The Dale Jr. Download - DJD Classics: WWE's Biggest Personality - 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

We kick off our offseason run of DJD Classics with a throwback to 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's visit to the studio back in 2019. Hear from the WWE legend on how he became infatuated with wrestling as a young kid, and all the twists his career took along the way before becoming a 3-time Royal Rumble winner! Steve shares what motivated his iconic performances inside the ring and how he handled the adjustment to retirement. Crack open a cold one, cause this DJD Classic is one you won't want to end!  And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty-O Media. Hey, let's rewind a DJD classic. Enjoy. Okay, we got Stones Cold, Steve Austin in the house. I'm excited about this. We've met before, but it's always been at a racetrack. You've been brought in to give the command, wave the green flag, things like that.

We've never really been able to sit down. But you've got a TV show. Tell fans a little bit about that real quick. Man, we're just traveling around different parts of America and just roll up on different people. I find interesting, you being one of them. And so we kind of do some activities, have some conversation, it's a good time. And it kind of puts me back out on the road.

You know, I retired from a wrestling business in 2003, and I did a little bit of acting. I don't really care to act. I don't like to remember anything. So we come up with this show, and I've been podcasted for about five or six years. But to get back on the road, it's kind of the fun part. And so I think the show is going to premiere sometime in summer, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to, you know, talking with you. Yeah, I've seen some good clips of the show.

Basically, just hanging out talking, having great conversation with people. And so I'm looking forward to doing that later today. But this morning, you've been kind enough to come out here and join us on our podcast. We got a lot of questions for you. You said that you got your own podcast. How you enjoy doing the podcast yourself? You know what? I wanted to get in the podcast business about a year before I did.

But, man, I'm the worst at technology. So I didn't know, you know what to do. So podcast one called my agents up and my agent's comment said, hey man, podcast one called and asked if you want to do a podcast. I said, hell yeah, I do. So we started that thing up. And I started with just doing one show a week. And then it hit real good.

So we started doing two. So I've really enjoyed it because, you know, when you get away from kind of the global entity that WWE is, you know, it's a worldwide platform. And all of a sudden you go from that to nothing. And so if I've got something I want to talk about, push, this, that, or whatever, or some awareness, you've got to have a voice. And so, you know, I might as well be standing on the corner with a megaphone.

You know, now with the podcast, it's not the same size as WWE, but it's that platform. Yeah. So I love it. And, you know, I run two shows. I run a family-friendly show. And, man, I love to salt and pepper my language with four-letter words. So I run an explicit content show as well. Wow.

That's kind of my go-to. That's my favorite one. And I've been on a break for about three or four months. I had to get some things taken care of. But I really enjoy it, and I kind of stay a little bit wrestling-centric, but I like talk to people from all walks of life. You gave me this hat when you came in, Broken Skull Ranch. What is Broken Skull Ranch?

Broken Skull Ranch. I sold that place about three years ago, man. Oh, you did? I didn't know that. I didn't either. That ranch was my pride and joy. It was always my goal to own a ranch in South Texas, deer hunting and stuff like that because that's the way we grew up.

And finally, I said, I meant it's time to buy a place, and I found 2,000 acres down there in South Texas. Texas and a part of Texas known as a Golden Triangle. And it's called a Golden Triangle because everything that grows within the specific region is very high in protein. And that's the brush country. And everything that grows out there will cut you,

sticky or hurt you, but it's high protein for the deer. So if you've got genetics and you give them some time, you can grow some big ass deer. And once I shut the gate, I love people. And I performed in front of people, you know,

my whole career, but also left my own devices, man, I'm a hermit. So me and my wife go down there with our dogs and I don't see another human being for a couple of months. It was a good time. And finally, it just got to be where it was just too much work.

It was 1,500 miles down there and 1,500 miles back. And there's always work on each end to be done. And I maintain that place like a state park. And when the old field came in, that kind of changed things a little bit because I was a surface owner. And so if you got minerals, that means you can come in on my property and use my surface to get your minerals. And once the oilfield happened, I just kind of lost.

interest in it and I said hey it's time to get out and so we bought a place in Nevada around Reno which is a thousand miles closer so I'm able to get there more often to enjoy the great outdoors and with Nevada being such you know 90% of Nevada is public land so I get out of my side by side my foe wheelers and I can ride anywhere I want and I love that you talked about Texas you're from Texas what part born in Austin Texas is it Austin has a lot of different low you know sort of boroughs in there. What was the particular area, though?

I cannot remember because my dad, I think he was changing tires at a, or running a tire store. Yeah. And something went wrong, and my mom and dad split up. Oh. My mom went down to Victoria, Texas. Victoria. Yes, sir. Well, I say that because my wife is from Victoria, and a lot of people in Victoria claim you.

Oh, yeah. Oh, and I claim Victoria. Right on. So it's true. Oh, absolutely. I was born in Austin, but when my mom had to get out of there, She went down to Victoria, and that's where she met my stepdad, Ken Williams. Yeah.

And we live her for a couple of years, and my dad was selling the insurance. And then finally, we moved 25 miles up the road to a little town called Edna by 5,000 people. And that's where we all started school. But I was in Victoria for a couple of years. And as a matter of fact, when I came up with the Stone Cold Steve Austin, moniker, because when I came into WWE, they wouldn't call me a ringmaster. They didn't have any designs on making me a worldwide superstar, right? And so after about six months of that, I said, hey, man, I need to come up with this different name.

And I came up, we came up with a Stone Cold thing. And I said, you know, I got to be from some place that's got a cool ring to it. And I couldn't be Steve Austin, from Austin, Texas, because that's redundant. Yeah. And everybody always wants to be from a big city, right? You know, Los Angeles, California, or Las Vegas, or something that was some pizzazz to it. I said, man, I said, man, I'm from a small town. I love the way Victoria, Texas sounds.

It's got a ring to it. it, you remember it. You might not know where it is, but you'll look on a map and try to find it. And I actually live there. And our old address was 404 Roads Road. The people living there, you know, right now probably mad at me for saying that. A little bitty ass house. And yeah, I cut my teeth there in Victoria. What'd you do in Texas growing up? The only thing you could. If you was in South Texas, you had to play football. And I love baseball, so I played baseball as well. and then I threw the discus. I thought it was going to be a long-distance runner.

And I was running around the track one time, jogging, because I had good endurance back in a day. And I seen this boy huffing and puffing over there, throwing a damn discos. And I said, man, let me give that a whirl. And I threw that damn thing out there. And I threw it way further than he did. So I said, man, to hill with the long-distance running,

I'll start throwing a discus. You found your sport right there. Found my sport. So I played football, baseball, and track. And then my dad, my stepdad, and we don't use the word step in our family. So my dad got us hunting, and we've never hunted before, and I'll never forget, you know, trailing behind him.

You know, my older brother, Scott, me, and then Kevin, walking behind my dad in the woods. He's carrying his rifle, and he was forever looking behind us, going, you know, be quiet with that come to Jesus looking. Stop stepping on twigs. So just playing sports, saltwater fishing, and hunting. First job. Landscape guy, my senior league baseball coach,

guy named Dan Meador. And he was a landscape guy. And so I started working in a landscape business, planting stuff and mowing yards, but basically landscaping. And then through that, I'd work on lease crews, cleaning up oil field stuff, hauling hay out there in South Texas, work for the highway department, you know, in the summer, you know, driving a cement truck or, you know, that asphalt truck, patching roads or putting patches in roads, anything that was manual labor.

I specialized in. Yeah. That makes sense. He's a work ethic guy. I've listened to a lot of his podcast. I think that's what Steve Austin is about. He wants accountability and work your ass off. Am I right?

Well, the thing about, you know, growing up in our household, I mean, you was going to do your chores, and that wasn't no two ways about it. Dad had a strict set of rules, and so did Mom. And we rotated on doing the dishes. We rotated all mowing a yard, and we had a system. If you didn't go work, you wouldn't go, you can get your ass handy to you. Yeah. And that's just the way it was.

How, what was your favorite sport? Was the football or baseball? It was football, and I loved baseball. I played catcher and had a pretty good arm on me. Did you think you were good enough to go into the NFL or did you? I did. Yeah. I did.

And a small system that we were in down there in South Texas, we were playing two and three A ball. And so Houston's 100 miles away. That's all the 5A schools. That's where all the badass athletes at, okay? So down there in South Texas, I was, you knew who, my last name used to be Williams. Number 32, you knew who Williams for the end of the Cowboys was. That was me, and I would run your ass over. I ran north and south because I couldn't afford to run east and west.

And so they gave me that football. It was a sweep left or a sweep right or something right up the middle. And I was running down field and coming out of high school, man, I just think, man, all these schools got to come recruit me. Pretty good running back. All I got was a junior college offer, and I was offended and upset. And I needed that scholarship offer because my parents couldn't afford to pay for no college. And I want to keep playing football.

So I go to a little school outside of Houston called Wharton County Junior College. And I never forget I was talking to my mom's friend, Evelyn. And I said, oh, Evelyn, don't worry about it. I'll go to junior college and make All-American for a couple of years, then go to a big school. Let me tell you something. There are some football playing fools in the junior college system that either, you know, they can't make the grades or they've got a learning disability or something like that,

but they will knock your ass out. And I was lucky enough to get two scholarship offers out of there to a university in New Mexico and North Texas State University out of Denton, Texas. I took my trip to New Mexico. They took me skiing. I went to North Texas, and I knew I didn't want to leave the great state of Texas.

And I got out there, and I was running a 40-yard dash, one time, and the Juco coach had pumped up my stats a little bit. Right there running a 4-yard dashes, and the guy, head coach called me over, goes, Williams, come here. He said, Williams, come here. Yeah, Coach, what's wrong? He goes, you're running a 4-940. I said, yep.

I said, your coach at junior college said you ran a 4-7. I said, hell, coach, I ain't ever run a 4-7 in my life. He said, Williams, get out of here. So anyway, I blew my ACL out on my junior year playing linebacker, I came back the next season. I started all 11 games at Weekside Defensive End. And I know you love the Redskins. I saw the writing on the wall, and football wasn't as fun as it used to be.

And that's when, you know, I segued out of there. And I left college with 17 hours to graduate and started working on a freight dock, driving a forklift. Holy cow. Manual labor. Did you ever go back and finish your college? People have asked me that, and I know a lot of people go back and do that. but I have nothing to prove. Me getting a degree and putting it on the wall means nothing to me.

Now, when I talk to young kids and stuff like that these days, I say, hey, man, arm yourself with as much education as you can get. Or go to a trade school, learn how to weld or work on, you know, something mechanical. But for me, it doesn't mean anything. It was going to help me in my endeavors from there on out. So filling the gaps between when you graduated college to how you got involved in wrestling, what happened in that period? Yeah, where did that start?

Well, I remember one time I was at the house, I was seven or eight years old, and I was flipping channels on TV, and you did it by hand back in. My mom was over here in the chair, and I come across Houston wrestling, and I saw Dusty Roads bleeding his ass off, and somebody had an iron claw on him. And there was a smoke-filled arena at the same Houston Coliseum, and there was a guard walking around the ring, and there was only a rope banister, and everybody was smoking back in. And, you know, the guy had a pistol.

he had a sidearm on, and Dusty was in bad shape. And I looked at my mom, she's over reading Red Book. And I said, Mom, I said, why don't that security guard go over there and help Dusty? Because he got a gun. He was in on the gig. But I was hooked. So I knew, you know, at the end of the day, my goal was to be a professional wrestler. Oh, really?

That early. But how old were you there? Seven or eight. I watched my whole life, and I've been there watching wrestling. My brothers and my sister coming there, man. Turn this stuff off. Man, we want to watch something else. I said, hey, man, it's only our show.

Let me watch this, and you can watch whatever you want to watch. I wasn't allowed to watch wrestling in my house because it apparently made me too hyper. I can't imagine. But, man, me and my sister Kelly used to sneak in our wrestling. NWA would come on Saturday mornings. And Dusty Rhodes was my favorite, one of my favorite, Magnum Tia. Yes.

Tully Blanchard, Olin, R. and Anderson, all those guys. Rick Flair, obviously, was a big, big deal here in Charlotte. Who were some of your heroes, mentioned Dusty, who were some of the other guys that were heroes of yours growing up? A lot of guys you just mentioned, and I consider Dusty to be one of the greatest of all time. And, you know, he was a heavyset guy. Dusty could work his ass off. He could tell a story, and he could sure talk.

He could talk a Blue Streak. And I love Dusty, but I consider myself to be the greatest world champion in the history of the business is Nature of Borwick Flare. Oh, man. And as far as just an in-ring performer, then you go to like a Sean Michaels. But the guys you just named, really. Did you try to emulate them like we all did as a kid when we're playing wrestling? And we're like, I'm going to be this. Who are you?

Well, that was the problem with the early part of my career when I was with the World Championship wrestling in Atlanta. You know, I started off in Dallas. They shipped me over to Tennessee territory. I was starving my ass off. We worked the same towns every single week. And I was making $15, $20 a night. You know, most of those trips, you know, three or four hundred mile round trips.

and you came in my 4D8. You got two guys riding with you, and they're putting gas. I had a 1988, I had a 1988 Hyundai Excel. Payments were $154 a month. My brother co-signed the lease for me, and that thing almost got repoed a couple times. And I would never get it repoed because I wasn't going to screw my brother, right? Yeah.

So, man, I was starving. I was literally starving. And I patterned the early part to answer your question, the early part of my career in World Championship wrestling after nature boy Rick Flair. and I was kind of like thought of as being the next Rick Flair when, in all actuality, there will never be another Rick Flair. And that actually kind of was a hindrance to my development

because you hanging out Rick Flair or Rick Flair, because he was still in the territory. We'd go to television tapings in Gainesville and over in Anderson, South Carolina, some of those towns around Atlanta because we're all based out of Atlanta, a lot of guys based out of North Carolina as well. And, man, you go to like a tag team situation

to our six-man tag, and I'd be on the same team with Rick. And all of a sudden the man goes there and there and just lights it up. And you're sitting on the apron thinking, okay, you thought she was good, and you think you're going to overtake this guy, and you realize not so fast, my friend, because when Rick Flair turned it on, there wasn't no fall in it. So, you know, how do you guys, you know, the promos is what a lot of people remember, how do you guys work on that?

How do you become so good at it? I'll tell you what. You start off being bad at it. You know? Right. I started in Dallas, Texas. I went to the gentleman Chris Adams Wrestling School.

I saw a commercial on TV when I was back at my college dorm. This one, I was still driving that forklift for Watkins Motor Lines. And I said, hey, man, I need to go check this out. So I went down there to the seminar, signed up. Five months later, I'm having my first match.

I'm out there. You talk about green as grass. And this is back when I, before I had to go to you and I had a long, blonde hair down the middle of my back. Pretty good looking kid. I don't know what the hell happened.

And I go out there and I start trying to talk because they're trying to promote the school. I got a few promo opportunities. And when you first start off, your voice is kind of high. You don't know how to talk from your diaphragm. You don't really know what to say. You haven't really created a character. So there's no base or ground base to build from. And so you flounder.

And when you go out there, where you're doing the best you can. But, you know, when you get to bed, you have. done just that. And once you fall on your face enough, you learn, hey man, this is sink or swim. These are shark-infested waters. You better succeed or your ass is going to get left behind. So

it's very competitive. And so finally, if you go through the paces enough, and when I got to World Championship wrestling, they teamed to me, they didn't know what to do with me. They knew I was a talent, but they didn't figure I had it yet. So he stuck me in a tag team with Flying Brian

Pilman. And if you remember Flying Brian Brian, we used to drive down the road, and Brian was one of those guys who would sit there and read, you know, dictionaries and books just to try to increase his vocabulary. And he was out there, and he was forward thinking. And if you put a microphone in front of his face, he always had something to say. So all of a sudden it was like, man, hey, you better crank it up, Steve, or you're going to look like a deaf mute next to Brian because he's lighting it up. So he kind of pushed me. And then it was really when I started learning how to cut a promo deal. I was over in Japan. It was a three-week tour, and I jumped off the top turnbuckle on a guy, and he moved,

and I bent this arm too far up under me. I tore my right tricep off my arm. So I wrestled for two and a half weeks with torn tricep, because back in the day, and you know from injuries you suffered, hey, you worked through it. When I came back, that's when Paul Heyman called me up. I answered the phone. He goes, hey, Steve. He just started up ECW down there in Philly.

And he goes, I want you to come work for me. I said, hell, I can't work, Paul. I said, I got a busted arm. He goes, you ain't got to work. Cut promos. I said, well, man, I had 10 acres. I had a log cabin. A wife and a kid, I needed the money.

Started flying to Philly every week. And Paul E. set me down one time. It's about 4.30 in the morning. That's how we ran over at ECW. And I was a new guy in the territory, so I was letting everybody talk first because I'm not going to jump in a system

because I come from the big territory. And I can't talk worth of damn anyway. And so he says, hey, Steve, he goes, you're up. I said, well, hell, Paul. I said, what do you want me to talk about? I said, what am I doing? He goes, just talk about how you're feeling. Just, just talk.

And he turned the cameras on, and I rattled off that promo still on YouTube, ECW. And I talked for about six minutes, nonstop, ad lib, told it like it was. And that was probably the groundbreaking promo where I saw. started feeling who and what I was. And I hadn't come up with a stone cold thing yet, but I realized at that point that the who I was in that ring was, I'm competitive as hell in anything I do. So what I was was, when you turn me up to 11, that's me. And Paul Heyman helped, you know, kind of teach me how to focus as a laser with a promo to deliver a message, get that message across, and affect people and make people feel things, because that's how you draw money.

That's interesting because I think they're great communicators. And people don't give them credit to be a good communicator. Oh, people give them credit. The promos are probably the most watched thing. I agree. You know, that's what everybody's waiting on is his promo or, you know. But you know what I've always wondered, you know, because we would always try to emulate this. And so to emulate a promo, you'd have to get grungy and get that raspy voice.

And then you've got to start yelling. And then as soon as you start doing that, your throat gets itchy and you start coughing. Did that ever happen? And again, that goes back to learn how to speak from your diaphragm. But it's funny because going back to those old promos, there was different periods of the wrestling industry, and especially a lot of those guys out of NWA territory, because that was my favorite territory of that,

Mid-South Power Pro by Bill Watts. But there became a trend back in the day. Everybody would say, brother, brother, let me tell you something, brother, Pali. You know, it's like you go into the brother mode. Everybody's saying, brother, because it's the end thing to do. That's so funny. That was the trend. Brother.

But the last thing you want to do is start hacking and coughing during the promo when you try to give somebody the bottom line. It sort of loses its luster, doesn't it? Steve's all choked up, but he really wants to deliver a message. Hold on. Hey, what I was saying. But, you know, sometimes you get out there and, you know, if it's a post-match promo, you're a little cotton mouth.

Because you've been out there, you don't know what the conditions are. It could be a smoke-filled arena. And you do get a cotton mouth. I mean, so you're out there trying to just string some words together and realize that, again, every time you go out there, it's sink or swim, and especially on live TV. When that red lights running, that's when I like it the most. Really?

So at the end, toward the end of your career, you've been doing promos for years. Do you still get nervous? Like, well, I was always, people say, man, you still get nervous? I'm like, hell yeah, still get nervous. I mean, I was always nervous. All the way to the last race, I was nervous. Were you still nervous?

Yeah, I think to a degree, but I was so really, and man, when you're in that mode, and that's what you do, and I always tell everybody when you're living in the wrestling life, I mean, you kind of like turn into a zombie. You're going through life, but your job is to be on, you're a road warrior, you're on the road, and sometimes you're on the road strung out so long, you're ready to get back home. As soon as you get back home, you're ready to get back out on the road.

You put your suitcases by the washer and dryer, you wash the dirty stuff and get back out, and, you know, you get back out on the road. It's a nervous energy. you want to go out there and you know you like the thing I did with Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson goes out there and I say, hey man, I got one time to get this thing right. So there's some nervous energy, but because I was stone cold, I live with Steve Austin now. But, you know, back in those days, you could get, you could still get some nerves.

But the bigger the crowd, the more cameras there was, I thrived on it. How would you get in the mode? What did you do to get in the mode? Nothing. Like I said, you turn me up to 11. A lot of guys go out there and they're doing push-ups. they're putting on baby all and stuff like that. Or, you know, I've seen guys butt lock their heads on lockers.

One of my favorite stories is looking at guys' different warm-up routines before they went out. And I was talking to a guy, and he goes, man, one time I was watching all the guys backstage. And the guy I liked the most was Jake and Snake Roberts' warm-up routine. And I said, why? What did he do? He goes, well, he had the snake in a bag on top of a trash can. and he was smoking a cigarette and they said, Jake, your music's on.

Jake took a draft. Last drag out of his cigarette crushed it with the toe of his boot and walked to the ring. That was the Jake's snake warm up. For me, because I was always kind of lily white, we used to tan a lot

to try to look cool for television because I was always so ashy and I wore shorts 24-7, 365. It didn't matter what state we was in, I always wear shorts. So I'd look real ashy. So my routine was wave my arms a couple of times.

I may do a couple of push-ups, but I'm going to pour water all over me just to give me a sheen, and so I didn't look ashy white for camera. That's funny. That was my warm-up routine, and I was ready to go. So how did Stone Cold Steve Austin come about?

Tricky story. I was the ringmaster. I got the phone call. This was back when phones were still on the wall, and everybody used cell phones these days. I had a long cord on that thing, so you walk around half a house with it. That was the modern day.

Cell phone. That was the cell phone. Yes, I had that Maroon phone. And that phone rang. I said, hello. I get this voice on the end of you. Steve, Vince McMahon, just started talking right away with the sales pitch. He goes, I want to bring in.

And I'd already met with Vince McMahon three times. And I could see that they didn't have any interest in me as like a superstar. They were bringing me in as what we call in the business a mechanic. A guy who is very proficient in the ring and can have good matches with anybody. And you need those guys on the crew, right? that's all they had for me. And anyway, they were going to bring me in as a ringmaster, the million-dollar champion,

Ted DiBiase was going to be my manager because Vince hadn't seen me speak yet and thought it was a deaf mute. And so I was going to have a mouthpiece. And I didn't like that. But when you got a house payment and a car to pay for, you need the money. So I said, okay, I'll sign up.

I did that for six months. And I knew that there was no future in being the ringmaster. And so I was at the house. in my log cabin, and I was having a couple, and I watched his show on HBO about that serial killer, Richard Kiklinski. It was a hitman over in Chicago, whatever. And I don't endorse nothing. The guy did, but the guy was called Iceman because he was very cold-blooded. But I was a heel in the business. I was a bad guy. So it's my job to be hated. So I took that idea, and I called the office. I said, hey, man, I got this idea. I want to be like a cold-blooded, you know, remorseless, you know,

a heel, and I told them about the Iceman name. Well, there was a guy in Texas at a world-class championship wrestling who had already been the Iceman, Iceman King Parsons, because we don't want to do that. And so they sent me three pages of these horrible names, Fang McFrost, Otto von Rootless, and Ice Dagger.

And I'm thinking, these guys are supposed to be creative geniuses, and this is the best. that shit they got. And I was like, I threw pages up. I said, my wife at the time was from England and they drink hot tea over there. So she brought me a cup of hot tea and she goes, oh, don't worry about it. Just drink your tea for it. It gets stone cold. And she said, that's your name, Stone Cold, Steve Austin. So I called the office. I pitched it. I said, hey, man, I want to be Stone Cold Steve Austin and I want to be from Victoria, Texas. And Jerry Briscoe says, all right, I'll run it by events and see what he says. So, unsuited,

ceremoniously, that's how we came up with Stone Cold Steve Austin. And Vince was receptive immediately, or did you have to talk him in? Because that's funny. I bet there's a lot of people that call up and go, this is what I want to be called now. Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of that. But because we knew that the ringmaster wasn't going anywhere, the ringmaster was rigid supposed to be.

When I looked back at some of those prototype drawings of it, you know, this cool, symmetrical outfit, and he was, you know, the master of the ring, this technician. You know, I was more of a run. romp them, stop them. I could wrestle technical, but I wasn't that kind of guy as far as ring gear goes. I was pretty basic, you know, boots, some knee pads, and some trunks. And they had this pretty design. And the ringmaster didn't work. There was no Genesee qua to that. You, you ain't going to look. Was that one out of Flying Brian's Dictionary? Did you do that? When you see that, I knew that that name didn't have no marquee value to it, Ringmaster. Now,

all of a sudden, I'll never forget. having a conversation with Rachel Ramon. It was Scott Hall. Yeah. And I was just starting a stone cold thing and he goes, so what's with the stone cold thing, man? What's that all about? He's pretty cool. I love that guy.

He's really knowledgeable about the wrestling business. I said, I'll manage it. Just name change, but it'll work. And man, I'll never forget. We started doing that. What year was this when you began? 96, back in the 96. And I started getting some promotional.

some promo opportunities and some chances to do a little bit of color. And this is important to that stone cold development because I wasn't there yet. You know, you don't just come up with a name and just you're there. It's developing. Right. Yeah, I don't think anybody here develops into a great race car driver overnight, right? So I notice this was a period of business when there was a little bit of a lull. So we'd do Monday Night Raw Live one night.

Then we'd film the next one the next week and they'd go to post-production. And then they'd play it the next week. And even though we'd filmed it the week before. because you couldn't afford to just do two live nights. And so I noticed when I was watching that show that went to post, they were starting to edit a lot of the stuff I said out of the show. And I'd be at home watching, you know, I could catch a replay of the broadcast on the VCR.

And I was like, hey, man, I said this then, and they cut it out. So I remember we used up TV. Is it Lowell, Massachusetts, a worst or something like that? And I seen Vince walking across the parking lot into the building. And I said, I didn't know Vince very well. I'd been there six, seven, eight months, but I didn't really know them at well. And I said, but you've got to take control of your career at some point. So I said, hey, Vince, I said, you got a second?

And I didn't put a whole lot of bass in my voice. I was like, hey. Yeah. Hey. Get your ass over here. Got the scene now first. I said, hey, man. He goes, here, Steve.

And I said, hey, man, I noticed when I'm watching the show back from Post, I said, you guys starting to edit a lot of things I'm saying. And I said, I wonder why that is. Okay, remember I was supposed to be a bad guy. He goes, quite frankly, Steve, he goes, you're popping a lot of guys in the truck. And what he means by that when you pop the guys in the truck, that's a production truck. Those guys have seen and heard everything. So if I'm in listening a response from them and they're laughing their ass off or so much trash that I was spewing, it's entertaining those guys.

And so that's a good thing. But because it was getting that kind of reaction out of him, he wanted it. to be cut out because I was trying to be hated. That was my version of South Texas trash. And I looked at him right there. And I told him, I said, Vince, I said, you got guys here 610, 7 feet, 300, 320 pounds, I said, I'm 6.1, 250, black trunks, black boots, ballhead, go tee. I said, if you don't give me my personality, I can't compete.

But if you give me my personality, I said, I can compete with anybody you got. And he goes, okay, Steve. And that's when he stopped editing me. And that's when he let that South Texas trash. fly and that's when we started heating up and I really found myself. Was that when you weren't a hill anymore? Well, I was still a hill. I was a trash talking hill and there was a version of me really if you go back to

superstar Billy Graham because Billy Graham was a hill but he was becoming so entertaining. People started liking him and then Bob Backland beat him for the championship and Billy Graham was gone and I think it kind of really affected him. But I was a hill still then and but the business was changing. And due to the roster guys we had, and we had some great guys, times were changing. And I was talking so much trash. Brian Pilman had just came into the WWF at the time.

And I'd go out there, and I'd be working with baby faces. And I'd come back from the match, and he'd be waiting for me. And he goes, God dang, kid, you're a baby face. And I'd say, F you, I'm a heel. But I was getting those kind of cheers. Right. So Vince had the forethought to, hey, you know what? At the time, Brett Hart had been around so long, and he's one of my favorites.

And he said, you know, Brett's kind of starting to complain a little bit. People were starting to boo him. So he had this big idea to put us in a match in WrestleMania 13. And what we did was go out there. When I went out there, I was pretty much universally received as a hill, but there was a lot of positive response. I got a lot of pops. When Brett came out, a lot of pops.

some booze. Ken Shamrock Special Referee. We went out there and executed one of the rarest things you can do in a professional wrestling max, which is a double turn. By the end of that match, I had went from a heel to a baby. He went from a baby to a heel. Now understand, nothing happens overnight. There were still work to be done on the back end to further those paths. But that was probably, that was the match that really made it. launched my career and I've I've given Brett Hart so much credit for that because he handpicked me a year earlier to work with him when he's making a comeback from a knee injury but it was that story and that's when I started becoming the baby face or the good guy and I've always preferred working heel because I was going to ask you that it's so much more comfortable you can do anything I mean and it's kind of fun to make people hate you yeah it's easier to make people hate you

than it's like you, I think. Right. And like if you trip on a stair or the rope's getting in the ring as a baby face, as a good guy, you got egg on your face. If you trip as a hill, the worst they can do is laugh at you. You just, a half you. I tried to do that. Right. There's more creative freedom in being a hill. That's interesting.

I always feel that interesting, too. I was watching videos of like Jake, the snake, and then also like honky-tonged man. Oh, yeah. And I realize that, I think they preferred being a heel. and I always wondered that, why that preference? And now you're just answering it, the creative freedom. But ultimately, do you become champion? Do you become the champion of the long play,

the longtime champion as a heel? No, no, no. I became really as a baby face. No, no, I'm saying in general, though. Is that like people prefer being a heel, what's the... I think it's all personal. A lot of people love being a good guy. Okay, baby face we'd say.

I mean, so I mean, you know, and you look at Hulk Hogan, one of the greatest of all time, you know, until he went NWO, he was a baby face. His entire life, one of the biggest draws in history of the business. So, yeah, it's all preference. Well, here's the thing. By the time, you know, I'd turned babyface and become so successful at that, people had kind of forgot about that kind of two-year heel run. And I was effective as a heel. But I became so beloved as that baby face, when we went to wrestling. Pennsylvania 17, Vince always likes to do something special.

And I was working with The Rock and we set a new Astrodome attendance record on that paper view. And I said, hell, man. I said, well, after the match, why don't I turn Hill? And so I did turn Hill. But it was kind of like, as Jim Ross would put it, you never want to see John Wayne as the bad guy. That's how beloved he was.

By the time, you know, I'd become that aversion of John Wayne. People didn't want to hate me. But I just wanted to do it because I loved me in Hill. I thought it would be great for the business. Even when you tried to turn heel, you couldn't. Yeah. We tried for a long time, but it wasn't a good idea from a business standpoint. And people wanted to love me.

They wanted to cheer for me. They wanted to have a good time with me and drink a beer and raise hell. Yeah, that's right. You were one of a kind, so nobody wanted to see you change. For me, there's certainly different eras where the sport peaked. What's the difference between your era? It don't even seem like you retired that long ago. 2003, I guess, is a long time ago, but it doesn't seem like it.

But describe the peak, which was a huge, huge era for wrestling in your prime to what we have now. Well, I think if you look at the peak, it was when Eric Bischoff went down at WCW working for Ted Turner, and they decided, hey, man, WWF at the time, you know, they got it Monday Night Raw. Well, why don't we go head to head? And, you know, because Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, some of those guys have migrated down there. He goes, why don't we go head to head with them? And man, that was the Monday night wars. And man, we was throwing everything but the kitchen sink every single Monday nights.

You were getting a main event pay-per-view type card because it was a war. Yeah. And they kicked our ass for two years. And then finally we started spinning up. I got hot. Here comes a rock. Take her reinvented himself. DX comes along.

Mick Foley heating up. I mean, all of a sudden, all our iron started heating up. And I was leading to charge. I keep it on the DL, but I was leaving the charge. I hid up. And, man, once we started beating them, we never looked back. And then, hell, Vince, ended up buying the whole company for pennies on a dollar. And, okay, now go to now, put Ted Turner out of business.

There's a new organization, AEW, just started. But right here and now, man, ain't no competition. You know, so how good are you without competition? Yeah, 100%. I love competition. And so WCW, I mean, they made us. work our ass off to try to get the number one. And then it's one thing when you get to number one,

but you got to stay there. So we're still in a dog fight until they shut them down. So I just think that was still the last days of the Wild Wild West. And, you know, I love it has something to do like, you know, introducing a restrictor plate. You know, guys start to be a little bit more micromanaged. Things had to get a little bit more of a friendly tone. A lot more corporate sponsors coming in.

And, you know, I'll never forget when I had to leave in 2000 to get my C-3-4 fused up because I had some neck injuries and when I came back that's kind of when every now and they start handing

something like this and this is what you were going to say. Hey man before that what I was going to say was if you're going to talk some trash to me I'm going to listen to you talk that trash and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to answer everything you just said and we're tearing each other down but we're building each other up and we're working

together right? We're trying to sell tickets as business. And I don't work from memory. I work from what I feel in my heart, my gut, and then put it together with my brain. Who was giving you that? Like when you came back and they were trying to script what you say. Who is that?

Writers, you know. Like with WWE? Yeah. Okay. So they started trying to write. And what does it look like when Steve Austin doesn't like what you're trying to make him say? What do you say? Well, just it's hard for, to me, it's hard for someone.

to try to write. You weren't in South Texas. You weren't hauling hay. You know, you didn't, you know, have a hard time making it and everything. You know, you didn't have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder. So I don't know if you can achieve the attitude of the mindset or, you know, hell after seven and a half years of paying my dues, finally I'd become an overnight sensation. Or you weren't there to them seven to half years when I was living on potatoes,

pilling with my pocket knife in a hotel room, you know, struggling to put some damn car in my, some gas in my car. So I don't think you could really encapsulate, you know, what I would say or, you know, you might know who I was by looking at me. But if you ain't been in the ground with me, I think it's hard for me, for anybody to write for me, and it's hard for me to feel what you may write for me. Would you just say, I'm not saying that?

Well, you know, I work with the system. I'll never forget one time we was at a building. And someone came and found me, and I was working a program with Vince. And he said, hey, Vince wants to go. the promo with you. And I said, all right. And I remember we was in this little bitty room, smaller than this table,

half the size of this table. A lot of things are smaller than this table. I mean, but me and Vince. And I'm sitting there, okay, I'd come back from my neck injury. Like, okay, Vince, I'm going to rip you to shreds. And, man, he got mad at me.

He goes, damn it, Steve, give me your A promo. I said, hey, man, I'm going to give you my A promo out there. Yeah. I'm not a rehearsal guy. I say, you know, so it just, I'll read your bullet points. I'm going to get a couple of them in there and then we're going to fly. That's pretty awesome. So you've been, you said you retired in 2003.

You had a lot of time to think about it. What do you miss? These days I don't miss anything because I've been away from it long enough. But when I had to, man, I had to pull a plug on myself. And when I got dropped on my head, I bruised my spinal cord. And there's a lot of neurological issues that I still deal with. and it just got to a point where I was just running hard on a personal level and then I would beat the shreds because I wasn't taking no time off.

And it's a hard life. And I tell people these days, hell, if I'd been used some modern training techniques or been drinking protein powder rather than whiskey and beer, you know, like I said, but I was a pro wrestler, man. That's all I wanted to be. and I was at a high level. And I'll never forget when I pull a plug on myself, getting out of the business, it was a hard transition for me.

And I've seen a lot of guys get strung out on pain pills, a lot of guys getting an IRS trouble or whatever. And I'm no smarter than a lot of the guys. When I got out, I didn't really have an exit strategy. And because I had such a hard time dealing with the fact that I was out of business because I'd gotten pile-draft on my head. And for 60 seconds, I was a transit quadruplegging. And when you're laying there in the middle of a ring in front of 20,000 people live on a paper view and you can't move, they're scared the shit out of you.

And, you know, I was able to finally crawl. There's footage on TV. It was a rough day at the office. I went around all the damn United States, seeing all these different doctors. And I finally found a doctor one of the leading researchers about, you know, quadriplegia, Joseph Torg in Philadelphia. And he didn't know the business, you know, was work. And I said, hey, Doc. I said, I ain't got to take a pile driver every night.

He goes, oh, you can control what you do out there? I said, yeah, to a degree, I can control everything. So it cleared me to get back in a ring. Anyway, so I made another couple of years. And I got fused up. I had to ride off in the sunset. But dealing with that, walking away, retirement always sounds like the R word. Always sounds like the holy grill.

You work your ass off because that's what we're here to do. And then you enjoy retirement. hell I retired when I was 38 man you know how much money I left on the table I mean not just about the money is about the good times being with the boys traveling down the road be in front of a crowd getting that adrenaline rush that's what I lived and breed and so I didn't handle it well and for about three years I drank I hunted and I fished and just did a lot of stupid stuff and one morning I woke up and I went in the bathroom and I just looked at myself in a mirror It's true story. And I didn't say this out loud, but I was thinking to myself, dude, the things you're doing are not conducive to living a long life. You need to slow your ass down, and you need to use, I didn't have any designs on being a movie star, nothing like that,

but I was driving a forklift before I got in the wrestling business, and as much fun as that was, and I loved it. After being on top of the world in the wrestling business, I didn't want to drive a forklift again. I said, you better get your ass down there at Los Angeles. and try to do something in the entertainment business and do that. And so, hell, I packed up and moved in with Diamond Dallas Page down there in Los Angeles, wasted about a year out there still, you know, searching for the bottom of a lot of bottles.

And we found some people and started making some, I call them, low-budget movies. Someone with a big ego would call them independence. Hey, low-budget. And, man, I got a chance to. to host a reality series called Toughen Up for WWE. They reinvented it on USA Network. And as, hey, man, we want you to host his show. And I said, I love it because when I first retired, I was so upset that I had to leave the

business that I loved. I had to be completely away from it. I couldn't even watch it. I didn't want nothing to do with it. If I can't be the main guy, I don't want to be any guy anywhere around. All those years later in 2000, I think it was 2000. or 2011 when they did tough enough, I had been away long enough.

The wounds had healed, and I wanted to be closer to the business. I didn't want to be taking bumps, but I wanted to help people learn the trade. So that put me back in touch with the business in a position that I really loved. And after one season, they yanked it, and it did good numbers.

But that helped me out a whole lot. And then when I found that, a couple other people contacted me And the last show I did was Broken Skull Challenge. And some rocket scientists can't let some. And I still ain't figured that one out right. But I found out that I really enjoyed and through my podcast, talking to people and shooting a breeze on the fly.

Does Vince ever call or has they ever called over the last 15 years with ideas of how to incorporate you back into the system? Maybe not as taking bumps, as you say, but being a part of the program? No. I mean, yeah. Yes and no, but I said, you know, I kind of wanted to do my own thing for a while. And here's a classic example. It's a true story.

And I was over at, we used to do a Stone Coe podcast, and I was in Denver, Colorado. And I said, hey, man, want to see if you wanted to open the show. And I said, sure, man, I'll open Monday night raw. And he goes, well, we got four things we want you to say. And they hand me that piece of paper. God. And I was like, this is what you want me to say. You bring me back after, I don't know how many years in front of 20,000 and a couple of million out there in TV land.

I was like, all right, so I went out there and said it, but it was like, I can't work off paper. And I really think that the wrestling business, guys like me, good to have around in a special occasion or whatever, to talk to people about the fine details of what we call in the business, getting over, that secret to become. coming hot as a heel or hot as a baby into a money drawing position. There's knowledge I have or Hulk has or Flair has. But in the system, man, it's for the young cats. They need all the television time they can get. They ain't going to monetize, you know, me by just bringing me out to a house show here or there.

So they got to put the money. I think it's kind of with you. You like developing drivers. So I like to watch the talent develop. And I had my time and I want them to have their time. So you're following along with what's going on now currently? I try to. I DVR both shows, but I don't watch a whole lot of television to begin with. You know, I'm a big football fan and UFC fan, and I DVR both shows because if someone says,

hey, man, check us out, or someone wants to ask me something to get my opinion on it. Well, I've got it dialed up, so then I'll watch it. I got a question. With you sort of taking on this role of trying to help some of these younger wrestlers, do you try to give them advice as far as planning their end or their exit already? because it sounds like to me that you hadn't even thought about it. Injuries sort of took you down that road maybe if you weren't ready. Is that something you try to help people understand and maybe prepare for better? Oh, absolutely.

What do you tell them? Well, just giving a platform right now, I just say, hey, man, if you're trying to do anything, you know, always keep your loyalty and your main job is with WWE. But if you've got some feelers out there and you're trying to network other things, you know, based on the fact that you've got a high IQ rating or a lot of television exposure and you can get your hands into different things. Do it. Do it. But, you know, right now, this is a bread and butter, but start planting those seeds right now. So when you spend out of this, you come out with momentum. Like I said, I sidetracked my, I'm just completely honest.

I sidetracked myself three years of nothing and then came out to L.A. You know, had I said, hey, I'm going to go do this, you know, I could have planned it a lot better. I would compare the history of wrestling as far as superstars with another popular show that's long running and that's Saturday Night Live. Chevy Chase, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, you got Rick Flair, the superstars that have Florida carried that show through the decades. Who is the superstar in today's climate? Who is the next Stone Cold? Who is the next guy that's going to be the household name? Man, it's a tough question to answer right now.

Do you see those guys in this current climate? If, if, if, uh, key thing, uh, when I, when I got hot, I pushed the envelope. And I was saying words, you could still say on television. I wasn't dropping F bombs. I knew what I could get away with. The deal was I wasn't afraid to push the envelope. I wasn't afraid to go out on a limb. So I did.

And I knew I had to. And it was in me. It was nothing I, I had to, hey, this is a crazy idea. I go, when you turn me up to 11, that's me. And like I said, man, growing up in South Texas, just talking that trash. So to answer you a question, you know, I'd have no restricter plate on me. You feel like the guys today do. Yeah, I just because, like I said, it's a way more friendly setting.

And there's a lot more control on television than went back in a day. I mean, because, you know, we could do the, hey, I went to Brian Pelman's house one time. He had a busted leg from wrecking his Humvee. And I broke in his house with a baseball bat and he pulled a gun on me on Monday night. and then shots were fired. And I don't think the network... That wasn't rehearsed at all. Oh, hell no.

I beat the hell out of two guys in his driveway. And when that gun, you know, reports that shots were fired, there was a call from the network and there was some explaining to be done. But we had done it. And, you know, hey, then we apologize. My point is, I don't know that anybody can push that envelope as hard as we did. And I really think that's what it is. And again, I go to, it's like the people that love you.

There's something about you and you driving or, and now you're doing your broadcasting that just people love you. You were real and you affected their emotions and they got behind you. And that's the same thing in our business. But you got to do something to resonate with those people and to get that kind of a relationship. Anything you do, it's all about relationships. Even though you're an entertainer, you have a relationship with those fans. and those fans got to live vicariously.

I've talked to so many people through all the stuff that Stone Cold Steve Austin was doing, and they might have been in a bad way or had some problems going against them or whatever. And they turn on that TV. When you're in the entertainment business, if you can make somebody forget about their problems for about two hours and put a smile on their face and they get that adrenaline going, that's a good thing. And so I just think it'll take someone to just be able to capture that audience again, I ain't saying you got to go crazy.

Just got to turn them loose a little bit. There's a Redskins fan. There's a play or a game that's on the top of the list for me. Do you have a moment in your career or even maybe not in your career? Maybe it's in someone else's career that you think is the most memorable moment for your favorite moment, your favorite match? Well, yeah, my favorite. I loved working with The Rock and WrestleMania 17 was a hell of a ride. But that WrestleMania, and I love working with it.

Vince because the Vince feud transcended wrestling for two years. That was water cooler talk. I don't care what you did. At lunch, you met and you asked, hey, man, you see what Stone Cold and Vince did last night? And Vince was an awesome opponent because he feels this stuff as much as I do. He's an animal. He's one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life, and I love a guy. But to answer you a question, that match in WrestleMania 13,

I knew we had those people from Jump Street. I dived on him and started whipping his ass. And then we go into a barricade. I start bleeding like a stuck pig. And finally, after a couple of attempts, he turns me over in that sharpshooter. And I'm laying there and I'm in a push-up position and I am trying to escape.

And we love working Chicago, Rose Mountain Horizon, because first of all, the fans are terrific. And the acoustics in that building, the acoustics in that building, that's a wooden ceiling. So it's like when they yell, it's kind of like hitting the gas pedal. You get an immediate response. Everything you do in that ring is driven by a response. And so, man, those people are just quick.

And so we had that crowd, hook, line, and sinker. And I was going to pass out in a pool of blood, got the finish earlier from Vince. The pool of blood was not planned until later by two individuals. But there was no color policy in effect. And I was laying there bleeding like a stuck pig. and I'll never forget to answer your question. That moment was finishing that match, executing the double turn, and laying there,

man, I bled like a stuck pig. I was in a puddle of blood. You never want to hit something that's gory, but it was an extended period of time. Lay in there, passed out while Helman Shamrock were going to take care of business, and I just performed my ass off, worked my ass off, so did Brett,

and he really brought it that match, laying there in that pool of blood with my eyes closed, because that was all I had to do until both those guys got out of the ring and then I'd get up. It was my idea to stun the referee because I said I still got to just

if someone's going to try to help me, I'm not just going to start hugging on him and thank you for helping me up. I'm still a rattlesnake. Laying that pool of blood, most satisfying moment in my entire wrestling career. Hey, I got a question. Who was the best?

Who did you enjoy wrestling with and performing with the most? in the lens of you trusted them, because I realized with the interviews that I've seen with other wrestlers, that you have your life in their hands and vice versa. Okay, so not who was the best performer for the crowd, but who was the best to wrestle with in that you could trust them and y'all could put on a show

and protect each other? There's a lot of guys like that, and you hit the nail right on the head. I recently was in a ring, and we was hitting the ropes pretty damn hard, and the people standing around were like, holy, I didn't know you guys are moving that fast or the things happened in that ring so violently. I said, yeah, man, it ain't ballet.

I loved working with Brett Hart. There was so much trust and respect. And like I said, the high-profile matches I've had with Rock Undertaker, Triple H. I mean, the mankind, the list could be a mile long. But if I got to give you one guy, you know, Brett to hit Manhart. Yeah, he was just awesome. And there was a trust and respect there from day one. And he saw me coming up.

And, you know, he had taken a year off to get a, not a year, but some time off to get a knee cleaned up. And he picked me as his opponent to come back. And I think it was in the garden for a Survivor Series match. And that helped me before, you know, we would end up feuding. What a year later. So Brett Hart. He talked about landing that pool of blood.

And when I was a boy and would watch, Rick Flair and Dusty Roads and all those guys wrestle. And man, they bled every, they bled on a Monday regular show. And I always thought as a boy, like, how does that process, like, how do you get so comfortable with, man, I'm cutting tonight. And do they, I mean, obviously that might be pre-planned. They know that that's going to have. How do you get yourself mentally there to do that repeatedly time and time and time again? because for me, that was probably the most,

it's obviously visually shocking, you know, when you're watching a match and there's just blood everywhere. And those guys, especially back in those days, were just bleeding hard, covered. And you remember that, right? Yes. And as a wrestler, like somebody, when you're, do you remember the first time you bled?

Oh, man. But to answer your question, I mean, to go back towards saying, yeah, it's the exclamation point on a great feud. And it's like, hey, man, It turned into a bloodbath. But I'll tell you, I went to wrestling school. I was in there for about five months, one day a week.

There was 25 kids in class. We had one ring, so ring time is pretty limited. Okay, so you learn a bit of chain wrestling. You learn how to take a bump. You just learn how to fall and protect yourself. And part of the 101 and the 201 class saying, well, here's how you get color. No one teaches you that. Get color.

A little juice. All of a sudden, man, we was in Dallas, and there was going to be a match. Eric Emery was booking. I think it was about, no, the first time was in Tennessee. Anyway, I was in a locker room, and I think it was Jerry Lawler or somebody. I said, it might have been Chris Adams.

I said, hey, man, someone told him we was going to go out there like a big battle roll type thing and bleed. And as a new guy in the business, I hadn't even been in a year. And now of a sudden, somebody wants me to bleed. Well, okay, what's the process? So I asked one of the guys and said, man, how do you make a blade? And the guy showed me his technique. And then, you know, you know, like those old school razors?

Yeah. The old ones. Right. Double-sided. Yeah, double-sided. Yeah, double-side. We'll clip that thing in the middle and then, you know, get some corners and make a small thing. Push it through a piece of tape.

You know, so you got a pull tab and, you know, put it on your wrist. Some guys are carrying their mouth. Holy- crap. But me, if it was a big, if it was a big pay-per-view, man, you know, I got a plan. I got plan B and I got plan C. So I'm out there with three options. And so, you know, it's a very interesting feeling when you first push that blade into your head because there's like a crackle of that skin and then you're going to drag just a little bit.

Oh, man. And at first, you know, you're kind of like, man, it's like a right of passage though. You're expected to do it because you grew up seeing it and all of a sudden now you get a chance to do it. And then all of a sudden, you know, it was like in the 90s, so, you know, trading blood with a lot of people. And some of these guys, you know, we're party animals. It's like, man, you think those guys got to be the dumbest people in the world. And like the guy, you know, the guy that always bite on the open cut and then spit the blood out. Yes.

I would like, holy. I would imagine, you're right. There are some people that I would just be like, I don't want to color juice with you tonight. There were no guys. There were those guys. Those guys that were like really out there? Yeah. And the thing about it is, man, when you get out on that mat, you know,

some of those outdoor shows, that mat is so hot. I don't know. It was like we just rode over there. Bakersfield, California, you've been there. So it's so hot that the mat's about 120 degrees. It's hard to lay there just for a three count. Man, guys are kicking out. And, uh, but when you get some of those arenas,

like the Sportatorium in Dallas, that building was so, the wrestling. atmosphere was so thick air. And, you know, the Carolinas, I mean, the wrestling is hot here, especially with Rick Flair territory, full horsemen, crockets. So that, but that mat, just like this, you know, you got, you know, metal construction, some two by 12s, a little bit of a mat about like that, and you got the tarp. But on top of that tarp, man, guys, been walking around in a dressing room, I mean, you drink

your coffee, maybe you've got to take care of business, or you're at the journal, and you're taking care of business and all of a sudden you're walking to the ring. So it smells like stale beer, popcorn, piss, sweat. And then you got blood on top of it. Oh, my God. Any night of the week, you get staff infection. It's got to be one of the most unsanitary places to roll around with another guy.

It can get sweated on or bleated on. Oh, damn. Jeez. I just invented bleated. Yeah, you bleated. I am. I'm so glad you asked. Mr. Deferey, because I think that was probably the number one question on my list,

ever since I've been a little boy about wrestling as to how that process goes for somebody, and you answered it perfectly. You talked about mankind. This was a guy from our vantage point that sacrificed himself more than anybody. Were all wrestlers like that, or was he just someone special? I think he knew that was going to be his... He had to. I don't think he had to.

I don't think Mick, well, Mick gets a lot of credit because he's one of my best friends. in the business and we travel together. We're two of the cheapest guys in history of the business as far as saving our money, staying at, you know, box hotels, stuff like that. I don't think, I think he did it because he knew that he wasn't going to be,

certainly wasn't going to be a high flyer, a Matt technician, and I didn't think he, to a point, enjoyed the pain. And I'll never forget, man, that floor in Dallas, Texas was that hard wood floor is probably harder than any concrete I've walked on. And I'll never forget from my early days when he got to business just a couple years before I did.

I was out there in a crowd drinking beer with my football playing buddies. And we was out there drinking beer, throwing stuff at the wrestlers. And he'd drop that elbow from apron onto that floor or get suplexed out on that seam. And just, you know when the Undertaker threw him off that cage into that the hell of a cell in that announced desk. I think he did it because it was means to an end. and it was a style at work for him. And so a lot of people didn't think, Mick Foley's one of the smartest guys in business.

That's what they said. And I think that was his calling card to answer your question. That's awesome. When did the beer bashing start? Because that became so iconic, just the imagery of that. It was part of your identity in a big way. When did that start? And how did you keep that going?

Was it even that hard to? I can't remember exactly when we started it. And I didn't invent it. that Sandman was doing his version of it in ECW. And when I did it, I wouldn't say, hey, the Sandman did this, I'm going to copy it. I just, it organically happened. I don't know if I grabbed a couple of beers out of audience or I just figured, hey, man, you'd like to drink beer so much. You know, because we'd have that cooler full of beer underneath that announced table or Mark Eaton used to throw me those beers.

But, you know, Sandman would crush him off his head. I would just bank, clack them together like that. And, you know, people would say, man, Steve always got mad at. you because you wasted all that beer. And I say, like, they don't understand. You ain't in show business. You don't get it. Half goes in, that's for me.

Half goes on. That's for everybody else. It's a win-win situation. You got to have some showmanship to it. What if I'd have to clack two beers together and just sipped them? I wouldn't have been worth of flying shit. Plus, you wouldn't have had the beer on the petri dish. It was called the mat that you, that you...

I would kind of sanitized it. Yeah, you can't. I always tell people, Dale, by the time I got finished, I was so beat to shreds, I told people, hell, I was drinking for a living and wrestling on the side. Yeah. Do you still drink beer? Yeah, I got into the beer business. I drank light beer for, hell, 30, however many years it's been.

And I finally started, all this craft beer stuff started springing up. And I said, oh, man, let me give this stuff a try. Because back in, he was kind of considered a snob if you wasn't drinking the regular beer everybody else was. And hell, you know, back in the day we'd drinking Schaefer Light, hell, that's all he can afford. So I started drinking the Pell L's.

It was pretty good. And I tried my first IPA. It was a little too much. I went back to the Pell L. And I said, hey, man, I miss that hop on that IPA. So I really got into the IPAs. And I teamed up with us to gunned a brewing company to get in the beer market.

So I have Broken Skull IPA. It's a 6.7% alcohol for the IBIUs. and that beer is handcrafted by myself and the owner Rob Crocksal to my specifications. And I think it's one of the, I'm very partial, but that built was built for me. It's one of the best IPAs in America. And so I'm very proud of that beer. Well, what's coming next for Stone Cole? You know, hopefully we do a good job on this show.

And we got seven to start off with. Do you know who all your guests are? You don't have to give them away if you don't want to, but you got some pretty cool. Yeah, I have some really cool. guess, and you're one of them. And I look at it like this. I mean, either we're going to get to do seven of them or we'll do 28 of them or 56. Yeah.

But we got seven, and I'm looking forward to them, Aaron, and hopefully they do well. I love talking to people. I love talking with you guys. And it gives me a chance to get back out on the road, do cool stuff that I wouldn't get a chance to do otherwise. And I'm probably going to spring back up and kick my podcast back into gear. I had to take care of a few things. I took myself off the air for a while.

I got everything straightened out, so I'll make a return to that. And I continue my ventures in the beer business, the pocket knife business. Still hunting? Oh, I'm still hunting. Oh, man, different. And I enjoy my, I'm in business with Kawasaki Motorsports

as a brand ambassador. And I love doing that. That's one of the best things I got. Hunting has been really good because, do we still got time? Yeah. Okay, so back when I had the ranch in Texas, we had that place for 10 years. and, you know, in South Texas, everybody's high fence

because everybody's trying to grow big-ass deer. Okay, and you don't want your neighbors shooting your deer. Okay, well, we did that for 10 years, and we had some monster deer. And we was feeding protein 24-7 on top of all the protein they already got to eat. And so we were raising those dears, culling, and, you know, rarely shooting trophies because we're growing. We're looking long term. We're playing a long game, like you like to say.

And it got to be such a process. We had an awesome setup out there. had a double wide hooked to a triple wide with this 2,000 square foot man cave. Five wide. You talk about super redneck, but it was cool. And over at the barn was our cooler. But during the coal process, man, you're taking out your undesirables. You've got to control the population because they're in a 2000 acre, you know, rectangle.

And all the cullen, all the does, you've got to do that. and man, after doing that for 10 years, what I love now, you're not hunting over bait in Nevada. That's where I hunt now. I can go anywhere in the United States and hunt. I get a lot of invites, but I'm a hermit and I just like to stay in my own territory.

My brother-in-law is probably the best guy in Nevada and knows the entire state like the back of his hand. It's uncanny. So you're out there, free range. I drew my first tag this year from mule deer. My previous years, I bought landowner tags. I had a landowner antelope tag this year and was successful. My first year out there, I shot a big ass 175 mule deer.

Nice. And I was just, I was like, hey, man, it happened on the first day. I said, hey, man, it's going to be pretty easy. This past season, first day out there, we saw a buck. It was probably about a $150 buck. And I, man, I wouldn't even go give him a time of day. I said, no, man, I'll pass. We've got four more days to do this.

If you see something out there that's like that, it's in that ballpark, you better take him. And you don't want to take a young buck for no really. because you don't do that. And so I got smoked. And so that was a landowner tag over it costs $4,000. I just got a $4,000 lesson and how not to get some meat in the freezer.

And when I talk about deer hunting because it's something that I love and I grew up doing, we eat every single thing we take and what we can't eat ourselves, we donate to food banks. And the good thing about hunting in Nevada is I'm just taking one animal.

I'm taking one deer and one antelope. And my wife is a vegetarian, first vegetarian I ever met in my life. She has him. We used to go down to South Texas and she tried to go through. We'd go through the McDonald's order a macvegy burger because they got them in L.A. down in South Texas, like, what in the hell are you talking about? Do you just not want us to put the meat in there? Right.

Yeah, like an airburger. Lettuce and bread. Airburger. So, you know, I get too dear to eat. And realistically, I mean, how much more can you eat? I eat a lot of sugar bread stuff like that. I got a place in Ohio and bow hunting only. Yeah, but we love it.

You're welcome to come anytime. We do the same thing. We eat what we kill and donate what we don't keep, and it's a lot of fun. I've had that place. We've owned it, me and a friend of mine for probably five years. I got one buck off of it so far. You just out there just enjoy, I enjoy the managing and, you know, culling and getting things where you want them and growing the population and seeing the same deer every year

and watching them grow and do. A lot of fun learning about just firing up your food plots and moving things around and how that all works. It's pretty interesting. And Ohio has good deer. They do. They do. Have you ever heard the hole in the horn buck?

No. That's a famous buck from Ohio. I guess maybe someone who shot a hole in one of his horns with the 22, but it was found dead on the side of a railroad track or the road. So no person killed him. He died of whatever causes. but research the hole in the horn buck. I will.

Because if I'm not mistaken, that is an Ohio buck. Nice. Well, man, I'm going to hang out with you the rest of the day because we're going to film your show. And I appreciate you coming out here doing our podcast. You're a legend. Somebody I was a huge fan of. We got a lot of people that are listening to our show that are huge fans of yours. They're going to love this podcast.

Look forward to the rest of the day. And thank you. Hey, man, it was good being here. And, you know, as many times, we've got a chance to shake hands on the end field. we never got a chance to talk because you were fixing to go out there and do business and I was going to go drop a flag or whatever. So I've enjoyed being on the podcast. Obviously, a big fan of all the Earnhardt racing stuff.

Yes, sir. And it's going to be good spending the day with you. Absolutely. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.