As we mentioned last week, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was recently a guest on AfterBuzz TV’s Lilian Garcia: Making Their Way to the Ring. Below are more highlights from the interview that they sent us:
Why he doesn’t want to act anymore:
“All the stuff that I’m doing now is like passion projects like Broken Skull Challenge I love that show and acting I don’t really care about acting…no because you just, the memorization process, I mean for me to be you know on set you know and going through the paces, and hitting your marks, and doing another take, doing another take, and then someone else’s coverage, I’ve probably done ten to twelve movies and it was fine while we were doing them. You know being on the set is not fun for me, and don’t get me wrong if the right gig came along I would consider doing it I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but people always think just because you came out of wrestling and you did a few movies like oh man you need to do more movies, well it depends on you know, I don’t really want to do more movies you know, but people always think this is what you should do. What I should do is what I’m doing.”
The Attitude Era roster:
“That was one of the most talented rosters in the history of the business so ya man first of all we had a stacked locker room, and heres the thing, like in the business of pro-wrestling hey man I made it for myself but we’re in it as a team because we’re traveling together, we’re like a carnival, this is pro-wrestling we got a card, you’re a match and there’s eight other matches or ten other matches whatever the program is, so you’re all a team, and you’re all fighting to put asses in the seats. It would be real selfish for me to say oh man I want to be number one and I don’t want anyone to be close. No, I want to be number one and I want everyone to be kicking and scratching crawling so I can really say that I’m number so you wan the guy you’re working with to be as hot as you because the hotter your dance partner is the more people are going to want to see that so we had such a charismatic, talented group of guys in the ring on the horn with their gimmicks Vince was on fire with the ideas, the writing department, the booking department had great ideas so yes I’m glad we had the locker room we had.”
Not wanting a full time gig with WWE:
“I don’t like to travel anymore Lilian. It’s like when I was still in the WWE and my days before that because I give or take have been in the business thirteen or fourteen years until my neck crapped out and I got out of the business, I loved being on the road back in the day you know you’re a road warrior, you’re addicted to the road, then all of a sudden you’re out there and you’ve been on the road for ten, fourteen whatever more days and you’re thinking God dang man I really want to go home, and then you get home and you’re there for about a day and a half you’re like man I’m ready to get back on the road, so I mean it’s in your blood. But once you get out of the business—and it took me three years to get over getting out of the business, and I won’t tell that story because I told that story so many times, but my point is, you know when you’re in the business of being on the road with the WWE you’re a road warrior and that’s what you do, that’s your life, and you love it, and I’m very passionate about the business, it’s what I wanted to do with my life, it’s the only thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to come out here and get into acting, I did it because I had to get out of the business of pro-wrestling but my point is when you turn back into what I call civilian mode, you know, you kind of lose all that interest in traveling.”
Being fired by Eric Bischoff:
“Eric Bischoff firing me was the best thing that ever happened to me as far as pro-wrestling goes because I would’ve never become Stone Cold Steve Austin down at WCW.”
Getting fired from WCW:
“Every now and then when Eric comes to LA he’ll give me a call and we’ll go drink a couple of beers that’s a hatchet thats been buried a long time ago I like Eric a lot but it was a deal where you know he didn’t see any money in me, and quite frankly if you lined up everybody in that locker room and said hey man pick all your stars and then throw out the scripts you know I was kind of starting to lose my hair, I didn’t really have a great gimmick, didn’t have the whole you know package put together yet so you know based on the amount of days that I had been injured, coming off a knee injury and then a tricep injury, you know he did what he thought he needed to do, but here’s the thing going back to what I said about my mother, you know you tell me I cant do something well I’ll prove you wrong every single time, and I wanted to be a successful professional wrestler, and I came up with the Stone Cold gimmick, and I started cranking out merchandise and we started putting asses in the seats, but it wasn’t like hey this is a vendetta or this is revenge you’re one of the guys who let me go.”
Walking out from WWE in 2002:
“It was a real stupid decision to fast forward there and go back to my family but ya when I heard about doing the favors you know from Jim Ross and I was in a hotel and I heard that information and I worked with Flair in Columbus, Georgia that night in a cage and that was Monday Night Raw in Atlanta and then I called Vince that night people heard the story a million times and I didn’t like the creative, I was burnt out and there had been a couple of real weird things that I thought were road blocks thrown at me that didn’t make sense from a booking standpoint, when you have an extremely hot talent who’s selling tickets and merchandise like crazy you just kinda keep throwing gasoline on him and I thought this was road block unadvertised, all about trying to help the next guy up but right now we’re running strong with me so anyway that’s when I went home and if it hadn’t been for Jim Ross who knows what would’ve happened.
“Because it was stupid, I mean here I am talking to Jim, he gives me creative, I don’t like it, so then you know he calls the old man and the old man tells Jim ‘Tell Steve to call me no matter what time it is, give me a call’ because we got TV — this is live Monday Night Raw, so I call Vince at two am that morning his time and he tells me the same creative and I’m thinking as you and me are sitting here eye to eye face to face and I’m thinking ‘all right so that’s what we’re gonna do, all right’, well you can’t read my mind but you can look at me, I don’t like what I’m hearing, so I was just thinking okay at the tone of my voice, it was stupid, I already knew right then, I already knew right then I was going to get on an airplane, book my flight and fly back to San Antonio’. “What I should’ve done was gone to the building man to man, face Vince McMahon and said ‘Hey you know I don’t really like Ed and here’s why I don’t like Ed I’m extremely hot right now and I want Brock to do well and you got a real blue chipper right there, he’s an absolute phenomenal freak, and he’s very charismatic, he’s gonna draw a lot of money but not right now it’s my time and we need to do something else, and if you do want to do that match well lets promote it, let’s build it, and lets make something of it then make some money on a Pay Per View, and so I should’ve went there and talked to Vince man to man, face to face and sell it rather than going home—it was the dumbest thing I could ever do.”
Advice from Vader in WCW:
“I’ll never forget the advice that Leon White gave me a long time in WCW as Big Man Vader, he goes ‘Steve, always let a cooler head prevail’ you know, he goes think about things before you make a knee jerk reaction, because I’m real bad about making a knee jerk reaction. These days I’ll think about the knee jerk reaction but I won’t do it, I’ll think it through before I do anything and that just comes with being around, being in more situations where you can say okay man you really screwed up the last time, lets think about this, lets be a little big smart about it.”
Giving back to the younger generation:
“I feel like when you get out of the business you should give back to the business and help that younger generation because if you look at it, if you look at the current locker room, okay, who is, and I’m not being a big head about this, I’m trying not to brag on what I’ve done because I never talk about my wrestling career unless someone brings it up, but I actually drew money, and when I got in the business I was making fifteen dollars a night, so I started at the very bottom and I ended up at the very top, so I’ve kind of seen a lot of things. I’ve been a heel and I’ve been baby, you know, and I’ve been a stranger to Vince and a great friend with Vince, so I’ve seen a lot of highs and lows and I can offer some good advice because a lot of things I have been there and I have done it, so if someone wants my opinion I always want to be able to convey it to them.”
Visiting NXT in the future:
“I’ve been wanting to go down to NXT to talk to those kids down there…its just a pain in the neck to get down to Florida but one of these days I will.”
Scripted promos:
“When I came back from my neck surgery that’s kind of when that system kind of really came into play, in those last few years you know I got away with it because you couldn’t tell that I was doing it but the system changed and I just kind of adapted or adopted the system that they were throwing at me, but I always felt a little like I was maybe short changing myself or the business by doing that but that’s what the system became so it is what it is.”
Missing the spontaneity of wrestling:
“God dang not to book the territory or criticize or critique the business, I just love Lilian back in those old days, just the spontaneity, the spontaneity, when you’re on live TV it should be God dang man this is live anything can happen — well they’re still live anything can still happen but it’s very micro-managed and gone over to so much detail it’s like, the chances are nothing is going to happen that’s not supposed to happen, but when you have that feeling it’s like God dang man Steve’s coming back, Stone Cold’s coming back on RAW I don’t know what he’s going to say, well we know what he’s going to say right now—not too much because we’re going to hand him a script and tell him go say this.”
His biggest struggle growing up:
“I was a shy kid growing up man…ya I was quiet as a damn mouse, my sister would, if we wanted to order from the Dairy Queen call in the order, my sister would order for me because I just didn’t like talking to the people on the other end of the phone.”
In Your House: Canadian Stampede:
“That was one of the most fun matches I ever had in my life. We were in Canada we were in Calgary we were in the hearts home town! And the fact, man when they went out there because Canadian people are great fans you know they’re very loyal so they’re awesome but all of a sudden so Brett and them go out there and they’re the babies and we come down and we’re the Stone Cold heels no pun intended and I was eating it up because I always like working heel, and I know it’s a one night stand so my head’s not going ‘oh they’re booing us and they’re cheering them what am I supposed to do?’ Hell, if you watch that match I played it up and we had chemistry off the charts there and that’s where they handcuffed me and they had my hands behind my back and I was flipping them off I was handcuffed behind my back I was like a kid in a candy store it was one of the most fun nights of my life.”
