Under the Black Hat by Jim Ross & Paul O'Brien

Author:Jim Ross & Paul O'Brien
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiller Press
Published: 2020-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

The Three Stages of Going Home

“HE TOOK HIMSELF OUT OF the game. Vince McMahon didn’t, J.R. didn’t. Steve Williams took Stone Cold and flew him to San Antonio. It would be like John Wayne becoming a coward in a big fight.” In the summer of 2002, that’s what I said online about my friend Stone Cold Steve Austin. (And to this very day, I still regret calling Steve a coward.)

For the second time in only a few months, Steve had gone home in anger and frustration. He did it on TV days, did it without notifying Vince, and did it without regard for how it could affect the show, the company, or himself professionally.

So I said what I said.

As I look back, I could see the clear path to how this all came to be. I was both understanding of Steve’s situation and pissed at Steve at the same time.

If two divorces had taught me anything, it was that strained relationships didn’t happen overnight. The break between Steve and WWE had a few different stages—the first of which had reared its head a few months before, on the run to WrestleMania X8.

Austin had a match down the card that he didn’t really want to be a part of. It wasn’t that Steve had anything against his opponent, Scott Hall. It was more that the match meant nothing and was heading nowhere.

“What do you think of this match? You think me and Hall can put together something good?” he asked me.

I replied with a shrug.

“What? You think it’s going to be the drizzling shits?”

“Maybe not ‘drizzling,’ ” I said.

I didn’t lie to Steve, but seeing how my words seemed to confirm his own fears, maybe I should have.

Steve and Scott were both amazing workers and sharp wrestling minds, but I felt their bodies didn’t have the fuel needed to collectively get where Austin wanted them to go. My guess was that they couldn’t put together something strong enough to satisfy Austin, who was notoriously hard on himself.

Even though all the backstage gossips wanted it to be true, there was no animosity between Austin and Hall. As a matter of fact, Hall, Nash, and Stone Cold were friendly—they had been for years. The real issue was this match: It had no real purpose, build, or destination.

Vince wanted Hall to win: His thinking was that he didn’t want two nWo members losing on the same card, and obviously Hogan was going down to The Rock.

I could somewhat understand the company using Austin to get Hall and Kevin Nash firmly implanted into the main-event scene, as the heel nWo faction wasn’t yet running on all cylinders. I’m sure it sounded great in the creative meetings—but the wrestling business doesn’t run on paper.

“I don’t mind losing,” Austin said. “As long as it’s the right place and the right time, to make everyone more money.”

This was the foundation of professional wrestling: make the conflict compelling enough that people will continue to pay their hard-earned money to see what happens next.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.