SCSA reminisces on his WWE career...

[Guest bravesfan]

Pretty good read on Steve Austin. Reminisce about the great matches, angles and promos that Austin's mentioned in this interview.

 

Much apologies if this has been posted before.

 

Stone Cold Steve Austin’s career was this close to being finished five years ago. On August 3, 1997, Austin was dropped on his head due to a botched piledriver during his match with Owen Hart at SummerSlam. "Every doctor I went to said to get out of wrestling," Austin said. "I took three months off and came back."

 

For fans of sports entertainment around the world, the fact that Austin didn’t retire is a good thing. Instead, he revolutionized the industry. While his career was already on a roll before SummerSlam ’97 -- the "Austin 3:16" catchphrase was born a year prior at King of the Ring – the "Stone Cold era" officially kicked off at WrestleMania XIV, when Austin won the WWE Championship for the first time.

 

Imagine all the unforgettable matches, promos, vignettes, vehicular assaults and Stone Cold Stunners we would have missed out on if Austin would have called it quits. There are too many to count. But we asked Austin to tell us some of his favorites – whether they happened before, during or after the accident that nearly ended his career.

 

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FAVORITE MATCHES: 

 

Stone Cold vs. Bret Hart

WrestleMania 13; March 23, 1997; Rosemont, Illinois

I was getting hot, but this match put me on the map. "Austin 3:16" and "’Cause Stone Cold Said So" were already going, but this really put me on the map. It was a quality match – match of the year according to some people.

 

 

Stone Cold vs. The Rock

WrestleMania X-Seven; April 1, 2001; Houston, Texas

It was two of the top guys in the business working their asses off. We sold out the Astrodome. It was the biggest house ever until George Strait just busted the record. I’m suspicious of those numbers, because no one is a promotion machine like we are. But the match was just a bad-ass, seesaw, back-and-forth battle. People were going crazy.

 

Stone Cold vs. Chris Benoit

SmackDown!; May 31, 2001; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

It was a match that I needed as a heel. I was having a hard time getting people to hate me. Chris Benoit was over like gangbusters in his hometown. He’s vicious, and he’s very believable; so am I. I just loved the match because I love the way I match up with Chris Benoit. It told a good story. He gave me two back-to-back suplexes. It was awesome. And I feel like it put Chris Benoit on the map in WWE. As awesome as a worker as he is, he needed that type of match on our TV, and that’s what I gave him. And he gave it to me also.

 

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FAVORITE PROMOS

 

The birth of "Austin 3:16" and "’Cause Stone Cold Said So"

King of the Ring; June 23, 1996; Milwaukee, Wisconsin

That was important because that where "Austin 3:16" and "‘Cause Stone Cold Said So" were invented --right there in Milwaukee. It wasn’t so much the two wins, over Marc Mero and Jake "The Snake" Roberts. It’s the fact that I got to cut a promo. During the match with Marc Mero, he kicked me in the lip. I had to go to the hospital and get 14 stitches in my upper lip. I got back to the arena and didn’t know what was going on. Dok Hendrix – Michael Hayes – told me that Jake "The Snake" Roberts had cut a religious promo on me. That spurned me to come up with Austin 3:16. If I never wrestled Jake Roberts, and nobody told me he had made those comments, I would have never in a million years come up with Austin 3:16, because there would have been no reason to.

 

Sit-down interview with Rock and Jim Ross before WrestleMania X-Seven

SmackDown!; March 15, 2001; Anaheim, California

I have a lot of good memories of that interview. It was two huge stars, and there was a lot of tension there. It must have helped as far as selling the Pay-Per-View because that was the No. 1 buyrate in the history of our business.

 

"The Beverly Hillbillies"

RAW; January 21, 2002; Greenville, South Carolina

I came up with the idea for that one, and that was a hilarious promo. I was driving to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to pick up Debra because someone had died. I was sitting there with a lot of idle time on my hands after the Pay-Per-View, and I was thinking, "I didn’t win the PPV." And I wanted to cut a promo to erase the fact in people’s minds that I lost. And when I cut that promo, nobody remembered that I lost. Everybody just remembers the promo. "Beverly Hillbillies" just popped into my head. It wasn’t like a three-hour process, it was like a two-minute deal. I pitched the idea to Vince; I don’t think he really understood it. It was one of those deals where it was either a complete success or a complete flop. It turned out be a complete success.

 

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FAVORITE VIGNETTES:

 

Austin "violates" Mr. McMahon, attacking him in the hospital

RAW; Oct. 5, 1998; East Lansing, Michigan

That’s when Mr. Socko was being introduced. I remember that when Vince was doing his lines, me and (Cactus) Jack (aka Mick Foley) were in the bathroom laughing like crazy, because Jack was going through all the Mr. Socko stuff. We were laughing so hard, they had to keep coming in and telling us to be quiet. But the entire vignette – with Vince being pissed off, Mr. Socko being born, the clown lady with the balloons, and my thing -- was hilarious.

 

Austin attacks Booker T in a supermarket

SmackDown!; Dec. 13, 2001; Bakersfield, California

I needed a little shot right there in my career. It was classic Stone Cold, and Booker being a comedic accomplice. It was just good -- him being a good sport and both of us laughing our asses off and having a good time.

 

Singing to Vince McMahon

SmackDown!; July 12, 2001; Birmingham, Alabama

Of course I can’t sing worth of damn or play the guitar. Kurt Angle and I were both injured at the time, and we needed some entertainment value. I had three broken bones in my back when we came up with that idea. It was just pushing the envelope of my character. Some people said, "You can't do this because it's out of your character." I broke way out of character on that.

 

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FAVORITE VEHICULAR ASSAULTS:

 

The Beer Truck

RAW; March 22, 1999; Albany, New York

That beer truck is tough to beat. You roll into that damn building with a Coors Light truck, blasting everybody with beer. Anytime you get to blast people with a beer truck that’s gonna open eyes. The crowd went crazy when I broke out the hose. Then climbing up on the truck, and doing all the Stone Cold stuff. People were just going haywire, because you don’t get a chance to see that every day.

 

Crushing The Rock’s Lincoln Continental with a Monster Truck

RAW; April 19, 1999; Grand Rapids, Mich.

I was in a holding garage for two minutes, and the fumes from that thing burn. My eyes were watering so badly and I could hardly breathe. I thought I was going to choke to death, then I got the green light to go. I gassed it so hard that all four wheels spun out. The truck was on a carpet, and I gassed it so hard that the carpet shot out from under it. If you’re watching the "Hell Yeah" video, you can see that the cameraman goes flying. He was standing on the carpet; 50 feet worth of carpet shot out from under the guy and he just went flying.

 

Ruining Mr. McMahon’s Corvette with a cement truck

RAW; October 12, 1998; Nassau Coliseum

There aren’t too many times when you get to wreck a Corvette. When I saw that car, I said I would just as soon take it home as destroy it. It was live TV, and I’d never driven a cement truck before, and there was that deal where you had to play with the buttons. I’m learning how to drive it 20 minutes before the show. There are a lot of things that go down on live TV, and that one turned out to be a blast. The glass (on the windows of the Corvette) shattered, so that was cool. It was unlike the time that I destroyed the DX bus (on the April 27, 2000, episode of SmackDown!). I was fatter than a hog because I had been eating enchiladas and drinking beer at home, so everybody was ribbing me. I almost squashed myself. I actually got out of the truck and the driver got in, and he was worse than I was. They had to special-effect it later.

 

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FAVORITE STUNNERS:

 

Shane McMahon; "There’s not one in particular"

When Shane takes those things, he jumps up like a cat on a hot-tin roof. There’s not one in particular, but as a victim, Shane takes a hell of a Stunner. He takes one better than anybody else. He shoots up about six feet in the air. He’s got springs in his legs.

 

Stunning Shawn Michaels to win his first WWE Championship

WrestleMania XIV; March 29, 1998; Boston, Massachusetts

There was a lot of animosity going into that match. Shawn supposedly had a bad back, and I know he wasn’t excited about losing the title. I think the fact that he lost to me was one of the saving graces, so I take my hat off to him. The match wasn’t great; it wasn’t even good, but that Stunner signified the start of the Austin 3:16 era, as Jim Ross said at the end of the match.

 

Hitting The Rock with multiple Stunners to win back the WWE Championship

WrestleMania X-Seven; April 1, 2001; Houston, Texas

Of course, he didn’t stay down for them. I had to clean him up with a chair. But there’s a badass talent right there. A couple of Stunners couldn’t keep the Rock down. But the crowd went crazy for them. He’s just a top guy that I like to work with.

 

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MOST SHOCKING MOMENTS:

 

Austin’s confrontation with Mike Tyson

RAW; Jan. 19, 1998; Fresno, California

Everybody knows who Mike Tyson is. Being at the high end of his career, there was a tremendous crossover appeal when he came to WWE. I’m a big boxing fan and he’s a big wrestling fan, so it was cool. He shoved me, I shoved him and everybody just started shoving everybody. There were 100 bills shooting out of Mike’s pockets. There was just money everywhere. He had a lot of money on him that night. It was just a great crossover. I enjoy watching him fight, so it was great.

 

"Turning his back on the fans"

WrestleMania X-Seven; April 1, 2001; Houston, Texas

It was my idea; I figured I wanted to change the direction. I wanted to shock people, and at WrestleMania, we always do something to shock people. I enjoyed being a heel but I didn’t really have the success that I was used to having. And here I am back as a babyface. But looking back, if I wouldn’t have turned heel, I wouldn’t have come up with "What?" So it all works out in the end.

 

Taking the piledriver from Owen Hart that eventually led to neck surgery

SummerSlam; August 3, 1997; East Rutherford, New Jersey

This is a different kind of shocking. But when I got driven through that mat with that one piledriver, that was pretty much a shock for me. We were having a hell of a match, and we had five or six minutes left and the people wanted to see a Stunner that night. Then I got dropped on my head. I told Earl (Hebner, the referee), "Don’t touch me. I can’t move." I couldn’t move for a minute and a half, and it just scared the hell out of me. Every doctor I went to said to get out of wrestling. I took three months off and came back. That stands out as being pretty scary or shocking to me. In a way, it’s another one of those thing that was instrumental as far as my success goes. Not everybody can come back from that and I did. It further enhanced the character of being the toughest SOB in WWE -- maybe not the toughest in a Street Fight, but just in the sense of coming back, preserving and carrying on. "Nothing can stop this guy." I don’t want to blow my own horn. It was a scary deal. Down the road I ended up having neck surgery, and I came back from that too.

 

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[Guest T®ITEC]

That was an awesome, fun read. I so agree with him on, well, everything.

 

 

 

Also:

 

When Shane takes those things, he jumps up like a cat on a hot-tin roof. There’s not one in particular, but as a victim, Shane takes a hell of a Stunner. He takes one better than anybody else. He shoots up about six feet in the air. He’s got springs in his legs.

 

It's SO DAMN TRUE~!... And hilarious.

[Guest BifEverchad]

"The Beverly Hillbillies"

RAW; January 21, 2002; Greenville, South Carolina

I came up with the idea for that one, and that was a hilarious promo. I was driving to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to pick up Debra because someone had died. I was sitting there with a lot of idle time on my hands after the Pay-Per-View, and I was thinking, "I didn’t win the PPV." And I wanted to cut a promo to erase the fact in people’s minds that I lost. And when I cut that promo, nobody remembered that I lost. Everybody just remembers the promo. "Beverly Hillbillies" just popped into my head. It wasn’t like a three-hour process, it was like a two-minute deal. I pitched the idea to Vince; I don’t think he really understood it. It was one of those deals where it was either a complete success or a complete flop. It turned out be a complete success.

Why can't I remember this off the top of my head?

 

[Guest bravesfan]

From a CRZ Recap...

APPARENTLY NO LONGER BALD VENIS v. MR. PERFECT -

Your hosts are a pair of kings, LARRY KING & JERRY LAWLER. Ring flowerpot LILIAN GARCIA is noticably brightened to see Venis. "Hello, ladies. Tonight, the Big Valbowski makes one lady's dream come true. Because tonight, one lucky lady here in this arena is gonna come into this ring...and remove the Big Valbowski's towel." No shortage of volunteers. "Let's see, how 'bout somebody over here...how 'bout somebody over here? How 'bout over here?" Venis makes various grunting noises. "You - right there. Yeah, you, with the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the uh uh, and the uh uh - you. Come on, little sweet thing. Come on. Help her over the barrier, guys, come on. Come on. Heh heh heh..." Finally, she's in. "Now I don't wanna know your name 'cause I don't want you to get too attached. Come on. Take off the towel. Come on, don't be afraid. Come on, let the Big Valbowski out, let the WORLD see the Big Valbowksi!" Music - towel whipped off - and then Venis gives her the Rude Awakening. Geez, Perfect's almost an afterthought here. I hope he wins.

 

HERE WE GO: Lockup, nope. Let's try again - Perfect grabs a waistlock, reversal, reversal, Venis back elbows out. Drop toehold, floating over, Perfect counters to a waistlock. Ross starts talking about McMahon instead. In the corner - Perfect chop, chop, chop. Snapmares him back in - rolling neck snap! "Now *that's* Perfect!" Kick, right, forearm in the chest - whip is reversed, Venis holds on for his Misawa-like knee, repeat with another whip/hold/Misawa joke, side Russian leg sweep for 2. At this point, it is my duty to inform you that while I drop the name "Misawa" for street cred, I actually have no idea if that actually makes any sense or not - fortunately, I'm ready to take the hit if need be. Venis smashes Perfect's head into the turnbuckle. Cross corner whip is reversed by Perfect, Venis gets up the boot...but runs into a forearm smash. Well, it's too early for either of these guys to, as we say in the business, "lose any heat," so the breaking of glass heralds the arrival of STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN, who swipes a STEEL chair from Lilian, hits the ring and CLOCKS Perfect. (No contest? Call it 2:13 and call LA)

 

He goes to leave, but Venis has a mic. "Hello, Stone Cold! Hold up. Now Mr. Perfect, he got exactly what he deserved...you see, he didn't have the guts to come to you face to face to deliver his message. Now, if the Big Valbowski ever had a problem with Stone Cold...I wouldn't go to your pretty little WIFE to deliver the message, no no no. The Big Valbowski would look you dead square in your eyes, and if he had to, the Big Valbowski would WHOOP YOUR ASS." Austin takes the mic - then opts for KICK WHAM STUNNER instead. While helping Venis out of the ring, he says - wait for it - "What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? You got something to say...What? What what what - you have something to say to me? What? You got something to say to Stone Cold? What? You wanna something to Stone Cold? You got time - you got lots of time! Get your ass outta here! And I look at my watch, that didn't take as long as I thought it would - so I think I got time - to tell you people a little story. Y'all wanna hear a story? If you wanna hear a story, gimme a hell yeah! Well this ain't a story about a man named Jed - you know that poor mountaineer - barely kept his family fed - then one day - he was shootin' at some food - up from the ground came a bubblin' crude - black gold - Texas tea - money - mucho dinero - next thing you know, ol' Jed's a millionaire - ah, the kinfolk said 'hey Jed' - that's what he said, 'What?' - they said, 'hey Jed - move away from there - California - California - you know, the west coast - California's the place you oughta be' - so they loaded up that truck - that bucket o' rust - that pile of junk - that old jalopy - bottom line was, they moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools - movie stars. The Beverly Hillbillies! Well I'm not here to tell you that story." Ross chuckles for our benefit. "I'm here to tell you the story about Stone Cold Steve Austin. Went to the Royal Rumble. I trained hard. I trained real hard. I ate tacos, enchiladas, drank beer, drank whiskey, ate cheeseburgers, drank tequila, ate some more enchilads, I even did a coupla pushups, pullups, situps (okay, I didn't really do the situps), took....two sumbitches got real lucky and threw Stone Cold over the top rope. I was hoodwinked - bamboozled - flabbergasted - eliminated! Stone Cold Steve Austin ain't goin' to WrestleMania to face the champ. That's the bad news. You want the good news? Stone Cold Steve Austin right now, and I know it's a little early - I said it's a little early - but I'm entering myself in next year's Royal Rumble for 2003. And while I'm not goin' to WrestleMania this year to face the champ, the good news is, Stone Cold Steve Austin IS goin' to WrestleMania - to whip somebody's ass, I said whip somebody's ass - brothers and sisters are ya with me? I'm gonna torture somebody - I'm'o bloody somebody - do you understand me - brothers and sisters are ya with me? Stone Cold Steve Austin is goin' to WrestleMania, and I'm'o whip a man's ass - and that's the bottom line - 'cause Stone Cold said so." I think I'm gonna stop transcribing Austin's promos. Two beers, four beers, Austin taunts two different cameramen on his way back up the ramp. Have you ever *wished* for an ad break?

[Guest wwF1587]

"The Beverly Hillbillies"

RAW; January 21, 2002; Greenville, South Carolina

I came up with the idea for that one, and that was a hilarious promo. I was driving to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to pick up Debra because someone had died. I was sitting there with a lot of idle time on my hands after the Pay-Per-View, and I was thinking, "I didn’t win the PPV." And I wanted to cut a promo to erase the fact in people’s minds that I lost. And when I cut that promo, nobody remembered that I lost. Everybody just remembers the promo. "Beverly Hillbillies" just popped into my head. It wasn’t like a three-hour process, it was like a two-minute deal. I pitched the idea to Vince; I don’t think he really understood it. It was one of those deals where it was either a complete success or a complete flop. It turned out be a complete success.

Why can't I remember this off the top of my head?

 

damnit... which one WAS this.. i dont remember it either

[Guest FeArHaVoC]

Read the post right before you.

[Guest The Hamburglar]

Austin's certainly picked his three best matches. The WM X-7 one is my personal favourite. Its a simply fantastic match that can be watched over and over again. I'd probably put his Summerslam match with Angle up there too.

[FigureFourTapes 0]

X7 certainly was a great match, my second favorite of his WWF run. I wonder how they plan on topping it this year.

[Guest FeArHaVoC]

I'm glad he showed Bret Hart some respect. His matches with Bret at Survivor Series 96' and WM13 are two of my personal favorite matches.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Brett Hart and Steve Austin have always respected and gotten along with each other. Austin had a problem with Owen.

[Guest BifEverchad]

"What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? You got something to say...What? What what what - you have something to say to me? What? You got something to say to Stone Cold? What? You wanna something to Stone Cold? You got time - you got lots of time! Get your ass outta here! And I look at my watch, that didn't take as long as I thought it would - so I think I got time - to tell you people a little story. Y'all wanna hear a story? If you wanna hear a story, gimme a hell yeah! Well this ain't a story about a man named Jed - you know that poor mountaineer - barely kept his family fed - then one day - he was shootin' at some food - up from the ground came a bubblin' crude - black gold - Texas tea - money - mucho dinero - next thing you know, ol' Jed's a millionaire - ah, the kinfolk said 'hey Jed' - that's what he said, 'What?' - they said, 'hey Jed - move away from there - California - California - you know, the west coast - California's the place you oughta be' - so they loaded up that truck - that bucket o' rust - that pile of junk - that old jalopy - bottom line was, they moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools - movie stars. The Beverly Hillbillies! Well I'm not here to tell you that story." Ross chuckles for our benefit. "I'm here to tell you the story about Stone Cold Steve Austin. Went to the Royal Rumble. I trained hard. I trained real hard. I ate tacos, enchiladas, drank beer, drank whiskey, ate cheeseburgers, drank tequila, ate some more enchilads, I even did a coupla pushups, pullups, situps (okay, I didn't really do the situps), took....two sumbitches got real lucky and threw Stone Cold over the top rope. I was hoodwinked - bamboozled - flabbergasted - eliminated! Stone Cold Steve Austin ain't goin' to WrestleMania to face the champ. That's the bad news. You want the good news? Stone Cold Steve Austin right now, and I know it's a little early - I said it's a little early - but I'm entering myself in next year's Royal Rumble for 2003. And while I'm not goin' to WrestleMania this year to face the champ, the good news is, Stone Cold Steve Austin IS goin' to WrestleMania - to whip somebody's ass, I said whip somebody's ass - brothers and sisters are ya with me? I'm gonna torture somebody - I'm'o bloody somebody - do you understand me - brothers and sisters are ya with me? Stone Cold Steve Austin is goin' to WrestleMania, and I'm'o whip a man's ass - and that's the bottom line - 'cause Stone Cold said so."

 

Oh GAWD~!, that was hilarious..

I remember it now. Infact, I have it on tape! I think I shall go watch it now..

 

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

Pretty good read on Steve Austin. Reminisce about the great matches, angles and promos that Austin's mentioned in this interview.

 

Stone Cold vs. Chris Benoit

SmackDown!; May 31, 2001; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

It was a match that I needed as a heel. I was having a hard time getting people to hate me. Chris Benoit was over like gangbusters in his hometown. He’s vicious, and he’s very believable; so am I. I just loved the match because I love the way I match up with Chris Benoit. It told a good story. He gave me two back-to-back suplexes. It was awesome. And I feel like it put Chris Benoit on the map in WWE. As awesome as a worker as he is, he needed that type of match on our TV, and that’s what I gave him. And he gave it to me also.

I'm glad that someone gave this match the respect it deserves, after it was practically ignored by the WWF/E.

 

This was the match that got me to mark for Benoit and what got me watching every week again.

[Guest Nevermortal]

Brett Hart and Steve Austin have always respected and gotten along with each other. Austin had a problem with Owen.

Gee....I wonder why....

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Where's the part where he says "Please stop saying 'What?' so much! You're ruining every promo!"

 

Somebody needs to say it. The what shit is getting out of control, although people like Vince have learned to change their timing, and Kurt Angle sort of relishes in it.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

I think the best Stunner ever was the one on Rock the night after Wrestlemania XVII when he was being pretty much killed by Austin and Trips. He sold everything in that beatdown perfectly, as if he was getting murdered, and his eye-rolling limp selling of the Stunner was perfect.

[Guest Slingshot Suplex]

No amount of reasoning is going to convince me that the Beverly Hillbillies promo had any meaning whatsoever.It wasn't particularly funny and it cut into the middle of Hennig's and Venis' return to Raw.

[Guest Army Eye]

The Beverly Hillbillies promo was junk. That night was the nadir of Stone Cold's current character, say absoutely nothing with your promos but give the crowd a chance to say "What?!" 87 times.

 

I don't understand how he thinks the WMXIV match wasn't even a good one. Of course it was a good match.

 

I like his choices for best matches. As for the Smackdown match with Benoit, I think he and Benoit are the only people in the WWE who realize how special that match was because it never really got any acknoledgement after it happened. Possibly the best WWF TV match EVER didn't even get shown on the Year in Review show.

 

I really would want to get the Austin/Angle Summerslam match in there, but I don't know which one I'd take out. And if you really want to be correct about it, the SS96 match NEEDS to be on there, but no sense having two Bret matches.

[Guest ViciousFish]

I was at that match in Edmonton. I have never heard anything as loud in my life as when Benoit hit the 10th german on Austin. I was swearing we were gonna have a new champ, and then Austin pulled out a schoolboy and I thought there was gonna be a riot.

[Guest snuffbox]

I enjoyed this article and I agree with Stone Cold everywhere but his WM14 opinion. I thought that was a good match for what it was.