On a recent edition of the Stone Cold Podcast, Steve Austin talked openly with Raven about his 2002 WWE walkout
On learning about the match: “Back in the day, I was drinking a lot of whiskey, and then [Ross] laid out the finish for me and I was laying in the hotel room. I said, ‘if that’s creative, I ain’t going to be there’ and he told me to call Vince [McMahon]. I said to him, ‘so that’s what we’re doing, huh?’ and he goes, ‘yep’. And I was thinking [he would say], ‘well, yeah, unless you don’t like it, Steve’ and he didn’t say that, so I’m just like, ‘oh really? Okay, then F- you!’ and that’s when I took my ball and went home and that big smear campaign started.”
On if he was difficult to work with: “I was always a reasonable guy. I was always going to put a guy over when it was time to, but if I didn’t like the finish, I would say, ‘no, F- that. We’re not doing it’, and I’d leave the room. I would never offer a solution, and so, sometimes, I was a little bit hard to work with from that respect,” Austin said. “The fact that I couldn’t dispute the finish was a valid point, but I didn’t dispute it. I just said, ‘F- you.’ I didn’t even say that. I kayfabed [McMahon]. I said I was going home. It was a walkout.”
On his problems with WWE creative: “Sometimes the finishes were just so ludicrous it was unbelievable. Some of the times I was so amazed with the things they wanted to come up with. I was like, ‘are you kidding me? I mean, come on, man!’ I knew Brock was money back in the day when I first met him! And me and the guy are friends! We’ve always been friends! But it’s like, that wasn’t a good business decision!”
On wishing he could have handled the situation better: “I handled it in the worst way I could by saying that’s when I effectively quit and I was gone for six or eight months or whatever it was. But, hell, it was basically career suicide for almost anybody! I lost a lot of money. The company lost a lot of money. It was just a bad part of my life that I handled in a horrible fashion. I blew that one and it was on me.”
