The What chant began during Steve Austin's run in WWE in 2001, when he started ending sentences with What as a heel gimmick. Fans quickly copied it and began shouting it back during his promos, then during other wrestlers' speeches for years afterward. It became one of wrestling's most lasting crowd interactions, surviving long after Austin retired from regular competition. Online, the short crowd version is clipped from broadcasts and reused as a reaction sound on streams, edits and soundboards whenever a line needs to sound baffling.