Original subtitles

- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is the most popular superstar

in WWE history.

- Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass.

- He was a beer-drinking, middle finger flipping,

anti-authority figure.

And he represented the "common man."

And he did a lot of the things that we all want to do,

which is rebel against your boss, blaze your own trail,

have fun doing what you're doing workwise.

He became so famous that he was able to glue

the WWE and pop culture together,

and they've been glued together ever since.

[crowd cheering]

- The Austin Era has begun.

- His sticking power is unlike anything because decades

after his wrestling career, he still has

one of the highest selling shirts in the WWE.

The closer he got to his true self, the more success he had.

And I think that resonated with people because he was being

genuine and being real and being himself.

And that's why we started the biography with the question,

what's the difference between his character and himself?

And I think, as you'll see, he had a-a hard time answering that

because he was just being himself.

- I don't even know what the difference is really.

- This is the Director's Cut A&E Biography,

WWE Legends on "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

- We cool?

Okay, good.

Um, who is Steve Austin the man

and who is Stone Cold Steve Austin the performer?

- The difference between "Stone Cold" Steve Austin the man

and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin the performer is, basically,

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin is exactly that.

Uh-

I don't even know what the difference is really.

♪

- Steve Austin is one of the biggest superstars

in the history of the wrestling business

because of his passion for it.

[crowd cheering]

- He had this meteoric rise that burnt hot and fast

and changed an entire industry.

- Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16.

Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass.

I think the separation between "Stone Cold" and Steve Austin

is only a matter of the surrounding that I'm in.

- The character was a real person.

The look in his eyes told a real story.

And you know why?

Because it was a real story.

- He went from being a guy from Texas

to a pro wrestler to a pop culture icon.

- He was the defining character of a generation.

The disruptor of the status quo.

The pivotal player in the complete re-imagination

of the industry.

- I've been retired for so long, I don't miss it anymore.

I don't crave it.

You can never replace it.

I'm not trying to say that you can, but I wouldn't say there's

anything about the life I used to live on the road that makes

me yearn to go back in time and relive those days.

But I do what I want when I want right here in this damn ring

and can't nobody stop me.

The whole world knows my name is "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

If I'm going straight to hell, you're damn sure coming with me.

- "Stone Cold" Steven Austin, his reign on top

was second to none.

- Steve Austin changed the way the game was played.

There will never ever be anyone like him.

- He's the man responsible for making WWE more than we thought

it could ever be.

- People gravitated a lot to the energy

that I brought to the business.

[crowd cheering]

- Steve didn't have a long career being on top,

but he had that one peak that like, wow.

No one can come close to that.

- Stone Cold is a showbiz guy.

Steve Austin is a regular guy.

They just happened to be rolled up in the same package.

- I was born in Austin, Texas, but we didn't stay there long.

I grew up in a little town called Edna.

I'm proud to be from Texas, you know, born, bred, raised.

You know, it's tough, it's cowboy country,

and it's-it's rugged.

I think the reputation of Texas kind of precedes you

and the fact that you're from that state.

- You know, it's not a one-stoplight town,

but we just have a few stoplights.

And it's a town where everybody knows everybody.

We had a huge house, our yellow house.

It was on half of an acre.

It was great growing up in a big family.

Scott's the oldest then Steve then Kevin, Jeff and then me.

As a kid, Steve was very shy.

Yeah, yeah, he was shy.

- Oh, just shy enough that when-when we called down to

Dairy Queen to o-order, you know, three tacos or whatever,

you know, hell, I put my sister on the phone.

"Jenny, can you order my food for me?"

- So, he's seven years older than me and he would literally

call me into the kitchen and hand me the phone to Dairy Queen

and have me read off his order.

- I broke out of that shyness

when I found football in junior high.

I used athletics to help me find confidence.

- I noticed him when he was in junior high.

I was the high school coach.

He was a physical specimen, I guess you'd say.

- When he started seventh-grade football, that's-- As far as

long as I can remember, that's all he wanted to do was

work out, eat right, and just build his body.

- We're eating Little Debbie's and Captain Crunch cereal.

And he's over there with the Blender with this protein stuff

and putting raw eggs in it.

And I'm thinking, "What?

Who does this?"

You know?

He does.

- I was a running back, and I wasn't very fast.

But I weighed about 205 pounds.

And my line averaged about 165 pounds, so I didn't have a whole

lot of blocking and I ran north and south because I wasn't fast

enough to run east and west and I ran over people.

- Straight-A student, National Honor Society.

Steve never drank beer or raised hell

during high school like I did.

So, every weekend, all my buddies would come over.

We're sitting on the back patio, drinking beer, raising hell,

having a good time.

And Steve would open up his bedroom window.

"Y'all shut the hell up.

I'm trying to sleep."

- He was popular, but he just had such bigger dreams

and goals for himself.

- He used to actually practice signing autographs

back in the day.

We'd be in the kitchen

and he'd just be writing his name different ways.

Trying to check out which-- what fit best.

He asked my opinion.

"What the-- What are you talking about, man?"

[chuckles]

Yeah.

- At first, you know, I wanted to be a rock star.

But I can't sing, play any instrument-- musical instruments

so that's out the door.

- Channel 39 presents Houston Wrestling.

- One day, my mom was in her chair

reading her Redbook magazine

and I was flipping channels and I came across pro wrestling.

It was Houston Wrestling.

For some reason, the lighting, the smoke-filled arena,

the rope banister around the ring.

Uh, one of the guys is just bleeding like a stuffed pig

in the ring and it just resonated with me.

I was like, "Holy cow."

I fell in love with it that-that day.

- Growin' up, we only got three channels here

and the Houston Wrestling was on every Sunday.

And Steve always watched it.

If I wanted to anything else, he says, "Man, you can have TV

after wrestling's over with.

- And apparently, yeah, he told I guess friends and-and

my brothers that uh, he was gonna be a wrestler one day.

He said those words.

- Well I'll be doggone.

- You know, coming from a small town,

you don't really get noticed.

Um, you have to put in a whole lot of work and you gotta kind

of get yourself out there and he was able to do it.

- Coming out of high school,

I went to Wharton County Junior College

and they offered me a full ride to North Texas State University.

And football at that level was more serious.

- This is the young man we talked about--

- He was a real good player.

- Yes, real good play by Steve.

He's played very well, gotten better every game.

- I really didn't enjoy the process anymore

as far as the education process goes.

I had had an absolute gutful of doing research papers.

Alegebra number 2 and Calculus were kicking my ass.

It just wasn't my cup of tea.

I was through in college and I wanted to drop out so I did.

Oh, we had a connection from the athletic department at

North Texas to the Watkins Motor Lines.

With 17 hours to go, I just said, "Man, I'm outta here.

Let me go work on a freight dock and make that $400 a week."

I love driving a forklift.

I could pull your tooth with a forklift.

At Watkins Motor Lines, we were 30 miles

from the Sportatorium in Dallas.

So me and my buddies would ride down there and we would

drink beer and throw stuff at the wrestlers and raise hell.

Man, the Sportatorium is the greatest building in the world,

atmosphere personified.

And then I'll never forget, man, we were out there me

and my buddy Ralph and he's giving me the elbow he goes,

"Man, you're as big as him because you gotta get in this.

Man, you oughta be a wrestler."

I said, "I'mma do it, I'mma do it, I'mma do it."

And so I'd-I'd wanted to for a long time.

and I'll be damned if I didn't go home, man, a couple of days

later and I was changing channels and there was that

commercial that Chris Adams put on for his wrestling academy,

and I said, "That's it.

That's-that's my- that's my way in."

- Hello everybody, this is "Gentleman" Chris Adams here

bringing you exciting news about our May three-day

pro wrestling camp.

You'll spend three full days working out in the same ring

that you see on your TV here at the world famous Sportatorium.

- The one thing that surprised me when I showed up that first

day, I just thought there was gonna be a bunch of monsters in

there that looked like me, killers that wanted to get into

the business of pro wrestling but they were just regular

people off the street.

- I don't know if I met Steve as much as I saw Steve.

I was, uh, injured during match so I went up in what's known as

the crow's nest where family and friends could watch the matches,

and that happened to be the first lesson that

"Gentleman" Chris Adams was giving

for his new wrestling school.

And me and a couple of guys were laughing about how bad all

of the trainees were, all of them except this one guy with

long blond hair and definite gift of athleticism.

And it was clear that he had it whatever it is,

he had it right away.

- By the time he started wrestling,

it was mid to late 1989.

Austin started wrestling for the USWA

which was the United States Wrestling Association.

So he was wrestling in Memphis and in Texas and all points

in between that the USWA was running.

- I rolled into Nashville and I needed a place to live.

I didn't know where to go and they said, "Hey man, you know

try the Congress Inn out on Dickerson Pike."

So I rolled in there and uh checked in, and man,

I didn't have no money.

So every week or when-whenever I had enough money,

I would pay my rent.

Times were really, really lean and I didn't have a hotplate,

I didn't have a microwave.

And I remember I went to the grocery store,

I bought tuna fish cans,

I bought some potatoes and for breakfast lunch

and dinner I'd eat tuna fish and potato.

And after a few days I ran out of tuna fish, so for breakfast,

lunch and dinner, I'd peel a raw potato and eat that.

A lot of guys ended up living with dancers and a lot of guys

knew where all the buffets were, all of the-- you know, any kind

of all you can eat thing, they knew where they were.

- You had to figure out a way to survive back then.

There was a time period there where I actually the-- I spent

nights in my car.

I think I made $11,000 in a year and put 10,000 miles on my car.

- You were barely getting by, and so you're paying your dues,

traveling 400 miles to make $10.

- I'm making 15 and $20 you know a night, making 400-mile

roundtrips, you can't afford to eat.

I remember calling my mom or she called me and asked me how I was

doing, and I said "Mom" I said, "is there any way for my

birthday this year could you just send me $40?"

And it's the only time I ever asked my parents for money,

and sure enough a couple of days later my mom sent me two

$20 bills and it meant the world to me

because I could afford to get something to eat again.

That's part of paying your dues, and I just figured, you know,

you know, starving or doing whatever it takes

because I didn't have a plan B.

I wanted to be a pro wrestler so if this is what it takes to be

one this is what I'm gonna do.

I showed up to my first match in Memphis

and Dutch Mantell was the booker.

I go and introduce myself to Dutch Mantell.

I said "Hey, man, I'm Steve Williams.

I'm here to wrestle."

He goes, "Your name's Steve Williams?"

He goes, "You can't be that here because there's already

a "Dr. Death" Steve Williams.

It'd be confusing on the card."

And he goes, "You got 15 minutes to come up with a name."

and he walks away.

And I'm just two months in the business, new territory,

don't know anybody and don't know what the F to do.

The match is about to start, and you know, I'm making a life

changing decision, and he goes,

uh, "All right, what'd you come up with?"

I said, "I ain't got nothing."

He goes, "You're Steve Austin" and I started calling myself

"Stunning" Steve Austin.

And I had a red robe with sequins on it.

All I did was wrestle, you know, go to the gym in the morning,

get in the car, go wrestle somewhere, and drive back.

That was life.

I was a sponge and I was absorbing all this information

from these great minds who would teach me information that they

got from generations before them.

- I've been very impressed by Steve Austin's ability

and how far he's come in such a short time.

He's showing that he has the potential

to go a long, long way.

He will be a superstar if he gets with the right kind

of people and just sits back, listens and learns.

- Yes sir.

- You watch the matches and you listen to the crowd and you put

the two together and watch-watch they're doing and-and listen

to the soundtrack, "Oh, that works.

That doesn't work."

Oh yeah, one, two, three.

- A place like USWA at that point, it gave those wrestlers

an opportunity where even if they were

only making 10, 20, $30 a night,

the payoff was maybe someone from the WWE

or World Championship Wrestling at the time might see me

and they'll bring me up and kind of they'll be my guardian angel

and suddenly I'll be making way more money.

- Well, I think "Stunning" Steve Austin definitely has

a fantastic future ahead of him in this sport.

- At that time I was on the booking committee at WCW which

was World Championship Wrestling.

And we were all challenged and compelled to try to find some

new faces, some new young athletic talents that we could

build that had potential.

Gosh, he checked all those boxes.

- Back in the day the standard deal for WCW, and this is crazy,

you made $75,000 you know, guaranteed.

You'd go from getting anywhere from 20 to 60 or $100 a night

to 75,000 a year.

It was like the mother-load.

You know, again this is, uh, '92, '93, and that's a lot

of money, especially coming from where-where I came from.

- WCW was a little different level; bigger television

opportunities, bigger chance for national exposure.

- Welcome back to World Championship Wrestling and I'm

Missy Hyatt.

And now, I would like to introduce

"Stunning" Steve Austin and the "Vivacious" Veronica.

- WCW, I think it was my first appearance on the ring

and Missy Hyatt's gonna interview me,

and I'm walking down the aisle

and I'm just I'm in another world, right.

And I can hear the announcer over the crowd going,

"And from Hollywood, California" and I'm like "Man, who the --

is that guy talking about?"

I'm walking to the ring, "'Stunning' Steve Austin."

[chuckles]

I was like "When did my Texas ass with this accent you know

become from Hollywood, California?"

- I would just like to take this time to welcome you

to World Championship Wrestling.

- So I get out there and climb in the ring and I'm doing this

interview with Missy Hyatt and of course I got the biggest

booger you can have hanging out of your nose, and I was like,

"Really?"

It wasn't- it wasn't a great first appearance.

[chuckles]

- "Stunning" Steve Austin.

- Steve always had great natural intensity.

It wasn't prefabricated, it wasn't manufactured.

It was real.

- You can see that he could tap into his athletic background to

bring a reality in the fight that very few other people

can match.

- Ooh, did you see that?

- He had a solid run throughout his time in WCW.

At one point he was part of a tag team The Hollywood Blondes.

They were this young, vibrant arrogant tag team, spitting

in the wind against the veterans of that company at the time,

but he was always one of the secondary performers

in the company.

- I don't think anyone in WCW ever visualized Steve Austin

as being the top guy.

- I was keenly aware that there-there was that upper level

and I wasn't a part of it.

Unless something happened, you could not break into that-that

next tier.

Aesthetically, I didn't have the right look.

I didn't have the right gimmick or persona.

They didn't think I was marketable.

- Get out of my face.

- From the Land of the Rising Sun.

- It was over in Japan on a three-week tour.

And the third night of that tour, I jumped off the top rope

into a splashing fly and he moved

and I tore my right tricep off my elbow.

And so, I wrestled for two and a half weeks with a torn tricep,

you know.

And as soon as I get back to the United States,

my first major surgery.

And I remember, uh, getting a call from Eric Bischoff, who was

running the WCW at the time, and he goes,

"Steve, I'm just, you know, letting you know that,

you know, you're getting fired."

And so that's how it went down.

Got a FedEx the next day and I was out of a job.

I'm sitting there trying to heal up now.

The money is gonna stop coming in.

I got bills to pay and my family to feed.

I'm like, "Man, what am I gonna do?"

- So in this upcoming act, you'll see a director's cut

exclusive, which is a more in-depth look

into The Ringmaster character and Steve trying

to discover that character.

- He's all business, McMahon.

He's not in there trying to impress anybody with how good

he looks or like how pretty his hair is or anything.

He just wants to beat up people and win matches.

- I think Steve looks back on that character in a frustrated

way because he was coming from a time in his career at ECW when

they gave him a mic and he flexed his skills on the mic

and he knew he was a good talker and he knew he was entertaining.

- Eric Bischoff told his secretary to tell her secretary

to leave a message on my answering machine for me to call

Eric Bischoff.

And then I called Eric Bischoff and he proceeded

to fire me over the phone.

- And he gets to the WWE and the first thing he is told is,

"Don't talk."

And I think that that was hard for Steve because he knew

he was good on the mic.

He knew he could cut a good promo.

So I think when he looks back on that time, it's frustrating

because he was being told one thing

and he believed in another.

- Because everybody's got a price for

The Million Dollar Man.

[laughs]

Vince put Steve with me.

That's-that's the rub, you know, 'cause when he first started,

obviously, he was a newcomer, but, uh, I don't think anybody

at that time envisioned just how big he would get.

- He takes himself back into that moment 'cause you can see

he's thinking, "How did they not let me talk?

That was my strength."

And ultimately he was proven right.

That was one of the most memorable things about his

career was Steve is maybe the best talker

in the history of the WWE.

So it's ironic that the first direction he's given is,

"Don't talk."

- The Ringmaster.

- But exploring that character is interesting because it's- it

also is just another example of how hard it is to be successful

and everything has to line up perfectly

and that includes a good character.

- In September 1995, I was the owner of the ECW

and was in charge of all the creative direction.

Someone from WCW buzzed me that Steve was being let go.

So I called Steve and I said,

"Uh, hey, I heard you got fired."

- Right off the bat, the phone rings.

It's Pauly.

Paul calls me and he goes, "Kid," he goes, "why don't you

come over and start working for me?"

I said, "-- Paul," I said, "I-I can't work."

I said, "I've got a torn tricep.

- "Oh, hell, kid, I-I'm-I'm hurt.

I can't do anything."

"Can you talk?"

"Oh, hell, kid, I can talk all day long."

"Come on on up and talk."

- And I said, "Man, what do you want me to talk about?"

He goes- he goes, "Just-just talk about how you feel."

- "If you're pissed off, come and vent.

Let's talk about that."

I wanted that authentic outrage on my television show.

- Sure enough, there I am flying up to Philly.

We go to that God dang-- ECW Arena, which is a complete --.

- ECW was- well, it was- it was purgatory,

basically, probably closer to hell than purgatory.

- ECW is Extreme Championship Wrestling, and I dare say they

earned the extreme, uh, moniker.

- At ECW, we were obsessed with delivering performances that

were going to redefine the industry, with doing things that

had never been done before.

- There were tables and barbed wire and blood and guts

and people flying into the crowd.

- We took in, uh, misfits.

I mean, if there was an island for misfit wrestlers,

it was ECW.

- Oh, my God.

- I'm the new guy in the territory.

What's my mission?

What's my goal?

Who am I?

What am I?"

You know, you're-you're kind of lost.

I'll never forget that night when I-I cut this promo.

It was about seven or eight minutes long,

and I just started talking, and it was a one-take promo.

And everything I said was how I felt.

You know, a couple of weeks ago, when Eric Bischoff told his

secretary to tell her secretary to leave a message on my

answering machine for me to call Eric Bischoff.

And then I called Eric Bischoff, and he proceeded to fire me over

the phone.

We're gonna put the US title on you and then we're gonna take

you here, and then you're the number one contender.

So then you got this world title shot.

Well, all -- that never happened.

When I wrapped up that promo and they shut off that light,

everybody in that room started clapping,

- Standing ovation, and rightfully so.

- He was able to express himself in a way that you just could not

do, or that we were not allowed to do in WCW.

- Man, after being held down or kind of restrained in WCW,

where no one believed in me,

I knew that I had to take chances on myself.

- You could tell that he was energized and that he had

an axe to grind and he was grinding it really well.

- And a lot of people saying that's kind of- that maybe that

was the genesis of what Stone Cold would-would come from.

Steve-O-Mania is going run wild on the ECW, brother,

I'm saying my prayers.

I'm not gonna do this -- anywhere, not even in ECW.

- Well, Jim Ross was always an admirer of Steve's talent.

So I knew ECW was always vulnerable,

that Jim Ross would recruit Steve into WWE.

Once Steve did that interview on ECW, Jim Ross came after him,

and rightfully so.

How could he not?

I didn't realize how fast it was gonna happen.

- The WWE was subsidizing ECW when Steve was there.

So we-we had our eye on him for quite some time, at least I did.

I just had to wait for the right place, the right time to get him

to WWE.

- So and then the phone rings, and it's a maroon phone,

and I'd pick it up.

"Steve.

Vince McMahon."

"Hey Vince, how're you doing?"

"Hey, wanna bring you as the Ringmaster,

uh, Master of the Ring."

- From a creative standpoint, the character of the Ringmaster

was the best in-ring performer and could do it all.

And to me that was Steve Austin.

- And I'm sitting there listening to Vince make this

pitch, and I'm like, "Ringmaster?"

First of all, it sounds like --, but more importantly than that,

I need more money than I'm making from ECW

and I ain't got no other options.

So I said, "Sounds good.

Let's do it."

- I give you The Ringmaster.

[laughs]

- First appearance of "The Ringmaster" Steve Austin was on

the Brother Love Show, and being Brother Love, I-I gotta host it

and-and do the introduction of Steve.

- And Ringmaster, right here in front of everybody, I want to

officially crown you my Million Dollar Champion.

- We partnered Steve with

Ted DiBiase "The Million Dollar Man".

We immediately put the Million Dollar Championship on Steve so

that Steve had a claim to, uh, a championship that he didn't win.

- When I saw the, uh, the wardrobe or what they wanted me

to wear, 'cause they wanted me to wear green singlet like

emerald green, the color of money, and I said,

"I ain't wearing no singlet."

So they made me some green trunks.

I showed up there with kind of ha- kind of a half assed- look,

but it was what it was.

- He was known for the long blond hair

and for being a great wrestler.

And then he shows up, and he's got a shaved head.

You know, he has like a very unaudacious debut.

- Behold, brothers and sisters,

Behold.

The Million Dollar Champion.

Vince told me, "Whatever you do, don't let Steve talk.

Don't give him a microphone, whatever you do."

Paul Heyman calls me that day, and Paul says,

"Bruce, whatever you do,

make sure you put a microphone in Steve's hand.

Give him the mic, let him talk."

So, I'm kind of in between a rock and a hard place.

Brother, Ringmaster.

Steve came to me and Steve says, "Hey, after we do the- the

whole presentation, do you mind if I say something?"

I said, "Sure, just do it."

- Back up a little bit, brother.

Everybody out there in TV Land, I'm gonna give you a chance

to be somebody.

Come on, get the camera on that hand right there.

I want everybody out there in TV Land to touch your screen

and feel what it's like to be destined for success.

When I'm sitting there looking at the guy doing it with the

buzz haircut, like, man, you know, the emerald green trunks,

it just- it wasn't a great presentation or a great look.

I'm gonna do it all, and you're gonna see

what the Million Dollar Man

and the Million Dollar Champ are gonna accomplish.

And then I'll have every single thing

that I want out of the WWE.

- Back body drop, very impressed with The Ringmaster.

- We made the mistake of bringing Steve in as a villain.

That's how he was cast as with Ted DiBiase.

The Ringmaster and the Million Dollar Man looks great

on-on an 8 x 10.

You know, you got two amazing personalities.

Teddy and Steve had little to no chemistry.

It didn't work.

Nobody's fault.

It's just that way sometimes.

- I don't think that Steve was particularly fond of having

a mouthpiece, having Ted DiBiase as a manager.

- My Million Dollar Champion, a man who had a heart like mine,

The Ringmaster.

- Because Steve was confident in his verbal skills.

- When you combine wealth and greed, you don't only create

a winner, you create a monster.

Well, that time was hardest because, you know, on one hand,

it was a great opportunity, but, you know, there's no as far as

a character or anything, Ringmaster is not like seeing

Ric Flair or Hulk Hogan, or something like that

on a billboard.

- I can now look back and I can appreciate Steve Austin

realizing and feeling deep down, like, in here that this

Ringmaster character is not happening because it's not me

and it's not authentic.

- Unbelievable.

Look at the laugh on DiBiase.

- When I joined the WWE, I knew the-the territory was down.

You know, things weren't great.

They-they-they were getting by, but, you know, we'd go out,

and I don't know, it seemed like the houses would be,

like, a quarter full.

But I was willing to be a part of the system just because it's

so new, it's so big, and I'm so far low down, you know, that I

ain't got a reason to act like a big shot, because I ain't.

Because here I am as a Ringmaster, a new gimmick,

a bad gimmick.

And, you know, you don't know who and what you are.

- He's all business, McMahon.

He's not in there trying to impress anybody with how good

he looks or, like, how pretty his hair is or anything.

He just wants to beat up people and win matches.

- This character is a stretch because I-I don't know what it

is or what it's supposed to be.

As The Ringmaster, I didn't know who and what I was or how I'm

supposed to do things, so it's very confusing.

And after a while, I just stopped wearing the green trucks

because they weren't paying attention to me.

So I'm thinking, I don't think they really got plans for me.

- Vince looked at Steve, saw an average guy, says, "I don't know

what to do with him, and that accent.

It's just I can't relate to him.

There's nothing about him I can relate to."

- My initial impressions of him was he's wasting my time.

- There was no way to go with the Ringmaster to make it

marquee.

I don't give a damn who was doing it.

There's nothing there.

And I said, "Man," I said, "this gimmick ain't worth a --."

And after six months or so, you know, Vince is kind of like, "F,

I don't care what he does.

If he's not happy and he wants to come up with another name,

let him."

And I was living in a log cabin on 10 acres right outside

of Georgia in Douglasville.

And I was over there in my-my log cabin, and I was drinking

some beer, and that's when they had that special on HBO about

Richard Kuklinski "The Ice Man".

Well, Richard Kuklinski was a hitman, you know, for the mob.

He's cold blooded.

He's remorseless.

I was glued to the set.

When you're sitting there watching and you got a couple

of beers flowing, and it's like, man,

this-this could be something.

And I pitched that, and, you know, that-that was when

all the ideas started flowing.

- That's a tricky situation where you're fairly

new in the company.

Mr. McMahon has agreed to give you a character change,

and you were given a list from creative.

The fact that I can rattle off more of Stone Cold's names

than the terrible names that I was given

speaks to just how bad they were.

- And I just gotten those three pages of names

like Fang McFrost.

- Snowman.

- Otto von Ruthless.

- Mr. Freeze.

- Ice Dagger.

- Ice Dagger.

- Cool Luke.

- Fang McFrost.

- Cool Cat.

- Chilly McFreeze.

- Chilly McFreeze.

Some of the worst names you could ever imagine.

- Even given everything else in the Austin package, if he's

Fang McFrost or Chilly McFreeze,

we're not having this interview right now.

- And my wife at the time made me a cup of hot tea,

and she goes, "Drink your tea before it gets stone cold."

And she looks at me, she goes, that's your name,

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

You know, I'm not a rocket scientist, but when she said

that name, I knew that was the one.

I said, "Okay, this-this is a good name."

And I wanted to be from Victoria, Texas, because, you

know, I just thought it had a good ring to it, a good sound,

but okay.

Now, who is this guy?

Who and what is "Stone Cold" Steve Austin?

I got me some black boots made.

I always thought black was badass, and menacing

from Darth Vader, Oakland Raiders type stuff,

and it fit my persona.

I remember one time we were in Pittsburgh and we were about

to work Mellon Arena, and there I was with that buzz haircut.

You know, I looked in the mirror and I said,

"Man, what are you doing?"

So I buzzed it all off with a razor and then that's when

I started messing with the mustache

and finally turned into a goatee.

So I started-- Once I got that goatee down, you know, that's

when things started getting a little bit more menacing

and picked up the visual that I needed.

- I believed in the character because the character

was a real person.

Steve totally embraced the presentation

of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

He loved it.

He owned it.

He created it.

He was bold enough to bet on himself and push, and push,

and push until McMahon almost threw his hands up and says,

"Okay, okay, let's go. Let's try it."

He just needs a chance.

Give him a reason to be a main event guy.

- 1995 to 1996, Stone Cold starting to find himself

as a character.

And then they had the 1996 King of the Ring tournament,

which would take place in June.

The King of the Ring is one night pay-per-view.

Wrestlers all go through this tournament, and the winner is

pretty much earmarked to be the next great star.

That's the message from the company.

We're going to try and push them, and promote them,

and move them up behind the scenes.

It had already been planned, Triple H was going to win

King of the Ring, but before that,

Triple H ended up punished for his role in something

called The Curtain Call.

- We did a big no, no in the wrestling business where all of

us came together in Madison Square Garden, myself, Triple H,

Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall.

We were expressing a real friendship out there that had

really nothing to do with whatever was going on in the WWE

at the time or from a storyline standpoint.

We were pulling the, uh, curtain back, uh, more so than anyone

wanted the curtain being put back.

It's very frowned upon

and Triple H got in a lot of trouble.

- Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It was already- It was already-- Vince had sat me down, talked to

me about it, "Here's where I wanna go, King of the Ring."

And then for me, that was the next level, right?

And, you know, that all went away.

- So in the pecking orders, you looked at it, you looked at who

needed that boost and who needed maybe just a nudge.

Steve was the guy.

- I'm walking in-in-in the building, dragging my suitcase

behind me, I hear this voice, it's Vince.

He goes, "Steve, I just wanna let you know in two weeks you're

winnning King of the Ring."

I was pretty happy because you know when you're winning the

King of the Ring, you're going to get a big shove after that.

And before, there were no future plans for me.

Go to, uh, Milwaukee's Mecca Arena.

And I go out there and I'm working with Mark Mero, and we

do this thing, we're having a match, and he kicks me

in my mouth and we finished a match.

I beat him.

My mouth was busted open pretty bad.

So they take me in an ambulance to the hospital.

And so I get stitched up, 14 stitches or whatever

in my upper lip.

And they bring me back because I'm gonna wrestle

Jake "The Snake" Roberts in the finals and I'm gonna beat Jake,

and become the King of the Ring.

When I come back, my mouth is stitched up and as soon as I get

out of ambulance, there's Michael Hayes.

- We're in the back of the Mecca Arena.

And he came out, he was going to the ring to go take on Jake.

I mean, literally going to the ring.

And I said, "Jake just cut a promo."

He says, "What did he say?"

And I said, you know, he just uses some Bible quotes and,

you know, that he was gonna win.

- My soul was purchased by the blood of the Lamb, brother.

So how can I lose if I just go out there and know the power

above is reaching down and lifting me up?

- And when he told me that, I immediately thought of the

football days back in the day when they're kicking

the field goals a point after,

they always had John 3:16 signs behind the field goal.

So anyway, we go out there and we have the match,

myself and Jake, and because my lip was busted up,

we had a real short match.

After the match, I go over there to do the interview

with Michael Hayes, who smartened me up.

You thump your Bible and you say your prayers,

and it didn't get you anywhere.

Talk about your Psalms.

Talk about John 3:16.

Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass.

- Austin 3:16 says, I just whipped your ass.

- Austin 3:16 says, I just whipped your ass.

- He said, I just whipped your ass.

- I just whipped your ass.

And thus a franchise was born.

- There was a vibe of like a rocket ship

igniting its engine to take off.

- That was the moment where the character really became a star.

That's the epicenter of the explosion

that eventually happens.

- I remember thinking halfway through this promo like,

I'm watching this guy get made.

And part of me was like, holy --, that should have been me.

But also, holy --, I wouldn't have cut that promo.

- But I think the stitches in his lip and coming back only

added to the aura of that interview.

- I just got back from the hospital, so I just kind of put

that together in my head.

And I didn't know what kind of holy -- moment that was,

but it was.

And then on the backside of it, I knew I needed to wrap it up.

I needed to put a button on it.

And that's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so.

And that's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so

was on the spot.

I went to bat twice, and I hit two grand slams out of- out

of an event I was never supposed to win.

Next night we showed up, all of a sudden, there's Austin 3:16

signs, and we realized there might be something here.

- Next night on Raw, you saw all these Austin 3:16 signs

all over the building.

- I remember thinking to myself at that time, man,

everything happens for a reason

because this guy is going to be massive now.

- One day, I'm talking to our merch guy

and I'm sitting in the arena.

He goes, "Steven, office finally wants to come up

with a t- shirt for you.

You got any ideas?"

I said, "You're goddamn right I do."

I said, "Put Austin 3:16 on the front, put a skull in the back

and carve in Stone Cold."

"Okay, Steven."

And sure enough, we came up with that shirt,

and it sold like a sumbitch.

- From that point on, when he got the chance to speak,

there was an intensity there that you couldn't help

but want to watch that segment.

The way he walked, the way he stalked opponents,

the way he looked at people.

He had that icy glare.

Because he was in the zone at that level, you couldn't help

but be like, "I got to see what he's going to do."

- Why do you keep asking me stupid questions?

No second thought, I'll whip your asses right now.

Shut up.

Stone Cold never gave a rat's ass about anybody.

I don't know what pressure is, fat boy.

Because I got a big bunch of bananas and I can tell you where

to stick each and every one of them.

You ain't worth the sweat off of my-

-brow.

My mom used to tell me, "Steven, if you were on TV,

I wouldn't let you watch you.

You're a piece of garbage.

- Oh, no.

- So you can take your camera and stick it, son.

I ain't leaving yet and you can stop counting me down because

I gone and told you once, son.

We got a damn problem.

- Hey.

Wait a minute.

- No more.

- That's a production assistant.

- He is now the guy in the eyes of the audience,

like he can do no wrong.

They wanna be part of that chaos.

They wanna be part of that energy.

They wanna go and experience "Stone Cold" Steve Austin,

the act live.

- And you really start feeling that momentum because you're

finally getting the desired response

that you want from these people.

So now, now that I'm-I'm getting that feedback,

I can feed it to you.

Throughout that period of time, I'm trying my hardest to

entertain you or grab your heartstrings to make you feel

what I'm feeling, channel that.

I'm doing my damnedest to try to affect you.

And I guess I was effective at making people feel emotions.

- That there's a perception that Steve just came out of nowhere,

that that's a misconception on a lot of people's parts

Stone Cold lived within and it took ten years to come out.

- Because if you look at that time period,

WWE is at its lowest point.

The only way they could have gone any lower is

going out of business or for the company to fall apart.

He dragged them into success.

Austin's ascension is tied intricately

to the ascension of WWE.

We're coming back to life.

The flame isn't dead.

By 1997, Stone Cold is the hottest he's ever been.

The company's building him as one of the biggest stars

in their company.

He's driving revenue.

He's selling merchandise.

He's making money.

- But up next, ladies and gentlemen,

the Intercontinental Championship matchup.

It's Owen Hart in a title defense against

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

- Me and Owen were going to have a hell of a match.

And we had had this plan where he'd end up hitting me with

a tombstone pile driver.

And I said, "You go down to your knees, right?"

Because I'm looking for clearance.

He goes, "No.

I go to my ass."

I said, "But seemed like you got to go down your knees."

He goes, "No."

And when Owen said this is how I do it, I trusted him because

he's Owen Hart.

And so anyway, we get out there and things go like they did.

And, man, when he goes to his ass, and my head is sticking out

about six inches below his ass.

And, boy, I got spiked on the mat, and it was not good.

- Let's see what Austin can do with-- No.

How about that

- A gutwrench. Tombstone.

Tombstone Piledriver.

Shades of The Undertaker.

- Yeah, it-it was gnarly.

You could tell immediately that Steve was, you know,

that he was injured.

- I'm afraid Austin is hurt.

- It sounded like someone hit a big gong and it was my skull,

you know, striking that damn ring dead center in the middle.

And then I didn't feel anything because I'm laying there

and I'm paralyzed.

And I was like, man, on one hand, I could have freaked out

and got scared, but instead I remained calm.

I was like, "Don't touch me.

I can't move."

And so, he starts buying time because I think I'm never going

to move again.

- As soon as he got injured, I called his wife up.

I said, "Did he really get hurt, or is this a show?"

She said, "No, he-he really got hurt."

It was 1997.

To this day, I-I-I cry about it every time I hear about it.

- I'm thinking, I got to get out of this match.

I got to get out of this match so we can go back.

And Earl Hebner is our referee in that match.

And I told Earl, I said, "Tell him, roll up for the win."

I thought I could start moving my arms and legs.

And when I tried to, if you go back and watch that, it's like

my knees are creaking to get in a crawl position.

And I can't crawl like this because my hands don't work.

So I had to crawl using my forearms.

And I give him the initial thing, and he goes with me,

and he doesn't try to fight it.

It's the worst roll up in the history of the business.

And, man, I am- I am gone.

I've been, you know, I'm quadriplegic for 60 seconds

and my world has been turned upside down.

The referees come to the ring and they--

Three of them help me up.

I got my arms around their shoulders, and I-I pull them off

because I wanna get up, and I wanna address that crowd

and hold up that belt.

And only reason I held up that belt was to signal to that crowd

that, "Hey, man, I'm cool."

And, man, when you look at that, my eyes are open,

but I'm worlds away.

The referees help me to the back and as I'm walking, this leg

is dragging behind me quite a bit because of my nerve damage.

- I watched Steve stand up on legs that he couldn't feel.

I don't know how in the hell still

that he was able to get up.

That's the will that supersedes what the body can do.

- Everybody thought I broke my neck.

I didn't break my neck.

I bruised my spinal cord.

I'm a pretty tough guy.

On that night, I was 1% tough and 99% lucky.

You know, and that's-that's why I get a little bit emotional

about it because if-if anything would have went any differently,

I'd have been in a wheelchair.

I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.

Nothing that ever happened after that would have happened.

Everything was on the line.

- Where's the ambulance?

Where's the ambulance team?

- Ambulance.

You want to just call 911 or what?

Get the medics.

- I was putting a pair of shorts on and I was sitting up there

against the wall, and I was like, well, I was shaking.

I kinda started crying a little bit because it scared me.

It scared me so bad.

- I think an injury of that magnitude makes us question

our own mortality, and that's not something

we're often faced with.

- And I remember I-I passed the test in the hospital,

but the doctor said, you know, "You're pretty --"

Initially, Dr. Torg said,

"Man, you're not getting back in a ring."

And it's easy for a doctor to sit there and tell me,

"Maybe you ought to think about doing something else."

But this is what Steve Austin has done for- does for a living.

I've done it for eight years.

Austin 3:16 started a year and a half ago,

and I ain't ready to give that up for nobody,

and no one's gonna run me out of wrestling.

And there ain't a doctor in the world that can make me quit.

It took me long enough to get to the top, and you get to the top,

and it's like, man, you're riding- you're riding

the lightning bolt and you're going 100 miles an hour.

Then all of a sudden, man, out of nowhere,

you come to a screeching halt.

- Here was his opportunity he worked so hard for

and like that could all be over.

- And after that bad injury, my anterior delts were on fire for,

like, a couple of weeks.

I mean, like, someone put icy hot on them.

It was the weirdest thing

and I didn't think it was ever going to stop.

And it turned into an itch.

And then finally it went away.

And like, when I took that piledriver back in the day,

when those refs are carrying me out,

you can watch my left leg kind of dragging behind me.

- It's hard to watch.

- So, like, if I get cold, you know, that-that leg

will kind of--

- Oh, wow.

- It just doesn't respond the same and, you know, just--

When you-when you-when you bruise your spinal cord

and bad stuff happens,

it just- it doesn't reverse.

So, um, I've got some atrophy and stuff like that.

Coming out of pro-wrestling business I asked the guys

that are 5 years older than me and 10 years older than me,

"Hey, man, how are you feeling?"

So I kinda know what's next, you know,

or what they're going through because I know

they've been through the same -- that I have.

I've never had any neck pain.

You know, everybody always thinks, "Hey, man,

Steve got dropped on his head and he got a fusion.

His neck's all jacked up."

Man, I feel good.

You know, every now and then, if I'm sitting around too long,

I'll get a little gimped up.

Just got to stretch it a little bit.

But I really can't complain about anything through

all the surgeries and just the wear and tear of the road

for-for what it's worth through all the stuff.

I feel good.

- To WWE's credit, Steve's credit, they managed to take

that injury and he became even bigger.

- It has been said that anything can happen here

in the World Wrestling Entertainment, but now more

than ever, truer words have never been spoken.

This is a conscious effort on our part to open the creative

envelope, so to speak, in order to entertain you

in a more contemporary manner.

- For me, the start of the attitude era was the day

in late 1997 when Mr. McMahon addressed the roster,

admitted that the old days were gone,

and that if we were going to succeed,

we would have to put our own personal emphasis

into these characters.

- The attitude era is a point in time in pro wrestling history

where WWE got a lot edgier.

It becomes violent, it becomes chaotic.

They pushed sexuality with women.

They pushed storylines that were blatantly over the top.

- Get that mic out of my face.

- Everybody felt this interesting shift that was

happening in wrestling and that seismic shift now was away from

the cartoon era, the superhero era, if you will,

in pro wrestling into an edgier, reality-based program.

- The attitude era was era of reality, the era of pushing

the limits as far as we could.

It's the golden era.

- The attitude era, a lot of it was blending

reality and fiction.

It was more real and more versions of ourselves,

just with the volume turned way up.

Suck it.

- I would imagine doing the suck it probably caused more

suspensions and detentions in school than any other thing

in the history of school in America.

- We saw the very best in what people had to offer.

- It's Austin.

- And Steve happened to have been the best of all of us

at bringing that to the plate.

He was in a different stratosphere.

- It was the era of holy --.

Steve's glass was the soundtrack to holy --.

[Stone Cold's music plays]

No matter what was happening, "Holy --."

Right?

Like, that was the moment.

I'm getting goosebumps right now talking about it.

[Stone Cold's music plays]

- Whether it's arena of-of 2,000 or 20,000 or 100,000, they know

when that glass breaks, there's a sumbitch coming out there

to deal out a can of whoop ass.

- When that glass broke, here he came with his whole head

bouncing, you know, and he's saying whatever he's saying

under his breath, and you just see that attitude.

- I remember the first time I heard that glass break and I saw

him walk down to the ring, it was the first time that I ever

got goosebumps in my entire life.

20,000, 40,000, 60,000 people were going absolutely insane.

I said, I wanna be like that guy.

In that moment I said, I need to be a pro wrestler.

- That was the walk of a guy who had been down the road, paid his

dues, learned the business, and got over despite what anybody

else thought about him, this guy's not marketable.

He's never gonna draw no money.

The company finally picked me

and that's the guy walking to the ring.

- The character of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin

was a very reality-based persona,

which is not what this industry was built on.

So, the whole attitude era that was ushered in was ushered

in as an extension of the personality that was brought out

by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

And that makes him, in many ways, the most pivotal

human being and character in pro wrestling history.

Now we have to go a little bit higher.

Now we have to go a little bit bigger.

- In this upcoming act, you'll see a more extended version

of the Vince-Steve rivalry and relationship.

And when Steve talks about the moment when that all started,

he really lights up because he got to physically

interact with his boss.

And for anybody, if you like your boss

or you don't like your boss, it still as appealing

and exciting to think about what it would be like.

But I think, two, it was the start of the biggest moment

of his career, his rivalry with Vince McMahon

transcended wrestling.

People would tune into wrestling to watch what's going to happen

with Steve and Vince.

- You can kiss my ass.

- And Steve looks back on that time fondly because it

worked out, and it was exactly what the WWE needed at the time.

And I think Steve is proud of that interaction.

And I think that when he looks back on those moments,

it's nothing but good memories because

of how successful the rivalry was.

- Welcome everyone to the world's most famous arena,

Madison Square Garden.

- Vince knew if I stunned his -- in Madison Square Garden,

people would go ballistic.

- What's the matter with you?

- At that time, I don't believe Steve had ever put his hands

on Vince and it was so taboo to put your hands on your boss.

- In other words, you simply--

You got to work within the system.

And I thought, wow,

this is really going to work and work big.

- If that's what it takes to make you

or the World Wrestling Entertainment happy,

I'll work within your stupid little system.

- I remember crowding around the monitor that night at the Garden

when Steve finally stunned Mr. McMahon.

- Oh, God.

Austin just stunned Mr. McMahon.

- You saw Steve being rebellious against everybody,

including the off-limits people, you know, Vince.

Oh, my God.

He touched Vince McMahon.

- Put him in jail.

Put him in jail right now.

- I thought it was premier, hokey as --.

but premier.

- Vince McMahon is out.

- The stunner in Madison Square Garden started it all because

we almost botched it.

I remember kicking him in the gut.

He'd bent over and I grabbed his head, and almost slipped out.

And we're going down.

I'm like, aw.

I won't say we nailed it, but we did it.

And so, the roof blew off the place.

- I thought Steve broke his larynx because Vince

went straight down.

Oh, my gosh.

All of us in the back were looking.

We're like, "Oh, my God."

Like, "Check on him," we sent the medical guys.

Literally, I thought he popped his larynx.

- Stone Cold just dropped the owner of WWE.

There ain't nobody safe when Steve Austin is in town.

- Vince went down like a piece of cooked spaghetti.

It was funny and, uh, quite enjoyable for a lot of laughs

for a few months after that with the boys.

- It's not like we went out and practiced it.

And his motor skills are a little bit different than one

of the boys who's in the ring every night.

We just assumed that he knew how to do it

because he's seen a bunch of them.

- I am the worst performer in the world in terms

of taking that stunner.

I still don't know how to do it.

- The worst person to ever take the stunner is Vince McMahon

because he's not a very coordinated person,

and he knows it just as well as I do.

- It was- it was ugly.

- Stunner, stunner.

Austin stuns McMahon.

- The worst I've ever seen.

- The fact that Vince took the worst stunner of all time

didn't even seem to matter

because everyone saw what they wanted to see.

They saw Steve stun the boss,

which is what everybody had wanted.

- Vince may have taken a bowling shoe, ugly stunner.

But of all the stunners that Steve delivered, the ones

to Mr. McMahon are, quite frankly,

arguably the most memorable.

- Stunner.

- Stunner.

- Vince McMahon just got stunned out of his shoes.

- It was entertaining to see Steve Austin

kick the crap out of Mr. McMahon.

- Why did he do that?

What for?

- Out of all the people that I gave a stunner to, I always

loved stunning Vince because of what it stood for, you know,

me stunning him, him being my boss,

and the evil things that he was trying to do to me.

- Stone Cold's success in the attitude era can be attributed

to many people.

But in order for your star hero to become successful,

he has to have real viable villains.

Vince McMahon was the greatest villain

in the attitude era bar none.

- Vince could show up in some way, take away like that thing

that you desperately wanted as a fan, and it drove me insane.

And that's why the attitude error was so popular,

was that Vince versus Stone Cold rivalry.

- Vince and I were tailor-made for each other to work together.

Vince was unique because he was the owner.

Now he's feuding with me.

It's a real storyline.

You can kiss my ass.

All of a sudden, it wasn't just about wrestling.

It was about this guy who is an employee against his boss,

and everybody's an employee that has a boss.

And a lot of times, the employee has not liked

what the boss has done or said to him.

- Screw you.

You're fired.

- Vince is crazy and he really is.

That stuff is not far from what Vince would do

as to what Mr. McMahon did.

- Mr. McMahon is a character no way in the world like-like me.

We'll start with that.

Um, but he's arrogant.

I am a handsome, affluent entrepreneur.

He's rich.

I said, black tie.

He can treat people like crap.

The thought of you, Austin, makes me physically ill,

makes me wanna vomit.

- Everyday people saw something of themselves in Steve, and they

saw Mr. McMahon as the system that was holding them down.

- Nobody, especially Vince McMahon,

tells Stone Cold Steve Austin what to do.

And that's the bottom line.

- It was the consummate working-class hero,

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin against the machine.

Steve was the rage against the machine.

- The Rattlesnake is here.

Oh, my God.

I don't believe this.

That's one of the Corvettes of Mr. McMahon's collections.

- That's a $50,000 car.

- At that time, everybody wanted to be Stone Cold Steve Austin.

He captured everybody's feelings perfectly.

- You are the world's dumbest son of a bitch.

Vince was like a kid in a candy store getting to work

with me because he always wanted to be a wrestler.

He finally got a chance to perform,

not just oversee and give instructions.

If you go back, man, you watch some of the blue jeans I wore,

some of the shorts I wore would get ringing tight.

I couldn't physically pick my leg up high enough.

Always the target is the gut.

But when you can't pick your leg up high enough,

right below the stomach is the testicles.

- He didn't know where those kicks were going.

We really- I had no idea.

He had no idea.

He was going to make contact with something

that was in front of him.

- So many times I kicked him right the jewels and he just go,

"God damn it, Steve."

- You know, if Steve kicks you in the Netherlands or something

like that, it's easy to sell that.

- We had to keep upping the game a little bit, so-

- Stone Cold!

- What could Stone Cold do to up the ante?

We had boards of stuff.

- What the hell can Steve do?

Something crazy.

I don't know.

Drive a Zamboni to the ring?

Seriously, that's how it happened.

- This Zamboni incident, we did Vince in the hospital.

- There you see, Mr. McMahon via satellite.

- I want apple juice.

- Oh, man, that was a great one.

So I go out there.

- How about you, Doctor?

- Oh, I'll take it from here, nurse.

And I said, "Man, I'm worried about hitting you

with that bed pan."

Because that was stainless steel bed pan.

Man, that sumbitch is hard.

He said, "God damn, Steve, you got to."

- And I'm watching Steve, and he's walking up

and down the hallway hospital.

And he's hitting his head with the damn bed pan.

- I was kinda just bouncing it.

When you hit people with objects for a living, you become

an expert at hitting people, you know, with objects for a living.

So when I swung it, boy, I just reached up and grabbed it,

and nailed him with it.

- It ain't ballet as the expression goes, you know.

- Help me please.

- This is going to hurt you a lot more than

this is going to hurt me.

[yelling]

- I love Vince.

The guy would do absolutely anything for me

and I would for him too.

- Again, every now and then, someone very special

would come along and um Steve is that guy.

- Man, there's a period there where everything we did

was a home run and a grand slam.

And if you had a double or triple, that was a bad day.

- At his peak, Steve was one of the most recognizable

faces in the world.

- Austin 3:16 shirts were now in Spencer's Gifts

and Hot Topic, and Walmart.

And you go in Foley's or Macy's and there's Austin 3:16.

It was everywhere.

- And of course, you know, he had one quarter

where he made a million dollars selling t-shirts.

- If you look at any sales chart Steve Austin's t-shirts

are still amongst the best sellers in WWE to this day.

- Well, it first hit me when me and my wife

went out to Las Vegas.

Every single person I saw walking the streets,

everybody has Steve Austin t-shirts on.

It's crazy.

- If you turned on the TV, all of the night shows.

- Please welcome, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

- It's good to be here.

- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for the block.

- Any show like that, he was on it.

Commercials.

- Can I get one more of those?

- Sure.

- Wrestling just came in like a tsunami.

- Thanks, Dan.

That helps.

- Sports Center wasn't embracing wrestling back then.

And I just remember this tidal wave of whether you're accepting

us or not, here we come.

I wasn't even a wrestling fan, but he was so big,

he crossed over into mainstream.

- We'd like to welcome back Stone Cold Steve Austin.

- He was bigger than wrestling.

People who aren't wrestling fans or don't care about wrestling

even they knew who Stone Cold was.

- When you crossover like that,

that's when you know you've made it.

- Hey, man.

- Nice to meet you too.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

When Austin 3:16 became so hot and everybody had heard about it

that we would be, you know, in an airport and I'd get

preachers, and-and priests, and religious people, you know,

They'd say, "Hey, man, is it okay if I get your autograph?"

And I said, "Sure."

I said, "I thought you'd be mad at me

for inventing the Austin 3:16 thing."

He said, "Oh, no, we don't care."

- Steve's legacy is one that kinda makes it hard

for us to be WWE Superstars.

His impact is felt in a way that none of us can kinda

compare to him.

You know, we certainly try, but there's always gonna be

somebody somewhere that's gonna say, "Pretty good.

Not Stone Cold, though."

[crowd cheers]

- When it was at its peak during the Attitude Era,

it was Mob City.

Uh, it's like The Beatles just landed.

It was amazing.

It sounds glamorous,

but you're choosing to be on the road a lot.

You have to love the business to put yourself through that.

That's where you really start evaluating your entire life.

- When you're going to an interview, one of the most

challenging parts of the interview besides the questions

is how do we make this interview look good and how do we make the

interview look true to the person that you're interviewing?

Steve had been posting a lot of Instagram posts about his car,

Blue.

It was a 1966 Chevrolet C10.

We got to his ranch and that car was prominently featured

when we pulled up.

So our DP, Tom McCallum, had the great idea of incorporating

that into the interview and I think the car to us,

it really represented where Steve kinda was in his life.

It was cool.

It was simple.

It was elegant.

It stood out, but it wasn't too flashy, and I think that car

just felt sort of like an extension of Steve at the time,

so we knew we wanted to-to make it prominent in the interview

because there is this odd connection that you could feel

between Steve and that car, and it just was natural that it was

a part of the interview look.

- Man, when you're running like I was a-at-at my peak, it's hard

to do anything other than be a pro-wrestler because it-it

consumes everything about you.

You are in go mode 24/7, 365.

You are a slave to the road and you never wanna come off

the road because if-if you come off the road, you get soft.

So I was never home.

That's a recipe for disaster.

It's all looks fun when you're seeing it on TV,

but it ain't always TV.

TV's a very small part of the life that you live

when you're doing that job.

- The pressure was immense for him and part of that was

I think because he had so much going on.

As the pressure's mounting around him work-wise,

he had a lot of pressures at home

and a lot of pressures with his family, and it's a lot.

It was a lot.

- And that's the thing about the business, you've got all

the personal problems that everybody else does.

I got two daughters.

Uh, Stephanie Britt's the oldest and Cassidy Skye's the youngest,

and I remember I came home.

I think it was Stephanie who was born.

I-I flew in.

I was in New York City.

We were working in New York.

It was the Garden.

Man, I flew home.

I was there f-for her birth and then as soon as she's born,

I held her.

I gave her like her first bottle.

I got on an airplane and I was in Pittsburgh that night-

-working.

- The truth is even guys that were married and had families

and things like that, they were more married to the road

and the business.

- To be successful in this industry, you have to be willing

to commit an enormous amount of time away from being home.

There's just no other way to do it.

It-it's an extremely difficult life.

It really is.

If you have a family, so difficult.

So difficult on everybody.

I think that's probably why there's such

a high rate of divorce and-and things of that nature.

- I tried to not bring up that stuff.

I knew what family life is like.

It's unsatisfying.

It's a source of consternation.

It's a source of crying children and heartbreak.

It's a source of unhappy spouses.

- It's not like you're making a conscious decision,

hey, I'm putting everybody else on the back burner,

but I decided to get a divorce.

You know, when you go through a divorce, they're chaotic.

So obviously, you're very distracted.

I was living in a house, but once I decided to get a divorce,

I moved literally about two, three miles down the road in an

old double wide and although I was going through the pain or

whatever goes with a divorce, when I moved in to that

double-wide, me and the double-wide, for some reason,

there's synergy.

I had two cinderblocks with a 1 x 12 plank where my, uh, TV was.

I had my cooler, you know, uh, full of beer.

It's too bad that the marriage didn't work out,

but I found comfort and solace in that double wide.

You can be in the business and you can still live a full life,

but everything else is kinda like white noise

that I'm putting all my chips in my own basket

and this is what I'm doing,

and that was the first and foremost priority was me.

Selfish I was and I was gonna ride myself and everything

that the business had to get to the top and do the best I could.

- There's a sacrifice to greatness and it's a price

that a lot of people are not willing to pay because

there is an intensity to it.

There is an obligation to your own vision and dreams that you

have to service at all costs over and above everyone else

in your life including yourself.

Your own self-interests take a back seat to your dreams

and aspirations of what you want to achieve.

He's had multiple marriages that fell apart.

He's had multiple friendships that will never be repaired,

but that's the price you pay to look back on a body of work

and have everyone else around you say, "He changed the game."

- Man, I-I am very demanding.

I was a professional wrestler.

It's what I live and died for.

- He took a lot of things personally.

He wanted everything to be perfect and he would always

want to be challenged with new information, and new creative.

You kept your star happy.

Keep your talent happy as best you can.

- If you don't build new stars,

you can't feed the superstars at the top.

So when Steve became the big star in the business, he knew he

needed a fresh rotation of brand-new stars to work with.

Mr. McMahon couldn't be that equal because once they got in

to the ring together, it wasn't a very good match.

It needed someone that you could honestly look at and say,

"This guy can measure up to 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin."

- If you smell what The Rock is cooking.

[crowd chants "Rocky"]

- If you build an opponent for Stone Cold, that opponent should

be on TV regularly and go six months without losing.

Start planting those seeds.

Can you imagine this guy's gonna be like

when he takes on Stone Cold someday?

- My first couple of years in the business, man, I watch this

guy, Steve Austin, ascend to the top and start to achieve this

incredible popularity and I would just quietly watch in the

shadows, study his behavior, and watch how he operated because

that was a position that I wanted to be in,

and I think he knew that.

- I just remember watching him starting to gain momentum,

starting to establish a relationship with the crowd.

He's starting to get over.

There's something here.

I-I-I need to watch this.

- And I remember him saying something to the effect

of there's something there, kid.

[laughs]

There's something there.

There was also this bond like he was a big brother in a way,

and then we knew that we were going to converge

and that we were going to work together.

And as far as where The Rock is concerned,

the greatest book ever written is the one titled,

The Rock versus "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

[crowd cheers]

- They were natural together.

They had great chemistry.

I think that Steve and Rock liked each other,

so that helped, and they both rode that wave.

- Rock, Stone Cold at WrestleMania.

- I loved the relationship of The Rock and Steve

because they are both very, very competitive.

They were always wondering how the other was feeling,

how the other was doing.

They never left each other's radar.

They pushed each other.

They made each other better.

- In the world of pro-wrestling, you can only control so much,

and after that, it becomes the intangible.

- Rock commandeering a camera.

- He can do it all.

- The Rattlesnake is up.

And the Stunner.

- And that intangible, what everybody searches for,

is chemistry.

I knew exactly what he was gonna do all the time.

He knew exactly what I was gonna do all the time.

That's just kinda the special thing that you just feel.

[crowd cheers]

- And it's like watching two comets fly through the sky

and hit each other.

It never happens.

- The Lou Thesz Press.

- I think it was the Apex.

I mean it was-it was really the peak.

And Steve Austin and The Rock were the two hottest stars

in the business.

- We were fighting for the exact same thing

and that was the number one top spot in the company

at a time where the company was on fire.

It's really rarefied air

and we were fighting for that rarefied air.

But it was outta so much love and so much respect.

- God, It was so fun to watch and privileged to see something

like that when you have these two big talents coming together.

- It's a new champion.

[crowd cheering]

- Man, that was a great ride.

[crowd cheering]

- Rock and I never rode the roads together.

He ran with a different crowd.

But whenever we see each other,

it's just like the last time we left off.

It's a friendship that is forever.

- That was a guy who looked at me and said, "You.

You and me we're gonna go and we're gonna go to the dance."

That decision to-to take me, if you will, under his wing,

it changed my life.

- Steve sacrificed so much for his success.

He sacrificed everything, family, friends, time to get

where he needed to go.

- I'm putting all my chips in my own basket

and this is what I'm doing.

And that was the first and foremost priority was me.

- And I think when at an older age when he's reflecting

on that, he thinks a little bit more about the sacrifices

and who that impacted.

- When I asked Steve about his daughters, he was much more

willing to talk about it than I thought he was.

- In the past, I haven't talked too much about them

and it's because of the strained relationship that it was

and me being gone all the time.

- And after the shoot he called me and he said,

"I'm really glad I got to talk about my daughters."

He said, "I-- I've wanted to do that for a while

and I'm glad that we talked about it

and, um, I'm glad that will be in the biography."

So I think it was therapeutic for Steve to finally talk

about his daughters out in the open.

I'm still curious what that relationship is like

and-and more, but I think it's a start to Steve talking

about that kind of stuff.

And it's also-- it shows where he's at in his life now,

willing to talk about certain things that he probably wasn't

willing to talk about when he was a little younger.

- Steve's gonna be the first one to tell you

that he's got just a core group of friends.

I mean, he is not gonna just be your best friend

just to be your best friend.

- They say it's lonely at the top

and I think Steve was pretty lonely.

- I ran with myself.

I was lone wolf.

My place was on top of that roster, on top of that card.

There's so much jealousy.

I really live the-the-the thing I came up with years ago,

DTA, don't trust anybody.

- DTA, don't trust anyone, makes for a good catchphrase.

I don't know if it's the best way to go through life,

but I think that is how Steve went through his life

at that time.

- The DTA, don't trust anyone thing, that wasn't Steve

playing a character, angry, bitter, paranoid,

like there was a lot of that.

Steve's a very private guy.

He just is.

He never really talked about his home life.

Every now and then he'd tell you something about his family,

but for the most part he-he kept all that stuff to himself.

- People have always asked me about my daughters.

In the past, I haven't talked too much about them

and it's because of the strained relationship that it was

and me being gone all the time.

I-I never won father of the year because I'm purely on the road.

If I'm gonna come home for my two days off every now and then,

I'm gonna cook some flank steaks on the grill and drink beer.

That's as much as I'm contributing.

I hate to say that, that's the way it was.

They knew that I loved them, but I wasn't there.

Back in 2001, uh, my wife took the kids over to England

to visit her side of the family.

9/11 happened and then that's when everybody was,

or at least she was afraid to fly.

They kind of stayed over there.

I was always gone anyway, so what's the big deal?

So they stayed over there, and they kept staying over there,

and, uh, as time went on, well, I called Stephanie just to talk

to them and when we started talking and she had a-a proper

London accent.

When I hung up the phone, I started crying like a baby.

Because she used to sound exactly like I do

[laugh]

for better for worse without the four-letter words.

She had my same accent.

And to hear her with an English accent, yeah, that shook me up

because I was like, "Okay, er, you-- you know what'd I do wrong

or could have done better?"

- That's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so.

- Now that they're older, we're on the way

to building better relationships.

So now they're pursuing their own things, I support them.

Uh, if I can give them any advice, I do.

Through all the BS that that has happened, we're talking now,

uh, the relationships, as strained as they were,

they're better now, but it's still a building block.

Because truly after all these years,

we still don't know each other as well as we should.

- That was the fustian bargain that he cut with himself

in order to myopically, obsessively go after the success

that he knew in his heart he could achieve.

- You have to get it while you can and then hope that you can

make up for all the other stuff that you put on the bottom shelf

while you went out and lived your dream.

There's a lot of casualties that come with that.

And you have to be willing to accept that

your window's really small.

For most guys, it-it really is a small window.

- He always felt like he was gonna lose his spot in line

if he was not on the road.

I can't be home.

I gotta be on the road with the rest of the guys.

Because somebody else is gonna have a great match,

they're gonna be noticed and I'm not.

The drive for that-- The lust for that,

he could never get away from.

- Anytime that someone is successful,

they have a hands-on approach.

Steve had a very hands-on approach when it came

to the presentation of what he was going to do.

Steve was very demanding, but Steve could be guilty of,

"This sucks."

"Okay, it sucks, Steve.

What do you wanna do to make it better?"

"I don't know.

God damn, you're a writer.

Write something."

Steve would get mad, throw it away and-and storm off.

- This was at a time when The Rock was kicking-- uh, breaking

Hollywood and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin needed a new equal.

- Steve would've been very easy to maintain and manage

if we'd always had a good opponent ready for him.

And why wouldn't you?

I think that's what led to a lot of Steve's frustration,

complaining about his opponents, you know,

complaining who he was working with.

He wasn't getting red hot villians.

Nobody's ready and nobody's been groomed for me.

The process had failed him.

When the creative stuff started going south a little bit, it had

a more profound effect on him than it would a lot of guys.

Because he felt like this foundation's starting to crack.

- And I was like, "Dude, what is going on here?"

When you've been trying so hard, so long to be that guy

and you get that chance, you ain't letting it go.

- I found out what creative had in mind

for Steve and Brock Lesnar, and I confirmed it with Vince.

"Oh, you're gonna work with Brock tonight

and you're gonna lose."

And it certainly was very premature

to try to have Steve and Brock wrestle with no buildup.

This is a match that can sell out indoor stadiums,

but there was no story there.

It was thrown together and-and it meant nothing.

- Jim Ross calls me with the creative for Monday Night Raw,

tells me, long story short,

that I'm doing a job for Brock Lesner.

I said, "Oh, really?"

I said, "Well, if that's gonna be the case,

I ain't gonna be there."

So sure enough, I woke up, I had two bloody Marys,

got on airplane and I was flying back to San Antonio

and I was mad.

It ain't about winning or losing.

I'll let anybody beat me as long as it's for a reason,

it means something, and there's money behind it.

And so I-I said, "No.

I ain't doing it."

And I went home.

It was over.

I was done.

And it cost me a lot of respect from my peers, a lot of money

and that's what I did.

And they-- As they said it, I took my ball and went home.

- Man, it felt like he kicked everybody in the cojones,

you know.

It felt like that all of a sudden, "Wait a minute.

What is wrong with him?

How is he thinking this way?"

- To his credit, Vince called me three times.

He left me a voice message each time.

I never called him back.

I-I didn't wanna talk to him on the phone.

I was still hot.

And for about six months, I was huntin fishin and drinkin

and not necessarily in that order

and making a lot of bad decisions.

You know, just time was going by.

Finally, I'm going through my mail,

there's a card from Jim Ross.

I didn't expect a card from Jim Ross.

"Hey man, just-just checking on you want to see if you're okay?

If you ever wanna talk, give me a call."

And I felt right then,

that that was my friend throwing me a lifeline.

I called him up.

It was back when they had those old Motorola flip phones.

I burned through two batteries talking to Jim.

- We did speak for hours.

Life, football, you know, booking,

marriage, relationships.

Boy, he really needed to talk.

- He goes, "Hey, man.

Do you think if I ever put you and the old man in the building,

you can hash this out and put it behind you

and come back to work?"

I said, "I'd love that."

He facilitated the meeting between myself and Vince.

And I'm thinking, "Man, we're either gonna fight or hug."

We started talking, we hashed it out.

I told him what I was thinking

and we got back on the same track.

And then, uh, shortly thereafter, I returned to work.

- It's good to see you.

Very good.

- When I did come back, I knew what I'd done.

So, I remember going up to basically the whole locker room.

Yeah, I apologized to a lot of guys and it was warranted.

[Stone Cold's music plays]

[crowd cheering]

- Well, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is back.

And I can guarantee you that I am going to raise more hell

in this ring than I've ever raised in my life.

- Steve is a very macho guy.

He's a very tough guy, so you don't expect a guy

like that to really open up.

And I think it was just a matter of him being in a place

in his life now where he's ready to talk

about some of those things.

Because he's at a point in his life where he is looking back

on his career and what that meant.

And I think there's a lot of self-exploration in that.

I think the part that stuck with me the most emotionally

was when he was talking about the end of his career.

Because he took himself into that moment with The Rock

and you could see sitting across from him in the chair,

I could see he was in that moment

when he was telling us about that.

- You know, just-just living right there for about

an hour ago, whatever it was,

he was asking some most things where

I get a chance to get transported back in time

and I start living some of those feelings back

and I start talking to you like I did, man, it's almost like,

uh- uh, cathartic or therapeutic for me.

- In a lot of ways, it was the end of a-a-a major part, if not

the most significant part of his entire life up to that point.

How do you walk away from something

that makes you who you are?

And so, when Steve talked about that,

he was there in that moment with The Rock mentally

even though he physically wasn't there.

And I think seeing that emotion from him and how much that meant

to him really stuck with me

and you could feel it sitting in the room with him.

That emotion just poured off of him.

And I think it affected everyone that was there that day.

- Oh, the Stone Cold Stunner.

- I came back for a few months.

But man, it's a hard-ass job.

I was backstage with Bruce Prichard one time

and I just kept having this nerve jump in my leg.

And it was just like everything in my nervous system was so shot

You know, the atrophy in-in my hands, the other things

that I was going through is,

like, finally starting to unwind me.

It's like, dude, when is your body going to give you enough

signals that you need to get your ass out of here?

- The feeling was basically that he had-he had pushed

the limits as far as he could.

And that it was time to--

He didn't want to push them anymore

and I think Steve just saw the writing on the wall.

- I-I can't imagine how agonizing it-it was for Steve

to make the decision that his career was over.

He had to resign himself to the fact

this is as far as the character goes.

- Now, the question that would then become who would he wrestle

and what will be the outcome?

Steve being an old school guy wanted to go out the right way.

He wanted it to be Rock, he owed it to Rock.

But he didn't want to distract from The Rock getting a win

by him saying this is his last match.

So, we kept that confidential,

which is the professional thing to do.

And it shows great love and respect for Dwayne.

- It's bigger than wrestling.

I just like The Rock.

And so, I didn't tell hardly anybody at all.

Obviously, Vince knew, Jim Ross knew.

And I told The Rock.

- When I found out that his last match was going to be with me,

I had really mixed emotions.

You know, we hugged and it makes me a little emotional now

because it is the ending of a career that has been

so influential on not only me,

but the world of wrestling that we love.

- It-It hurt to walk away.

It was-It was a real tough decision to make,

but I just figured it was the best decision for me.

- I think the days leading into WrestleMania 19

were miserable for him.

How am I going to do?

Am I gonna deliver?

What are the people are gonna say.

How do I look?

- Day before WrestleMania, I was at the gym.

This is at a time when I was drinking,

uh, about three bottles of wine a night,

two pots of coffee in the morning to get up

and a bunch of energy drinks to get you going.

Really dehydrated, man my feet kept jumping,

just nervous reactions.

I was, like, "Man, what is going on?"

And I-I was staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel there in Seattle.

And I went up to the floor that I was on.

As soon as I got out of the elevator, man,

my heart started beating out of my chest so hard and fast.

It scared the -- out of me.

And I was thinking, "Man, I'm dying."

I just got my number called.

I'm gone.

And there was a WWE employee named Liz DiFabio

coming down the hallway.

And I looked at her and she could see that I was as serious

as a heart attack.

No pun intended.

And I said, "Liz, I'm in trouble."

They take me down to the emergency room

and they'd put all these tests on me.

And they thought I had a pulmonary embolism.

They thought a-a bunch of things.

And the-the thing was that I was just basically dehydrated.

Drinking too much, uh, alcohol and way too much caffeine.

And finally, you know, it's-it's time to stop.

- So, Vince and I were there, he put too much on himself.

He worried too much.

He over thought the situation.

- So, I woke up next morning.

Doctor didn't want to discharge me.

He wouldn't clear me to wrestle, but I was going to wrestle.

And I was going to wrestle The Rock.

Get to the building.

- Mr. Austin.

- We walked around seeing everybody

going through the motions.

Hey, Mark.

- Hey, Steve.

- How Y'all doin?

If I talked to anybody or hardly said anything,

I was about to start crying.

And when you're making the decision to walk away from your

number one passion, that-- And what-- that you live for, man,

I'll make this go away.

So, I was like this all day long.

And then, of course, you know, we'd get ready for the match.

It's like, "Okay, man.

Let's go turn it on.

Rev it up."

You know, if your heart explodes.

[chuckles]

If I died in the ring, hey, man, what better place to go

than in Mania in the middle of the ring with The Rock?

So, you know, you-you can't plan a better death than that.

[crowd cheering]

- That's what we're here for, JR.

- The Rock said he was gonna confront

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

[crowd cheering]

- I take it all in.

I feel everything.

And I sense everything, the smell, the feel, the love,

the tone of that building.

[crowd cheering]

[bell rings]

- It ain't about nothing but a wrestling match between

two of the greatest that have ever been in the ring.

Oh, that's a clothesline.

And The Rock, is he gonna do it?

- Big one.

- Rock Bottom.

A third Rock Bottom.

A hook of the leg.

[bell rings]

- And The Rock's done it.

- When that three-count hit, it was like,

[exhales]

I was just laying there.

It's like someone lifting 1,000 pounds of bricks off my back.

Damn near 70,000 people in that building, couple million

watching on pay-per-view.

- We're both laying in the middle of the ring.

And I sat up and I remember I pushed the referee,

Earl Hebner, away.

- He knew that I was going.

He knew that I didn't want to go and this was a hard decision

for me to make.

- I lowered my head down to Steve's, uh, ear and I said,

"I can't thank you enough for everything that you have done."

And then I said, "I love you."

- I remember just laying there in front of 70,000 men and said,

"Man, I love you, too."

[chuckles]

I told him I loved him.

Verbatim, I said, "I love you, too."

Two big-ass tough-ass guys telling each other

that they loved the other one in front of millions of people.

- I felt like that was a time to tell Steve because there is no

other moment in our world where we are as raw and open

and vulnerable than in that moment right there.

When the one, two three happens, it's just two men who have gone

on this incredible journey.

You know, I have goosebumps now thinking about it.

It's-- That was the moment to say, "Man, I love you

and I can't thank you enough."

- What makes Steve's career different than most others is

just how hot he got, how fast he got hot, and how short of a time

he had to enjoy it.

- I was seeing the end as something

that will never be replicated.

Seeing the end of a moment in a pop culture genre

that will never be reproduced.

- Now I can go enjoy the life that I have in front of me.

- You know, retirement always sounds good and then there I was

and I was doing nothing and I was going crazy.

Straight up.

I-- Man, I hit the bottle pretty hard.

- I do know that he was a bit lost after, you know, having to

leave the business, trying to re-define himself

and see what is life after wrestling.

He had three years that he talked about how he was just

drinking and eating and just a little bit depressed.

- I'll tell you this true story.

I woke up one morning, I was looking right at myself

in the mirror, I said, "Dude, the things that you are doing

are not conducive to living a long life.

You better straighten your ass up."

It took me three years of being a -- up

to come to my senses

to say, "You know what?

You had to quit the business.

You ain't doing nothing now.

You better get your ass out to LA and try to capitalize on,

at least, you know, some part of the name that you spent so long

trying to build up."

Look at me, you piece of trash.

I heard you've been running around saying you could take me

in a fight.

- I didn't say that.

- Let's get busy Hollywood.

And initially I came out to California to get into acting.

I quickly realized that I didn't really want to do that.

And when I found hosting and reality television type stuff,

that's when I knew I'd kind of found my niche.

I'm "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Jerry "The King" Lawler,

my next guest on Broken Skull Sessions, check it out.

And that's the bottom line because I said so.

- Great.

- And so I started podcasting and the reason I started

was just keep in touch with people.

I guess it was just all built on the-the history

of what I put forth inside the squared circle.

- He's got, uh, podcasts that he does.

He's got TV shows he hosts.

I would say the biggest difference between

the Stone Cold we see now and the Stone Cold we saw back then,

he doesn't have the pressure.

- I'm a civilian now.

It took me a while to turn into a civilian,

but I'm- I'm a civilian now.

My problem is, man, I'm Type A personality,

so I'm always in a hurry.

I'm in a hurry when I don't have anything to do.

This is Brownie, our chocolate lab we rescued

about three weeks ago.

These are my, uh, Kawasaki KRX 1000s.

This is my Corvette and this is KLX 450.

This truck right here is a 1966 Chevy C10.

I'm not a wrestler anymore.

I had a good time doing it, but at the end of the day

now it's about life.

- When you step through the curtain, you're in front

of the paying customer and that's where you gotta be

the person they perceive you to be on television.

[crowd cheering]

And you're-you're that person, from the first step through

the curtain, until the last step back through the curtain.

You're a performer out there.

- Talk about your Psalms.

Talk about John 3:16.

Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass.

- Austin did it.

Austin did it.

- Nobody tells "Stone Cold" Steve Austin what to do.

And that's that's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so.

- When you come back through the curtain, you're a human being.

And those human beings are worried that moment when I'm

they step back through that curtain, "Was I good?

Did they like me?

Did I do all I can do?

Did I maximize my minutes?"

Coming back through is where the rubber meets the road.

That curtain is a big thing.

And how you navigate the curtain and how you react on both sides

of it largely spells your success

in the pro wrestling business.

- Look, I got placed in a real good situation, and I got a

chance to have a lot of fun doing something I love.

But like I still feel like I'm sitting here in this damn chair

and I'm still Steve, the dude from Edna.

In my mind and in my eyes, that's me.

That's all I can say.

- So now that you've seen the full biography,

I think it's important to hear the story

of when I first met Steve, and I went in with all these

preconceived notion of who "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is.

I was watching clips of him in the ring.

I was reminiscing on my childhood as to what

I remembered with this guy who'd go around and beat up everyone

that got in his face and gave everyone the finger

and chuck beer at them and all this stuff.

So I was intimidated.

I thought I was gonna go into his house and meet Stone Cold.

Because everyone said he's authentic,

and all I had seen was this guy who was really aggressive

and I'm not an aggressive person.

So I was intimidated.

And I walked in his house.

It was the day before we were shooting.

I wanted to meet him with no cameras around

and he was getting ready for his podcast

and I was just observing what I had seen.

I was typing really loudly, which he said was annoying him.

And he threw me out of his house within an hour of meeting him.

And so I thought, "Okay, that matches up.

I just met Stone Cold.

He threw me out of his house."

So I didn't know what to do to get back in his good graces.

I knew that he liked tequila and I do too.

So I bought a bottle of tequila, I went back to his house

the next day and I said, "Why'd you throw me outta your house?

I didn't even do anything."

And I think that he was surprised by that reaction,

especially coming from me.

And so immediately I saw a wall come down and we drank a little

bit together and we got to know each other a little more.

And from that point on, he was really warm and friendly

and kind to me.

And I think that it flipped the preconceived idea of Stone Cold

that I had in my head.

He actually had the ability to be a really nice, genuine,

comforting guy.

I was excited that that was the case

because it made the biography more fun,

but it also showed just his emotional depth

and where he can go if he wants to go there.

I think the biggest takeaway from this doc is what success

can look like.

I think people have this image of success in their head of,

when you get to the top, everything is great.

I think this doc shows there's many versions of success,

and Steve's version of success is singularly focused

at all costs no matter what.

That's a way to get to the top, but just be cautious

of what that can do and what being at the top

actually looks like and feels like.

He made the ultimate sacrifices, which was family, his time,

his health, and he was willing to put all of that to the side

in order to-to march his way to the top.

And I think that's a version of success that's interesting

to look at.

And that was the biggest takeaway

I had from watching the doc.

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