WWE Hall of Famer and one of the all-time greats in pro wrestling, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, has spoken about his in-ring retirement and the struggles that followed.
The biggest star of The Attitude Era and one of the biggest stars in the history of the industry, Austin was a major factor in WWE’s boom in popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s, mostly in part to the Austin vs. McMahon storyline and his rivalry with The Rock.
In 2003, Austin faced The Rock one final time at WrestleMania 19. While it was not announced at the time, this turned out to be Austin’s final match for 19 years as years of bumps and physicality had caught up with The Texas Rattlesnake. While Austin would make sporadic appearances on TV, the Hall of Famer remained out of action until his comeback match against Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38.
Appearing on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s podcast DJD Classics, Austin opened up about the decision to step away from the ring at that point, and the neurological issues that played a factor:
“I had to pull the plug on myself. When I got dropped on my head, I bruised my spinal cord. There’s a lot of neurological issues that I still deal with. It just got to a point where I was running hard on a personal level, and then beat to shreds because I wasn’t taking any time off. It’s a hard life.”
The injury Austin referred to took place at SummerSlam 1997, which saw the Hall of Famer dropped on his head by Owen Hart after a Piledriver went wrong. Speaking about the incident, Austin spoke about the fear of that night:
“When I got out I didn’t really have an exit strategy. I had such a hard time dealing with being out of the business. I got piledrived on my head, and for 60 seconds I was a quadrapolegic. When you’re laying there in the middle of the ring in front of 20,000 people, you are live on PPV and you can’t move, it scares the sh*t out of you.”
Continuing, Austin then spoke about his time following retirement, admitting that he struggled to find a purpose now that his in-ring career had come to an end:
“Retirement sounds like the holy grail. You work your ass off cause that’s what we’re here to do, and then you enjoy retirement. Hell, I retired when I was 38, you know how much money I left on the table? Not just about the money, it’s about the good times, being with the boys, travelling down the road, getting that adrenaline rush, that’s what I lived and breathed. So I didn’t handle it well. For about 3 years, I drank, I hunted, and I fished, did a lot of stupid stuff. One day I went to the bathroom and just looked at myself in the mirror, true story. I didn’t say this out loud but I thought ‘Dude, the things you’re doing are not conducive to living a long life. You need to slow your ass down.”
When Steve Austin Became More Comfortable With Retirement
Although Austin was a forklift driver before pursuing pro wrestling, the former World Champion admitted that it was not a career he could go back to after being the number one wrestler in the world. Unsure of what was next, Austin connected with fellow Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page, which led to small-budget movies and being reconnected with WWE as part of the Tough Enough reboot, at which point he was much more comfortable being a non-active performer:
“I said ‘You better get down to Los Angeles, and try to do something in the entertainment business. I packed up, and moved in with DDP in LA. Wasted about a year out there, but we bounced around and made a few little movies, low budget. I got the chance to host Tough Enough with WWE. I loved it. When I first retired, I had to be away from the business, I couldn’t watch it. If I can’t be the main guy, I don’t want to be any guy, anywhere around. All those years later, 2009 or 2011, I had been away long enough that the wounds had healed.”
Austin’s last WWE appearance was notable for the wrong reasons as he crashed his ATV into the barricade while making his entrance at WrestleMania 41. Following the show, a bizarre Steve Austin pitch was revealed.
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