AEW announcer and Senior Advisor “Good Ole’ J.R.” Jim Ross took to an episode of his “Grilling Jr” podcast to talk about a number of topics including The Rock and Steve Austin’s feud in 1998.
Ross said, “Austin always had an eye out for the other talents as potential opponents. And he — you know, you look at The Rock from head to toe with his physique, his mannerisms, his ability to talk, et cetera, et cetera. And it really becomes that no-brainer. And Steve paid attention. He knew at some point in time that the day would come when he and Rock would begin some sort of little journey together. It wasn’t a little journey, because they headlined in one-on-one matches three WrestleManias. Three! That’s unheard of in today’s world.”
“But they were so good and their chemistry was so flawless, they headlined WrestleMania 15, 17 and 19. And I remembered them all very well. I called all three of them, and it was a great honor to see the greatness in front of me that includes Austin and Rock. So it was good stuff, man. It was good stuff. I’m sure lucky and glad that I was doing my trade in that period of time.”
On Rock’s angle with Sgt. Slaughter where he was supposedly injured:
“Yeah, it just kept feeding him material that he could carry with him and make better. That’s the thing about a great star, is that they take what the booking or creative committee presents them and they make it better.”
On Rock’s chemistry with Ken Shamrock:
“Severn was a stop-gap. It got Rock to Shamrock, and then here they go again. And they just had that match down. I mean, they didn’t really have — maybe you could think about something. I don’t think I can think of any Shamrock-Rock match that was horrible, or not good. They were always solid as hell.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
