Stone Cold Steve Austin never shies away from speaking his mind when it comes to the world of professional wrestling.
WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin recently sat down with Alfred Konuwa of Forbes to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about what he does and doesn’t like in professional wrestling today, Austin gave a very honest answer.
“The performance level has sped up so much, and the guys and gals are doing so much incredible stuff. It’s absolutely unbelievable,” Steve Austin said. “It’s kinda like—being such a big football fan—I was just watching clips of Mean Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I used to be a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan. And you watch those greats from back then into what the guys are doing now, and the guys now are just so much quicker, faster. Of course everything is. The camera’s better.
“These days, even though if I look at Attitude Era stuff, I look like I’m in slow motion watching what these superstars today are doing with better cameras and just better athletes. I really enjoy some of the sequences that they’re able to do. But then that also takes me back to one of the things that I don’t like is sometimes I think there’s too much being done.
“It’s kind of like a double-edged sword, which one do you want? And on one hand, I respect all the athleticism, but sometimes I think it’s too much. But at the end of the day, everything evolves and gets kind of faster it seems. And I love the product, I love reality based storylines and I think the men and women that are participating in it today are much better athletes. There’s been better athletes decades ago, but I really think there’s some really great work being done in the ring right now.”
When asked to name his Mount Rushmore of personal wrestling moments, Austin gave some responses that really helped shape him as a performer.
“Man, I would’ve to go to the match part of it, like working with Bret the Hitman Hart, who put me on the map with Survivor Series and [WrestleMania] 13,” Steve Austin said. “Working with the Rock. Anytime we laced them up, he brought out the best in me and I brought the best in him. Those three WrestleManias we had were some of the greatest moments that I really enjoyed.
“All those Vince moments, driving all those vehicles. But if I really dig back into the stuff that I really loved, it was some of those matches. Like at the Los Angeles Forum working 30-minute Broadways with Ricky “the Dragon” Steamboat with no cameras there, and a house that was only a quarter-full. But it was the work, and it was some of those old buildings in the USWA when I was learning and I was still green as grass.
“Those are the things that I really remember; the learning periods and spending life on the road and getting into an industry where you truly had to take care of yourself and no one was gonna help you. And if you were lucky, one of those veterans—and a lot of them did—took me under their wing, under their learning tree and told me ‘hey man, this is what you need to do and you only have so many bumps in your body, so choose them wisely.’ The advice that I was given, those types of things that are the things that really matter to me.”
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What do you make of Steve Austin’s comments? Do you agree with his takes on the current state of pro wrestling? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
