I think we all know by now that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is one of the toughest men on the planet. He finished a match with a broken neck at one point, and had leg issues most of his career and yet still wrestled. The man can drink beer better than anyone as well, which only makes him cooler to the wrestling audience. However, what he did at WrestleMania 32 has to rank up there with some of the toughest acts he has ever committed.
WrestleMania 32 took place in Dallas, Texas inside AT&T Stadium. Austin happens to be from Texas and we all knew he was going to be at the show at least. Most people expected him to be part of the show, but it was uncertain what he would do. In fact, most thought he would just have a talking segment. Instead, WWE had him take part in a legends beat-down on the League of Nations with fellow WWE Hall of Famers Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley.
Austin stunned everyone he could get his hands on, including Xavier Woods of The New Day who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, prior to all of this, Austin had actually torn his rotator cuff prior to WrestleMania and decided to work the show anyway. He said this regarding his appearance on his Stone Cold Podcast .
“After I’d already committed to Vince to be there, I tore my rotator cuff on my right shoulder. I tore the h*** out of it. It hurt like a b****…I can barely drink beer. This is my beer drinking arm! That’s what I was most upset about.
[After the match] we had to start throwing punches. I threw that first punch at Rusev…and I hit him in the mouth or the nose, and he’s in the corner and he’s bleeding and I feel so bad for him because I really like Rusev…When I threw that first punch, I ripped everything in my shoulder. And I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, you can’t stop throwing now.’…so we call for the beer and my shoulder is about to fall off!”
It is a sad situation that Austin hurt his beer drinking arm. How tough life must be for the man. However, the fact that he came to the event and worked WrestleMania the way he did is amazing. The man looked just as good as he always did and no one could even come close to telling if he had anything wrong with him. He looked like the same old “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. That might be what impressed everyone the most.
He came into this hurt and was hurting really right at the beginning when he’s punching Rusev, yet he finished the segment anyway in extreme pain the entire time. Again, we all know Austin is one of the toughest men to ever come on television. However, most would tell Vince McMahon that he was too hurt to do the segment and would just be fine with doing a random segment and having someone like The Rock take his spot.
This might have been better than the flame thrower usage and random beat-down of The Wyatt Family anyway.
As for The Rattlesnake, he wanted to do what he committed to do. That is extreme respect for the WWE and for Vince McMahon. However, it is even more amazing on his end because he didn’t want to let the WWE fans down and respected us enough to give us “the old Stone Cold” at least for one night. Let us hope he will heal up well from his injury.
[Image via WWE]
