WASHINGTON — Stone Cold Steve Austin might not be “opening up a can” in the wrestling ring anymore, but he’s still bringing the intensity in life as the fifth season of his CMT reality show “Broken Skull Challenge” premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m.
Austin joined WTOP to discuss his role in hosting the competition, as well as WWE memories during his time as “Stone Cold” and some of the new faces of the company.
Here are some excerpts from the conversation:
On motivating without trash talking: “I don’t want to trash talk anybody. At the end of the day, I’m recruiting athletes all over the United States of America to come out there and do their best in physical competition. … It’s not about me trying to sell a pay per view, it’s about me trying to extract the best performance from a man or woman who’s out there.”
On Roman Reigns and his development as one of WWE’s top guys: “He’s still learning, but I think the right call was for him to beat John Cena [at “No Mercy” this past Sunday]. He still has work to do, he hasn’t been here that long. I thought the match Sunday was pretty damn good.”
On his various feuds with personalities during his time in WWE: “I always liked working with Paul [Paul Michael Levesque, better known as HHH] because we were really on the same page as to what was going on in the ring. He was a ring general and so am I, so we just clicked and we were looking to have the best match that we could. The feud that transcended the business for give or take about two years was with Vince McMahon. When you look back to those days, that whole locker room will be in the Hall of Fame when it’s all said and done.”
On whether he would return to Raw or Smackdown as general manager: “We did the General Manager thing back in the day when I was working with Eric Bischoff. We had a great time doing that. I think they’re doing real good. I loved when Mick Foley was doing it and now Kurt Angle is tremendous. My time is focused on other projects, so I don’t know that I’d have the time to do that.”
On his preference of being a heel or a face: “I like being a heel rather than a face. When I ended up turning [in the double switch at ‘Wrestlemania 13’ against Bret Hart], I had a monster run as a babyface, and I was a babyface with a lot of edge with a defined character.”
On Seth Rollins and his role since coming back from his injury in late 2015: “He got a little bit lost when he came back after the knee injury. The crowd wanted him to turn babyface and they kept him heel, so he fought the tide for a long time. Now his storyline of him and Dean Ambrose burying the hatchet, it’s been great for both of them and a boost to both of their careers. Right now as a team, they’re a great babyface tag team, but in my opinion, I like Seth better as a heel than a baby just because he has more of an edge.”
On the Miz being Intercontinental Champion and his rise over the past year: “What I like about the Miz, he takes such good care of his character and gimmick; he lives and breathes that 24/7. He’s one of the hardest working guys on the roster. If you had other guys on the roster working as hard as the Miz, you’d have a lot more guys on the roster higher up on the card. I give Miz a ton of credit — and I mean this as a compliment — he does more with less as far as physical attributes than almost everybody on that roster. When he lights up a microphone, everybody listens because he’s just that damn good. He is on all the time.”
Listen to the full conversation with Stone Cold Steve Austin below. And that’s the bottom line:
