Shane Douglas claims that Steve Austin’s character is three ECW characters put into one

"Most people don't see this. I saw it immediately. Right after he was in ECW, you see this emergence of this amazing character, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the first time I saw it I was like, 'Wow, he's brilliant,' because that's a mix of the three

…It's clearly the beer, Sandman. It's clearly Taz, the immovable object. And it's clearly The Franchise, the f-bombs and all the rest of it. When you take those three characters and mix them together, what a brilliant move."

- Shane Douglas