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Big Poppa Pump, doing TV Tropes an egg.
"To all my freaks out there, Big Poppa Pump is your hook up! Holla if ya hear me!"

Scott Carl Rechsteiner (born July 29, 1962), more popularly known as Scott SteinerAKA is an American professional wrestler maybe best known for his distinctive mail coif and multicolored beard, his obscenely muscled figure and his tendency to go overboard when presented with a mic.

He works either alone or as one half of The Steiner Brothers, a tag team with his real brother, Rick. After starting in Dick the Bruiser's World Wrestling Association in Indianapolis in 1986, he went on to work in Jerry Lawler's Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis before joining his brother Rick in late Spring-early summer 1989 in WCW. They stayed until around the end of 1992 and debuted in WWE at the start of 1993. They left in 1994 and went to their other home in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. They also made some appearances in ECW in 1995 before returning to WCW in early 1996, staying all the way to the bitter end. Aside from international tours, they largely went their separate ways after that. Scott returned to WWE at Survivor Series 2002, had a notoriously bad match with Triple H at the 2003 Royal Rumble, and stuck around until 2004. Scott has had a few runs in TNA since 2006, either on his own or teaming with Rick, along with various independent and Japanese appearances. Among his in-ring achievements, he is a former WCW World Heavyweight Champion, a former 2x WCW United States Heavyweight Champion, a former 2x WCW World Television Champion, a former 6x WCW World Tag Team Champion, a former WCW United States Tag Team Champion, a former 2x WWE World Tag Team Champion, a former 2x New Japan Pro Wrestling IWGP Tag Team Champion and a former TNA World Tag Team Champion. Unlike the other tag team titles mentioned here, he held that last one with Booker T.

In 2022, he and his brother Rick were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a group.


"TO ALL MY FREAKS OUT THERE, BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP! HOLLA IF YOU READ MY TROPES!":

  • The Ace: In his late 80's/early 90's NJPW/WCW days, Scott was agile enough to do the Frankensteiner and powerful enough to all kinds of brutal looking suplexes. He and his brother were solid examples of a technical tag team.
  • Angrish: The only difference between him and The Iron Sheik is that Steiner uses words normal humans can sorta understand.
  • Arch-Enemy:
  • Artistic License – History: No Scott, Pearl Harbor did not bomb the Germans (unless he was intentionally doing a Shout-Out to Animal House).
  • Ascended Meme: Steiner's appearance in NWA Power was basically built on acknowledging two things about him: That he used to wrestle in the NWA during the time period that served as an inspiration for Power, and that he does insanely crazy promos. During his first promo, he even acknowledged that, yes, he does indeed hate FAAAT ASSES!!!
  • Ax-Crazy: Between his rambling, incoherent, screaming promos; his tendency to violently attack guys anywhere, usually with weapons; and his outright pornographic language to any woman within the vicinity? His character has been this since the late 90's.
  • Badass Boast:
    • "There's nothing finer than Scott Steiner." [offers to let fangirl touch his pecs]
    • "My muscles have muscles!"
    • He also once referred to himself as "genetic perfection" and Freakzilla.
  • Bash Brothers: Literally, with Rick.
  • Becoming the Mask: Inverted. The fairly normal personality he presented from his debut in 1986 until his heel turn at WCW SuperBrawl VIII in February 1998 was the mask. When Diamond Dallas Page had his section on WCW's website, he said that the "Big Poppa Pump" persona is the real guy coming out.
  • Berserk Button: Pretty much anything can set him off, really. Some standout examples include:
  • Big Damn Heroes: His return to TNA on 1/26/11 had him saving Kurt Angle, Matt Morgan, and Crimson from a nine-on-one Immortal beatdown.
  • Big Little Brother: Nearing the end of their initial run, Scott once boasted that Rick was the older brother but he was the bigger brother.
  • Biting-the-Hand Humor:
    • His WCW commentary is the stuff of legends when it comes to a wrestler attacking their own promotion. Most of it got his ass suspended, though.
      Steiner: Hulk Hogan worrying about his "spot"! Well, he can have his spot! His bald spot! His "limp gimp to the ring" spot! His age spot! His non-athletic spot....!
    • Steiner likes to boast that he has never failed a drug test ever. How did he swing that? "I told them to have Triple H pick me up in a limo, then we could go test together. They never asked again."
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Steiner has a habit of being a loud and very obnoxious. The man has No Indoor Voice and is always Angrish particularly because of his temper. He also really enjoys to fight.
  • Broken Ace: As the years passed he was left looking more and more like a caricature of himself, to the point of barely being able to speak. His return to Impact in 2018 had him wrestling in T-shirts due to not being in peak physical conditioning anymore, including his massive arm muscles being considerably diminished and his chest hollowed out by the growing gap between his pecs ("Steinerism"). He also got tattoos on his chest and arms, probably to help conceal these problems.
  • The Brute: For the nWo during his time in it, for team Eric Bischoff at Survivor Series and for the Main Event Mafia prior to its acquisition of Samoa Joe, or maybe not if you consider Joe more of a sixth column.
  • Call-Back: In one promo he claims to have set up Bully Ray with Abyss's girlfriend, emphasizing she's fat. The following week, he asks if Ray went through with it, and when Ray says no, Steiner admits he can't fault him because she is fat.
    • Another where he briefly reunited with Petey Williams on Impact Wrestling in 2018 is full of references to his math promo and Petey’s interview with Colt Cabana.
  • The Casanova: Often followed by women in WCW, those being Tylene Buck, April Hunter, Kim Kanner, Midajah (his main valet), and Pamela Paulshock.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Attempts to woo women in TNA were played up more for laughs, usually interviewer Lauren Thompson trying to politely downplay his direct advances.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • "BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP! HOLLA IF YOU HEAR ME!"
    • "Alls I care about is my FREAKS and my PEAKS!"
    • Loves to call his opponents "rednecks", "WHITE TRAAAASH", and/or "fat", even when neither term is applicable.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: The only wrestler who was more cuckoo than him was The Iron Sheik.
    "Remember when Pearl Harbor bombed the Germans!"
  • Cooking Duel: Refused to engage in a pose down with Rob Terry.
  • Cool Shades: Started wearing his iconic shades upon turning into "Big Poppa Pump". He even wears them indoors and at night.
  • Crowd Chant: After missing a random drug screening in WCW due to a back injury, the crowd started chanting "Steroids" during his match against Scott Norton.
  • Darker and Edgier: The mid-90s makeover, with emphasis on the "edgier" (to ridiculous levels).
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: He's the only person in wrestling history to make Goldberg submit. He accomplished it by putting Goldberg in the Steiner Recliner and using a pipe instead of his hands to pull up on Goldberg's head. This isn't a bigger deal because the match stipulation was that Steiner could use weapons and Goldberg couldn't.
  • Delusions of Eloquence: HE COMES FROM A HIGHLY EDUCATED UNIVERSITY BUT HE HAS TO DUMB HIMSELF DOWN TO TALK TO THESE WHITE TRASH!!!
  • Dented Iron: His formerly well-shaped pectoral muscles have atrophied in the lower center of his chest, creating a gap which became increasingly large as he got older: the cause is speculated to be nerve damage from one or more traumas he received in that location. This type of injury-induced chest gap, which has also been seen in other wrestlers such as Chris Jericho, Kofi Kingston and The Undertaker, has been nicknamed "Steinerism" after him because his case is so pronounced.
  • The Dreaded: The WCW locker room was terrified of him as he had the skill and credentials to hurt anyone he wanted, also he could be easily provoked so most people like to stay away from him. He's also this to some degree in-Kayfabe as well, with Matt Hardy at Survivor Series 2002 becoming horrified upon hearing his entrance music.
  • Drives Like Crazy: One promo from WCW involving DDP and his ex-wife Kimberly had him in a limo doing a 180 degree sliding turn. He's also this in Real Life, according to Petey Williams. On one occasion that Petey was riding with him, Steiner was barreling down the interstate in the pouring rain at 100 miles per hour, weaving in and out of traffic, and later that night ran a red light to drive the wrong way down a one way road. Billy Gunn calls him the "World's Greatest Driver Ever" with some of his crazy feats being driving at 120mph everywhere; be it on side of the road, the middle, the upper lane and flipping off people being in his way, and drove for 3 days with a seagull stuck to the grill of the car; how it got there? He saw the seagull then swerved across 3 lanes of traffic on the Newfoundland Trans-Canada Highway and when he stuck it he exclaimed "Got him!".
  • Early-Bird Cameo: During his short ECW run he cut some promos that were a lot like a trial run of the stuff he'd use as Big Poppa Pump. Infamously, one of them was Steiner simply bitching aimlessly about all the "effeminate men" in wrestling.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Despite the look lasting for twelve years, many viewers still can't believe the mullet-ed, singlet wearing Scott from the Steiner Brothers tag team is the same as the massive, blond-haired Big Poppa Pump. During a match with Rick against The Road Warriors at Starrcade 89, he's arguably the smallest of the four.
    • Early into his singles heel turn, Scott wore a white singlet, had two undyed black streaks in his goatee, and went by the nicknames "White Thunder", "Superstar", and "Big Daddy Pump" (the first and last of those lasting about one Nitro apiece).
  • Establishing Character Moment: He had a pretty simple one when joining the WWE: "GIMME A FUCKING MIC!"
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Scott turned his hair bleach blond when he betrayed his brother and joined the New World Order, which also signaled him turning into the unhinged "Big Poppa Pump".
  • Expy:
    • His looks as "Big Poppa Pump" are inspired from "Superstar" Billy Graham. He was even given the name "Superstar" Scott Steiner before switching to his famous nickname.
    • He is weirdly similar to the The Iron Sheik. Both are accomplished amateur wrestlers, have signature headgear for their entrances, use the camel clutch as a finisher, are famous for their respective shoots about people in the business, are incredibly strong and have signature facial hair. Both also are known for their creative use of the English language.
  • Five Moves of Doom: Well, more like Two Moves of Doom: The Steiner Recliner and various (fewer as the years go on) suplexes. He originally had a more diverse moveset, but as he took more and more of a toll on his body, he's become unable to perform most of them. Late in his career, he reintroduced the Frankensteiner into his arsenal. Off the top turnbuckle. It's bizarre seeing somebody that size doing a move like that... but it's called the Frankensteiner for a reason.
  • Face–Heel Turn: In WWE, after Stacy Keibler accidentally hit him with a chair, he gradually became a supporter of Test and then of Eric Bischoff.
  • Finishing Move:
    • In the Steiner Bros tag team, the Steiner Bulldog (Rick hit a flying bulldog to an opponent on Scott's shoulders) and the more rarely seen Steiner DDT (Scott hit a flying DDT to an opponent on Rick's shoulders)
    • Originally, although he preferred his tag team finishers with Rick, he had the Steiner Screwdriver (vertical suplex lift into a piledriver), and the Frankensteiner. He also occasionally finished with a moonsault slam - that is, holding his opponent in a front carry, he did a standing moonsault while holding them and landed on them.
      • Although Scott never injured anyone with the Screwdriver, it was a terrifying bump to take. In WCW he watered it down so that he dropped his opponent from vertical suplex position to a front over-the-shoulder carry, and from there to a piledriver. In TNA he started just lifting opponents onto his shoulders, skipping the vertical suplex part, and also started dropping to his knees instead of hips to deliver it.
    • When he first turned on Rick he added the Steiner Recliner, a camel clutch.
    • At the tail end of his second WWE run he added the Steiner Flatliner, which was Kanyon's Flatliner.
  • Foreign Wrestling Heel: To Mexicans while working for La Legion Extranjera in AAA.
  • Freaky Is Cool: In his own words, more or less.
  • Genius Bruiser: Subverted. He constantly claims to have graduated from a "highly educated university", but will usually show himself to be utterly unhinged soon after.
  • Gimmick Matches: Scott Steiner defeated Petey Williams in mail on a pole match in TNA, the winner reserving the right to wear mail as their entrance attire.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: He literally has some really bad anger issues. Literally everything pisses him off to the extreme and often goes into a Unstoppable Rage.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Not that anyone can tell. Basically, the only thing that determines whether he is a heel or a face is who he's going to fight next.
  • Handsome Lech: Steiner is undeniably attractive, and probably has tons of women who lust over him. Nonetheless, his character is disgustingly chauvinistic— during his TNA run in particular, he often terrorizes (that's honestly the best way to describe it) backstage interviewer Lauren Thompson with horribly inappropriate sexual advances while she's just trying to do her job. Her body language around Scott shows that she's usually either scared, repulsed, or both.
  • The Hedonist: The amount of Steiner promos that see him bringing up sex in some form or fashion has to be upwards of 95%.
  • Heroic RRoD: If he can be called heroic. As stated above, his musculature is so grotesquely big that he can't do any technical moves more complex than a basic belly-to-back suplex anymore and he can barely straighten his arms!
  • Hero Killer: His heel world championship run during the dying days of WCW had him credited for putting Diamond Dallas Page, Sting, Booker T, Sid and Kevin Nash out of action.
  • Hot-Blooded: It doesn't take that much to piss off Big Poppa Pump.
  • I Call Him "Mister Happy": Steiner calls his The Big Dipper, after the constellation of the same name.
  • I Know Karate: Well, he did do collegiate wrestling back in the 1980s when he started. 1998 forward, not so much.
  • Iconic Outfit: The mail headgear and sunglasses can only mean one thing: the Big Bad Booty Daddy is in the house.
  • Incoming Ham: When the siren goes off, you know it's about to go down.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Tried to take credit (in kayfabe) for breaking Sid Vicious' leg (warning: extremely graphic).
  • Jerkass: There's several stories of Steiner bullying almost everybody backstage at WCW, and getting his title shot because everyone was legitimately afraid of him. Considering how many times he's been taken to court, there might be some truth to it.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: According to Lance Storm, Scott Steiner's shoot rants near the end of WCW actually might hold some truth to them, or at least the ones on Ric Flair, as Lance refers to a disastrous early 90's PPV matchnote  between Flair and Scott (that was apparently the testing grounds for a solo Scott push, years before Big Poppa Pump) that killed Scott's momentum dead, so Scott felt that Flair sabotaged his first big push, hence the rants.
  • Jerk Jock: Both in kayfabe and in Real Life. Basically, you have to show him you won't be bullied around or he'll tear you to pieces. According to Petey Williams on Colt Cabana's podcast, if you stand up to him, he'll back down and actually turn out to be a (reasonably) nice guy.
  • Kavorka Man: That obnoxious, loudmouth bully with the ridiculous physique seemingly has "freaks" in every town. During Test's Domestic Abuser angle, Stacy Keibler had turned to Scott Steiner for protection, but Big Poppa Pump had another way of looking at it.
    Scott: She's with a real man now! A genetic freak!
  • Large Ham: The man pretty much constantly chews the scenery constantly.
  • Lightning Bruiser: In his prime. He could do Frankensteiners with his opponents running at him, pick up guys across his chest and do a moonsault while holding them (Fallaway moonsault slam) and once did a 450 splash.
  • Logic Bomb: Okay, so he has a reputation for being more than a little unhinged in his promos. But since he comes from "a highly educated university," when he addresses the crowd, he has to dumb himself down.
  • Malaproper: It might take awhile to get what Scott Steiner says sometimes, as he sometime pronounces words non standardly or substitutes something else in their place. Example: the infamous WCW promo where he tells Mean Gene he's going to get even with Goldberg for "fractioning" his face.
  • Mad Mathematician: Scott Steiner, Ph.D., educates "Señor Joe" on how he has a 141 2/3% chance of losing to him at TNA Sacrifice '08. The numbers don't lie. Note that all of those numbers, while still nonsensical, were formed from technically correct equations. It also should be said Samoa Joe did, in fact, win that match. Those are the kinds of odds John Cena is known for overcoming! It should also be noted that the numbers were calculated with Kurt Angle as the third man in the 3-way match. At TNA Sacrifice 2008, he had to drop out of the match due to injury and was replaced by Frankie Kazarian, so Steiner's 141 2/3% chance of winning was void, since Kaz didn't know if he could beat Steiner, but he was certainly going to try.
  • Mind Screw: In the abovementioned Fall Brawl promo on Goldberg, he also managed to bring up astrological physics and quantum theories as a metaphor about how much his "freaks" lust over him. Explaining it in mere words would just not do it justice.
  • Mistaken Nationality: When he and Eli Drake challenged LAX for the Impact World Tag Team Championship, Steiner took time to criticize President's Trump's efforts to keep Mexicans out of the US, questioning who would cut the grass, as he was about to make Konnan do. While Konnan's most famous and successful work has been done in Mexico, the man is a Cuban, and a US citizen who served in the armed forces.
  • No Indoor Voice: From his Big Poppa Pump gimmick onwards. To say he NEVER talks without screaming while in character, mic in hand or not, might be no exaggeration.
  • No-Sell: He's no sold being sprayed in the face with mace (yet was put down by a chair shot from Stacy Keibler. Consistency, what's that?).
  • Oh, Crap!: Often elicits this response when he grabs a microphone.
    Steiner: GIMME A FUCKIN' MIC!
    Jerry Lawler: [on commentary] Uh-oh!
  • Pec Flex: As seen in the above image, and he flexes everything else for that matter, especially biceps.
  • Pipe Pain: Is fond of use a lead pipe.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: Aside from his obvious misogyny, he occasionally shows a homophobic streak (such as calling Roddy Piper a "skirt-wearing queer!") and often insulted Canada during his feud with Petey Williams. Then again, Scott hated and insulted everybody and everything equally.
  • The Pornomancer: Scott definitely considers himself this, and to be honest, it might not be too surprising if it were true. Just look at him.
  • Power Stable:
    • (in WCW): the nWo
    • (in WCW): the New Blood (originally led by Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff with Jeff Jarrett as the centerpiece before the group fell apart)
    • (in WCW): the Magnificent Seven (w/Ric Flair leading the Steiners, Totally Buff [Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell], Jarrett and Road Warrior Animal) in the final dying months of WCW.)
    • (in TNA): The Main Event Mafianote 
    • (in TNA): Immortal
  • Precision F-Strike
    • His first words upon debuting in WWE at the 2002 Survivor Series: "Gimme a fuckin' mic!" Also counts as an Atomic F-Bomb, as this shout came through loud and clear even though Scott (obviously) didn't have a handheld mic.
      Jerry Lawler: Uh-oh!
    • Has had a tendency from his early days to yell a loud "FUCK!" and being heard without the need of a mic.
    • During a German WCW event: "I could shave my ass and walk backwards and look better than the women, or what you call women, here in Germany, so FUCK YOU!"
    • During his Starrcade 2000 match against Sid Vicious, he angrily yells "Fuck you!" at someone in the crowd. Surprisingly, this hasn't been censored on the WWE Network.
  • Ring Oldies: Still had an impressive physique and wrestled at fifty.
  • Self-Deprecation: Surprisingly, Scott has a sense of humor about some of his more incoherent moments, and has been known to reference them in later promos.
  • Sex God: Constantly brings up his ability to make women reach "the mountaintop," or "find Nirvana." Also, size does matter, bitch, and there's nothing finer than Scott Steiner.
  • Shout-Out:
    • His Steiner Recliner finisher as a camel clutch variation is possibly one to one of his trainers Ed Farhat, who popularized the camel clutch as The Sheik.
    • It has been noted that his famous "Remember when Pearl Harbor bombed the Germans!" quote could be one to Animal House, as Bluto says something similar in the film. Then again, given that this is Scott Steiner we're talking about, it's hard to tell.
  • Signature Move: Besides the Frankensteiner he popularized, Scott Steiner is also known for kissing his bicep before landing an elbow drop, then doing pushups after faking a pinfall attempt that succeeded his elbow drop and for doing near endless belly to belly suplexes. His knife edged chops also get an especially loud "woo" on account of his arm size.
  • Sock Puppet: Said that if TNA wrestlers refused to start a Twitter account, TNA would start a Twitter for them. So he used his own Twitter account to stop people from "making" him tweet what he wanted.
  • Spinning Piledriver: One of his old finishers, the Steiner Screw Driver.
  • Squash Match: Squashed multiple people in Juggalo Championship Wrestling, naturally. Got to team up with Big Van Vader at Bloodymania 6.
  • Stalker with a Crush: In TNA Scott Steiner was to Kristal Marshall, wife of Bobby Lashley. (sound familiar?) It started with Steiner harassing her while she was an audience member and escalated to attempted kidnapping.
  • Tag Team:
    • with Rick, of course.
    • In Memphis, he and Del Wilkesnote  teamed under masks as the Wrestling Machines.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "SIZE DOES MATTER, BITCH!!"
  • This Song Goes Out to TV Tropes: "TO ALL MY FREAKS OUT THERE, BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP! HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME!"
  • Ultimate Job Security: In Real Life. As detailed in The Death of WCW, by the late 90's Steiner was an unstable, rage-fueled crazy person who: got legitimately arrested multiple times, was almost certainly abusing steroids, ran down the company and his coworkers in unscripted promos on Nitro, threatened executives and came close to blinding Diamond Dallas Page in a backstage shoot. As one of the last few remaining proven draws the company had during its dying years, he continued to be pushed as a main event star, and was often punished by short "suspensions" with pay, effectively receiving a paid vacation every time his behaviour became really bad.
  • The Unintelligible: Steiner has a tendency to do this in promos. In fact, this, combined with No Indoor Voice, has made him pretty much a walking meme.
  • The Worf Effect: After he and Rob Terry failed to take the Branded Outlaw title from Jax Dane in a triple threat match, Steiner challenged Dane for the Lonestar Heavyweight title belt in NWA Houston and was dominated, making it all the more impressive for Byron Wilcott when he took the belt from Dane. Steiner didn't actually lose the one on one match though, with the match ending in a no contest which saw Steiner and Dane team up to fend off David Duperon, James Claxton and Jasper Davis.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Has been fined and taken to court many times due to instances of assault. He basically flies off the handle for everything these days. Ironically, it led to the biggest push of his career at the tail end of WCW.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: While definitely no kid in the truest sense during his WWF run as one-half of the Steiner Brothers, he wasn't the type to scream or yell. He was fairly young at 29-30, still wore his dark hair in a mullet, and presented himself as a soft-spoken, All-American former college wrestling standout, letting his brother Rick do most of the shouting. Fast forward five years later in WCW, and he's fresh off a heel turn, with short blonde hair, a chainmail coif, and a newfound fluency in Angrish.
  • Verbal Tic
    • "HUH? HUH? HUH?"
    • Also has a real habit of dropping f-bombs all over the place during a match.
    • In any of his shoot interviews, he has a tendency to say "You know?" a lot.
  • Worked Shoot
    • What most of his promos invariably turn into. Don't give the man that mic.
    • Same thing goes for his long recent tirades on his Twitter page, where he chews out Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff and pretty mutch all of TNA.
  • Workout Fanservice: He released a workout video in 2009. And it is every bit as Steiner-y as you imagine. "It's a Redwood, baby!"
    WrestleCrap: Next, Scotty eschews lame standard workout equipment for something a bit more manly. “I didn’t like that car!” he explains. I’ve had a lot of cars I didn’t like in the past, but I never ripped the axle off them. You know why? Because I'M NOT SCOTT STEINER.
  • Wrestling Family: As mentioned above, Rick Steiner is his real brother, while his nephew Bronson (Rick's son) wrestles in WWE under the ring name Bron Breakker (previously as Rex Steiner).
  • Would Hit a Girl: Took down Victoria on an episode of Raw.

"I'M HUNGRY!"

 
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