WWE Hall of Famer "Stone Cold" Steve Austin sat down with Chris Van Vliet for an interview recently. One of the topics on his legendary storyline with then WWE CEO Vince McMahon that skyrocketed WWE through the Attitude Era. Below are the highlights:
How he ended up working a program with Vince McMahon
“I don’t remember. I just remember he was interviewing me one time. He was talking about whoever was the President at the time. But I said on the interview, I said, everybody knows you’re the boss, Vince. And I think maybe that was when he woke up and said, Hey, let’s do this. I don’t know. He was the mastermind. I don’t know what he’s doing now, but that was a feud that transcended the wrestling business. And even if you didn’t, even if you weren’t a wrestling fan, per se, you were interested in being entertained. So you put on to see what this motherf*cker from South Texas is terrorizing his boss from New York City. Of course, Vince is from North Carolina, but you know, he’s the guy with all the money, and here’s this guy that he’s trying to give a hard time to and make everything hard for him. He’s outsmarting him, and he’s kicking his ass. At some point in anybody’s life, they’d like to punch their boss in the mouth. When it was time for me to get mine in, I did. When it was time for Vince to get that heat back, he did, to keep feathering the storyline. So it was just, you know, master at creating a storyline and feuding with him as long as we did, and really, it never became boring.”
His reaction to Vince's dedication to the storyline
“I’ve always said that Vince will go to any length to further any angle. And obviously, considering himself, he wants to be the leader of the pack and the king of the mountain. So he’ll do anything, sacrificing himself as part of it. I loved it, we were the perfect rivals.”
Who took the worst Stone Cold Stunner?
“Easily Vince is the worst.”
Worse than Linda?
“Well, because there’s multiple occasions with Vince where, Jesus, you can screw one up. Of course, me and Linda, she was like a second mom to me. I didn’t see her often, but when she was there, she was just so nice to me, and we would always have great conversations. So I felt bad that that one didn’t turn out good. But Vince had so many opportunities, and they were always so awful, especially the one at WrestleMania [where I wrestled] Kevin Owens, it was just terrible. So I had to start laughing, because you got to let everybody know that, hey, that’s really bad. Rock took a good one. Scott Hall took a good one. A bunch of people. There’s so many, I can’t list them all.”
