During the latest edition of his “Grilling JR” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross commented on Steve Austin walking out of WWE in 2002 after refusing to lose to Brock Lesnar on RAW, and more. As PWMania.com previously reported, JR also revealed why Steve Austin did not want to wrestle Hulk Hogan, you can check out that report at this link. More highlights from the podcast are below:
On trying to defuse the situation: “I tried to defuse the situation enough to get the two decision makers, Vince and Steve, together. Steve was just tired of fighting. He’s just tired of the consternation and the lack of respect in his eyes, and look, I’m not telling you that everything Steve said was the way it was from the standpoint that he processed a lot of information that he might have been able to process it better in a different way, I think he would agree with that, but Conrad, he was fried, he was done. We let him smolder, the ashes were still hot as far as his passion was concerned.”
On Austin having marital issues at the time: “Again, I don’t have have any magical, if we had done this, everything would have been just fine. That’s bullshit. There was no this to do. You got a guy that has a lot of things at play. Personally, in the wrestling business, I had a chance, and one of my great pleasures in life was becoming great friends with Stone Cold, I knew his personal side, I knew he was having issues at home, I knew that his marriage on rocky ground and of course it ended up dissolved. The point he made in his book, the night before his issue in Atlanta on Monday, Debra wasn’t even in Columbus, they had an argument and she went home to Atlanta. So that was an ongoing thing.”
On Austin’s health issues at the time: “And then again, I can’t stress enough the health issue, goddamn man, it’s not just having it, well, I might not be able to make all this big money and I can’t be on top forever, he was dealing with an issue that, if done incorrectly with somebody he didn’t feel comfortable with, and confident with, he would not be the same man that he is today. He wouldn’t be up walking around. That neck issue was a bad piece of business, not withstanding the fact that he had two bad knees, which a lot of guys do, but the neck thing, when you can have paralysis and not know what it’s going to take to make that happen.”
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