Wrestling

Steve Austin Recalls How He Felt Going Into His Retirement Match

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Steve Austin made an appearance on Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast to talk about a wide range of topics. 

During it, the WWE Hall of Famer spoke about how he felt going into WrestleMania 19 against The Rock which turned out to be his last match.

“The day before, my heart wigged out.  There was nothing wrong with me.  I was just living real hard and the sh*t hit the fan.  There was no permanent damage or nothing.  It wasn’t a heart attack.  It wasn’t an anxiety attack.  It’s just sh*t hit the fan.  They didn’t really even release me.  They said, ‘Ok, you can go, but technically, we’re not saying you can wrestle.’  I was never cleared.  I’m damn sure going to wrestle The Rock and his a*ss one and Rock’s going over.  We went out there and we did about as good as we could.  It could have been better.  Nobody knew this was going to be my last match, other than about 5 or 10 people.  I think The Rock knew.  I was pulling the plug on myself due to the neck injuries that I had suffered in the past as they were catching back up with me.  I didn’t have a doctor saying, ‘You must quit.’  This was like talking to Dale Earnhardt when he pulled the plug on his racing career.  He had so many concussions that he had to pull his own plug.  That’s the hardest thing to do because you want somebody to be able to say, ‘You have to quit, and here’s why.’  You would listen to a medical professional.  I’m not a medical professional, but I know what I’ve heard from my medical professionals.  I’m looking at a real good chance of something bad happening if I’m in there with the wrong person and the wrong thing happens. 

So, that was going to be my last match.  I was so emotional about it that if I talked to anybody that day, and I didn’t talk to anybody that day because I couldn’t because I would have welled up and damn near start crying.  That’s how hard it was going to be to leave the business for me.  It took me a long time to adjust to life after the ring.  I’ll never forget.  We went out there and Rock hit me with those three Rock Bottoms.  On that last one, he picked me up and slammed the sh*t out of me.  He always took care of me.  It looked like a million bucks.  You knew that was the final nail in the coffin.  Earl hit that three count.  I was like, laying in (Wrestlemania )13 in that pile of blood, I was like, we did it.  In this one, it was like someone just lifted a thousand pounds off my back and it was like, dude, you’re not in harm’s way anymore.  I was at peace with that.  I went home to my room that night and drank some beers and processed everything, but it was a weird night and an emotional night that took me a long time to recover from.”  

H/T to WrestlingNews.co

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