WWE legend Stone Cold Steve Austin often talks about some very interesting things whenever he appears on podcasts and it was no different when he recently went to Paul Mercurio's 2 Chairs And A Microphone podcast. He spoke about things that must have intrigued wrestling fans for years and makes for a very interesting listen.
He spoke about his early days when he was far away from the larger than life Stone Cold persona and was only known as Steve Austin. "My progression was a guy in long tights with long blonde hair, clean-shaven face, an okay looking guy. And that would evolve into the black trunks and the leg braces because of the knee injuries, the bald head and the goatee, a total ass kicker, so I morphed through my stages until I ended up with the winning thing." He also touched upon one of the most controversial events in his career when he spoke about his 1995 firing from the WCW by Eric Bischoff and he maintains that he has no hard feelings about the whole thing. "Do I hold any animosity towards Bischoff or anything like that? Getting fired was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but Paul E. helped me harness all that energy and my competitive drive as an athlete and a performer and just focused all of that into one promo."
Perhaps the most interesting bit from the whole podcast was Stone Cold's portrayal of an on the move wrestler and the female adulation that went with it. "Starting out on the road, I'm hanging out with guys who have been in the business 10, 15 years and we make our first stop, and, all of a sudden, all these women show up that are following the wrestling show from town to town or different towns have their different ones. I was like, 'what in the hell is going on?' because I was always in a relationship with my girlfriend or whatever. This was totally new to me and it wasn't like I had a tremendous game either. I mean, I just always did my deal and did good, but it wasn't like I had to go out there and be Laurence Olivier, dropping some smooth rap on somebody. But we get on the road and all that stuff happens. The higher up you are on that card, the stakes increase. The quality gets better."
[Quotes from wrestlinginc.com]
