Shane McMahon Tells Steve Austin How Vince McMahon Reacted When He Walked Out
Shane McMahon was a guest on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s The Steve Austin Show this week and talked about a large number of topics, from the current WWE, to events in the past. One of the items that Shane talked about was when Steve Austin walked out on Vince McMahon and the WWE instead of losing to Brock Lesnar in 2002.
According to Shane McMahon, the actions of Stave Austin personally hurt Vince McMahon and it was devastating to the WWE when it happened.
“[Austin was] the guy that was drawing the houses and everything was built around [Austin]. So when you have that much equity at stake and you have your number one player in there and that’s the one who draws money all of a sudden say, ‘I’m out,’ well, it’s very devastating, obviously, to everyone else underneath and everyone felt it, just like, ‘wow,’ so specifically, you let a lot of people down.”
For fans who didn’t watch at the time, Steve Austin learned from Jim Ross that he was going to lose to Brock Lesnar on Monday Night Raw. Austin was not happy with this decision and said he wasn’t going to do it, so Ross told Steve to call Vince McMahon.
Steve Austin has admitted that he was not easy to work with at the time. Austin said that he would get ideas and reject them without helping come up with other ideas that could possibly make the ideas work for both parties. That is what happened with Brock Lesnar.
The reason that Steve Austin did not want to lose to Brock Lesnar on Monday Night Raw was because he didn’t like the finish to the match. Austin said that he didn’t have a problem putting Lesnar over in the match but not in the way that they wanted.
Instead of working with Vince McMahon on a new finish to the match, Steve Austin said that he just said “eff you” and walked out on the WWE, something Steve says to this day was the biggest mistake he made during his wrestling career.
“I lost a lot of money. The company lost a lot of money. It was just a bad part of my life that I handled in a horrible fashion. I blew that one and it was on me.”
Steve Austin has always stood by his thoughts that putting Brock Lesnar over should have come as a special event. The way the WWE and Vince McMahon were writing it was for it to happen with no advance promotion that they were fighting and just throwing it away on free TV with no build.
According to Shane McMahon, the moment that Steve Austin walked out was both professionally and personally damaging to Vince McMahon. Shane said that his dad and Steve had built a great relationship up to that point and most of the time they would work out any disagreements and settle it quickly.
Steve Austin had previously stated that he was drinking a lot of whiskey at that time in his life and was drunk when he called Vince McMahon and told him he was leaving the WWE because of the Brock Lesnar match.
Shane McMahon said that the WWE was putting all their money in building Stone Cold Steve Austin. When Austin didn’t want to put over Brock Lesnar on Monday Nigh Raw, despite saying he knew that Brock was money, he hurt the WWE as a company. Shane said that Vince McMahon and the WWE believed at the time that Steve Austin let the entire company down by walking out.
Steve Austin said that he regrets the decision and would redo it if he could. He remained out of the WWE for six to eight months and he was never the same once he returned.
[Featured Image by WWE]
