THE STONE COLD TRUTH (20 page)

Jake, who had a string of personal issues, had been preaching in the ring lately about how he turned his life around. That got me to thinking about how I would respond after the show was over.

In my first tournament elimination match at
King of the Ring,
I got kicked in the mouth pretty badly by Marc Mero. After I beat him, I had to go to the emergency room and get stitched up. This was going on while Jake Roberts was wrestling Vader. I came back to the arena right away, never missing a beat, and got ready for my match against Jake, who had won his match. It just made me more intense, because I was booked to win the thing, but I had to be there to do it.

When I did my infamous “3:16” promo after winning the
King of the Ring,
that was a strong-ass promo and none of that stuff was scripted. At the time that Dok Hendrix stuck that mic in my face, he had no idea what I was going to say and neither did Vince, J.R. or the guys in the TV truck. It all just came out.

That started off two of my trademark sayings,
“AUSTIN
3:16” and “’Cause Stone Cold Said So.” It all happened that night at
King of the Ring.

By the next night,
AUSTIN
3:16 signs and posters had already started showing up in the crowd. When WWE came to me with the idea of doing a Stone Cold Steve Austin T-shirt, I said, “Just print a black T-shirt with plain white lettering. Put
AUSTIN
3:16 on the front and a skull on the back, with ‘Stone Cold’ written on it.”

That shirt probably outsold any shirt in the history of wrestling.

That’s why I think we need to get back to the way it used to be, with guys spitting out their own ideas and learning how to develop a character, because Austin 3:16 would never have happened or even come up if I was waiting for writers to tell me what to say. It all came from my heart as soon as I learned what Jake Roberts did in his prematch promo.

Wrestlers are not trained actors. To be successful, a wrestler must truly feel and understand who he is as a performer. If he really feels it, he can deliver a promo that is both believable and entertaining. If he’s simply memorizing his lines, the promo fails, much more often than not.

I do have to say that even after I did my 3:16 promo at
King of the Ring
and I introduced my new catchphrases, Vince still didn’t listen to all my ideas. I don’t think he had ever pushed anybody like me before. I’m not saying I was the best. I was just a different breed of cat. I was trying to be a heel, but I was accepted universally as a babyface. This was new ground—for me too. I was just kind of working my way through it, but it was new to me.

I kept my hair short at that time, but I wasn’t happy with it thinning out more as time went on. I did my 3:16 debut with Jake Roberts at
King of the Ring
with very short hair, but the sudden change in my demeanor called for a few adjustments in the way I looked. Stone Cold Steve Austin needed some new visuals.

I really liked that Bruce Willis had a buzz cut in
Pulp Fiction.
I thought he looked very cool for a guy who’s been losing his hair, and very cold-blooded at the same time, so I got a buzz cut. Then I saw
Woody Harrelson with his shaved head in
Natural Born Killers
and that was it! I decided to just completely shave my head smooth. I grew a beard and mustache and re-created myself as a whole new persona. I looked “Stone Cold” and felt “Stone Cold.”

All of a sudden, I was getting more promo time. But a new problem reared its ugly head. Some of my best stuff was getting edited out.

I remember running down Aldo Montoya (Justin Credible) on one of our TV shows. He had that yellow mask on his face and I called it a jockstrap. I just cut him and cut him and cut him. Then, later on when I watched the show, I noticed that some of these good things I’d said weren’t on the air. I was like, “Man, what the hell?”

We were in a real snowy town in the Northeast, at the old building in Lowell, Massachusetts, and I called Vince aside. I said, “Vince, can I talk to you?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Man, what’s going on? It seems like every time I say something, y’all take it back to the shop and chop all my stuff out.”

He said, “Well, Steve, your stuff is making the people laugh back in the studio. We are concerned because, as a heel, we want the fans to
not
like you.”

I said, “Well, Vince, let me tell you something. I’m six-two, two hundred and fifty pounds. I got a bald head and a goatee. I got black trunks and black boots and a big mouth. Man, if you take my personality away from me, I can’t compete with anybody here. You got guys here six-ten, seven feet, three hundred and fifty pounds or whatever. But if you give me my personality, I can compete with anybody. I guarantee it.”

Vince listened to me and said, “Okay,” and walked off. We left it at that. But Vince had gotten the message. He started letting me just go, and stopped editing a lot of my lines out of the show. Vince was beginning to “feel” and understand the Stone Cold character, which was essential in the development of my in-ring persona.

I tell young wrestlers that they must always be thinking about their TV character, and wear down the WWE creative team with their ideas for that character. And, above all else, they have to develop a positive working relationship with Vince.

Vince is the engine that runs the WWE machine. If he doesn’t understand or “feel” your character, you might as well do something else for a living.

Vince was raised as a true North Carolina redneck, and I think the Stone Cold character took him back to his roots and to people he had run across. He was giving the character his support.

And Austin 3:16 was about to explode.

19
Michael Hayes and the Stone Cold Stunner

W
hen I was attending college and going down to the Sportatorium or Reunion Arena in Dallas to watch professional wrestling, Michael P.S. Hayes was one of my favorite wrestlers. He was a badass heel with a big mouth, who could be a coward when the moment called for it.

Hayes knew his role. And he wasn’t a great wrestler, but he could cut a hell of a promo and he could really make you hate his guts. I enjoyed watching him and understand now how much of an influence he had on my career.

Hayes was one of the Fabulous Freebirds, along with “Barn-Bam” Terry Gordy (who was the badass muscle of the group) and Buddy Roberts, who was a pile-of-trash heel. I remember Michael Hayes getting up on the turnbuckle with that Rebel robe on and he’d dance and shake his hips, flipping his long hair. And I was just thinking, Damn … that’s cool as hell.

Of course, as a mark I hated Hayes’s guts. But that was his job as a heel, to make me hate him.

Then, once I got into the business, I got to know the guy in person and he was entertaining as all hell. More importantly, Michael P.S. Hayes is the guy who gave me the Stunner finish to my matches.

As The Ringmaster, my finishing hold had been the Million-Dollar Dream, which was my manager Ted DiBiase’s finish—a submission-type hold also known in the business as the cobra clutch. After I came up with the Stone Cold Steve Austin gimmick, I was still using that finish.

It was okay. It was starting to get over with the fans. But one day at a TV in Fayetteville, North Carolina, I remember Michael Hayes came walking up to me and said, “Hey, kid, come here. You got a second?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “I’ve been trying to think of a good finish for you. You know, that cobra clutch deal is okay, but if you do this other finish, it would be better,” and he showed me what he was talking about.

Wrestler Johnny Ace, who now works with J.R. in Talent Relations, was doing a version of it in Japan, called an Ace Crusher. Hayes said, “It’s different from Ace’s finish, because you put the guy’s chin on your shoulder, jump up and then you land on your ass.”

We got some of the local wrestlers together in the ring and said, “Hey, do you guys mind helping us with this?”

So I started practicing the Stunner that day. I did it about six times, and Hayes said, “Pretty cool, huh?”

I said, “Yeah, I like it.”

I started using the Stunner as my finishing hold that day, and J.R. called it the “Stone Cold Stunner.” I was thinking of something else, but that was a perfect name for my new finisher. It said it all. Thanks, J.R.

A few months later, in one of my first few Pay-Per-View shows using that finish,
King of the Ring,
I was going to go straight for the Stunner. We needed a setup thing, so that’s when I started with the foot in the gut as a setup, the “gut shot.”