WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin appeared on the PWTorch Livecast “Interview Thursday”, and the following are some highlights:
Regarding frivolity in WWE content:
“A little bit here and there, but in your top angles, man, I see a hard time drawing money at the arenas with that.”
James Ellsworth:
“Now, I give props to the kid. he’s doing his job and he’s doing a good job of it. It’s interesting… I like what they’re doing. Monday Night Raw or Smackdown, credit to the James Ellsworth guy, he’s doing a great job, but I’m all about the serious stuff.”
His preferred style of wrestling:
“I go back to the old school days of that Attitude Era stuff. Everybody knows when I speak of the Attitude Era, my favorite stuff is of the mid-’80s, all that NWA stuff, the World Class stuff, the stuff that Bill Watts was doing. The AWA was kind of starting to get on a little bit of a decline at that point and the WWF was still slipping on banana peels. That’s my favorite stuff.”
His history of doing comedy:
“Wrestling is a very serious subject for me. Yes, people would sit out there and say, ‘You did a lot of comedy, Steve.’ Well, yeah, I did. I had three broke bones in my back. I had to do something to be an entertainer, so I went out and did what I did. I had to push the envelope creatively. Still at the end of the day, I took what I did very seriously. Not to beat a dead horse. This isn’t an indictment of Steve Austin onto the company. They’re following their vision, their path.”
“I think it’s basically the simplicity of the show. I mean, you’ve got these angles that are wrestling-based, announcers staying within the system. They’re not talking about anything going on in pop culture. If you go back several months, Corey [Graves] made the comment that Bobby Roode had flown because he wanted to spend the least amount of time in Manhattan as possible. So just sticking within those parameters, the announcing I think is a little better on the NXT front right now. Just the action in the ring, it’s a better look, it’s dimmed down a little bit, it’s not too dark – I thought Lucha Underground was too dark this year from a visual standpoint. I like the production values. I like their entrance music. I like what they’re doing in the ring. Of course, they’ve got one of my favorite tag team in The Revival.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
