AEW announcer and Senior Advisor "Good Ole' J.R." Jim Ross recently took to his "Grilling Jr" podcast to discuss a number of topics, including WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold's neck injury from an Owen Hart piledriver at the 1997 WWE SummerSlam Event and his reaction following the injury.
Jim Ross said:
“That was so scary that night there in the Meadowlands. All the signs led to bad news – losing feeling and all these things, the delicateness of the neck and how that affects everybody. You can’t take a flatback bump well because of the sensitivities of the injury. So, it was a scary ass night, I can promise you. Steve was so despondent because I truly believe in his heart that his run was over. It was almost like cruel irony. Here’s a guy that worked all his life to get to WWE and get his break, he made it happen, and then all of a sudden, it looks like it was over. That was a very emotional night, to say the least. A lot of late-night phone calls and follow-up with the doctor and things like that, and trying to talk Steve off the ledge, so to speak. As he should be, he was looking at multi-million dollars of money out there floating around that he was gonna earn, and it was just one of those deals.”
Jim Ross also spoke about how WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin insisted to be on WWE TV even after the injury as he was hell-bent on keeping his presence alive on television.
Jim Ross said:
“He was hell-bent to do whatever it took to keep his presence on television alive, and quite frankly, as fun as it was to call Austin’s matches and I called a ton of them obviously during that period of time when he was hottest, we didn’t use our best judgment there. Steve insisted that he be on television. It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ There’s no talking about it. ‘I’ll be there Monday, and we’ll do whatever I gotta do.’ The fans, as I started to say, how much they loved watching Austin wrestle – they just wanted to see him. They wanted to hear him and his swagger and bravado and all that stuff. People lived vicariously through that. Getting Steve on television, it was good in a sense that it helped Steve and it helped the show and it helped the ratings, but it probably wasn’t the smartest thing we could’ve done. In hindsight, he should’ve taken some more time off, but he was insistent. It wasn’t an option, ‘I’m going to work, and I’m gonna entertain these people. I’m not gonna lose my spot.’”
You can check out Jim Ross' comments in the video below. H/T to 411Mania for transcribing the above quotes.
