ring 1996. Austin beat Mero in their tournament matchup at the event. As the story goes, Austin needed to get stitches after the match after Mero kicked him in the face.

This later led to Jake Roberts cutting a promo on Austin, giving way to Austin cutting his iconic “Austin 3:16” promo after winning the tournament, shifting the course of WWE and the Monday Night Wars. Below are some highlights from Fightful:

Marc Mero on if there was any heat for causing Austin to get stitches: “Not at all. In fact, he credits me with coming up with 3:16 only because of the fact that I kicked him in the mouth, he had to get 14 stitches. Because it delayed (the match), Jake was able to do a promo on him and that’s where it all started. If I didn’t kick him in the mouth, he wouldn’t have had time to come up with that and say it.”

On how that’s the story Austin told him: “That’s what he told me. I’m going by what Steve told me, not making something up. I loved working with him. He was a machine in the likes of Kurt Angle. He could go non-stop. I always enjoyed working with him. I was in pretty good shape with cardio, but working with Steve and learning so much from him and Triple H, guys that were great ring generals in calling the match as the heel, but also having to change on the fly if things don’t work out how you hope or the crowd is not reacting a certain way. Those guys know how to change things up and make it exciting for the audience.”