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Probably the greatest match in my career, and really put me on the match as a main event guy and paved the way for what I was to become, was Wrestlemania 13, with the one and only, Bret 'The Hitman' Hart.
When I went out and did what I did in the world of professional wrestling as Stone Cold Steve Austin, pretty much anything and everything thing I said was ad lib, on the spot, just let it fly and go for it.
I'm honest and tell it like it is. I've been around the horn a few times and learned valuable lessons from screwing up a bit. So, if I can pass off advice or make someone smile on the way to work, I'm for it.
I'm telling you, there have been some great finishers in the world of pro wrestling or sports entertainment. Whatever you want to call it. Man, I enjoyed the Iron Claw back in the day. I believed it was real.
I want to be careful when I'm breaking down matches because I don't want to offend anybody or knock anybody's work. It took me a long time to get where I was at, so I know how it feels when someone knocks on you.
When I got into professional wrestling, I started, and I starved for two years, and I finally got some breaks. And then I got the biggest break, and I made the most of it and took wresting to its highest level ever.
We didn't roll credits after 'Monday Night Raw.' You know, it didn't say, 'Stone Cold Steve Austin played by Steve Austin,' so all of a sudden people think that's who and what you are 24/7, you know, 365 days a year.
I'm glad about 'The Curtain Call' now, but I remember being very confused watching it all go down because I was right there behind the curtain watching it all, and I couldn't believe these guys were breaking kayfabe.
I used to love Andre The Giant. I could sit around all day and listen to Andre stories. He was such a wonderful, unique guy who everyone loved being around. The thing about Andre, he just had this magical mystique about him.
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.
There's so many things I want to accomplish in the world of acting. But, the two most important are that I want to keep paying the bills and I want to get better. That's about it. I enjoy what I do. I'll stay busy. I've been lucky.
Say the average arena is 20,000 people. You're in the very center of that arena, and you're playing to the worst seat in the house up there. So everything is very big, very large. It's like a very violent form of Broadway in a 20x20 ring.
What I love about podcasting is it's guerilla radio. I don't have to stick to anybody's protocol or format. I can operate my show just like I want to, but at the end of the day, it's just a can of audio whoopa**. My show is built to entertain.
In the ring, if someone hits you too hard, you can only take so many of those, and you have to send back a receipt, meaning 'Hey, settle down.' If a guy has a bad night at the office and catches you in the chin, you pop him so he knows what's going on.
Everything I've done goes back to pro wrestling. Had I not been able to achieve what I did, I guarantee you... my high school jobs were always working in the highway department - driving dump trucks, patching up roads, digging ditches, driving a forklift.
I love my fans, and I love my relationship with the fans, but when you're a performer, and you're used to being the mac daddy, the main cat, and all of a sudden you're not that guy anymore, it's kind of a whole different spectrum and a whole different level.
I don't know if a pro wrestling career prepares you for Hollywood. When you get out there, and you're in an arena for 20,000 people or 90,000 people, it's a lot different than being on a quiet set with 100 people, so I think you get used to dealing with cameras.
I talk about things I'm passionate about. I talk about the wrestling business, because I love wrestling. I just love it. If I can just have good conversation with a guy who was a bada** wrestler, we're talking about something that's very near and dear to our heart.
Shoot, man, I loved being a damn heel. Something about that, just going out there and being the most despicable person you could ever be, was a real turn-on for me. And I grew up a real shy kid in south Texas, and it was something for me to lean on and have fun with.
When I see things through my eyes, I don't want to ever just be really negative towards someone's performance. There are many ways to skin a cat. Sometimes I watch the guys, and they're doing different things than I would have done, but I don't ever want to be too critical.
You're in there, you're having a match, and you're feeding off that crowd. That's the gasoline that fuels the match, and that's how you make your decisions. If you're not listening to that crowd when you're working, you're missing the biggest part of what working is all about.
It's like I tell everybody, if you get a chance to win the Royal Rumble or the King of the Ring back when they had it, that means you're gonna get a push. You getting an opportunity at something big, and it can really set up your future for you. So if you're that guy, boy, it's pressure.
When Savage died, that was hard on me. I didn't even hardly know Randy, but I just turned 51 this past December, and he was 58 when he died. I'm like, 'Hey man, just because I'm in that line of work, do I have an expiration date? Am I supposed to go?' I always wonder, but I don't harbor it.
A lot of people say, 'What set the Attitude Era up?' or, 'What started the Attitude Era?' To me - and I was allegedly the leader of it - sports entertainment, pro wrestling, whatever you want to call it has always had an attitude. So, why that particular generation got labeled, I don't know.
My run cannot be touched. If you want to talk about longevity, you can speak the name Hogan. If you want to talk about white-hot, selling tickets, and taking the business to a height it's never been - and, with a hell of a supporting cast, I might add - you're talking about Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Interviewing somebody is a lot different than being handed a stick in a 20,000-seat arena and trying to sell tickets. You're very green when you start. I'm still learning things to this day. I'm decent at interviews now, but man, getting people to buy tickets is the easiest thing in the world for me.
I got pile drived in '96 or '97 and was a quadriplegic for about a minute and a half. I couldn't move anything. It was in the Meadowlands at a pay per view with a million or two people watching, and I couldn't move. That cost me a surgery, but I healed pretty quickly, so that was probably my worst day at the office.
People go into that arena, and they know the fix is in. They know what pro wrestling or sports entertainment is. That being said, they want it executed to the highest level so that they can suspend their disbelief and buy in, and so, in a world of make believe, you make people believe in you. It's as real as it can be.
Talking with Ken Shamrock was almost a one-way conversation. I knew Ken was a tough guy, one of the toughest in the world at one time and still tough as nails. I had heard he had a tough background, but there are two times in that interview when I teared up. I'm "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, and I didn't cry, but I teared up. Ken saw me, and he almost started tearing up, too. I'd never experienced anything like that. To hear some of the things that he went through, my jaw was on the floor.