THE STONE COLD TRUTH (36 page)

But my fans are real loyal, and we’re alike. We bond. I don’t wear robes or suits. I drive a pickup truck. I wear jeans and boots or athletic shoes and a T-shirt, just like they do. They know I have the security and limos because I’m popular, but I’m just like them.

You’ll find a large majority of my fans at Wal-Mart. It’s my favorite store to shop at. If you’ve got a Wal-Mart in your town, that’s everything you need, right there. You’re more likely to see me shopping at a WalMart than any other store. I’m very normal when it comes to shopping.
As a matter of fact, they just opened up a Super Wal-Mart ten miles from my house in San Antonio, and I can’t wait to get a look at it!

Of course, not everybody was glad to shake my hand. A small percentage of the population thought that what I was doing was sacrilegious, that the “Austin 3:16” bit was wrong. Or they didn’t like the way I flipped the bird. Or they didn’t like my colorful language.

That’s great, because I need those guys too. They make all the fans who really love me stand up for me even more. People are funny. If everyone likes you, that’s not really a good thing, because they eventually get lukewarm on you. The crowd psychology is weird, at times.

37
March 30, 2003—
WrestleMania XIX
Sunday

I
t’s
WrestleMania XIX
Sunday in Seattle. I wake up after a fitful night’s sleep to learn that I’ve been medically cleared. I can wrestle.

Originally they thought I had a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in my lungs. They did two or three different tests and, thank goodness, everything turned out to be okay. There was no heart problem whatsoever. It was one of those deals that just happened.

I check out of the hospital on Sunday at ten o’clock in the morning. Bob Clarke and Chris Brannan from WWE come to pick me up. They take me back to the hotel where I take a shower, shave, shampoo my hair (only kidding), listen to some CDs and made a few phone calls.

One of the people I call is Kevin Nash, because he heard what was going on and had left some messages, but I hadn’t spoken to him. The hospital wasn’t letting calls through. He’s in his room, so I go upstairs and we talk about what happened. He offers me a ride to the building, but I tell him I’ve already told J.R. I would ride with him and Jerry Lawler to Safeco Field. Kevin says he’ll just ride over with us, if it’s okay. So we both go down and meet with J.R. and “the King,” and we all ride over to the arena together.

In the limo, Jerry looks at me and says matter-of-factly, “You all right?”

I say, “Fine.”

He doesn’t know I’ve spent the night in the hospital. He’s just asking me in general if I’m all right. The whole deal’s been pretty confidential, pretty hushed up. Not too many people know what had happened. J.R., who has always looked out for the talent, hadn’t even mentioned it to the King.

We get to the arena and I report to the agent for my match, which in this case is Pat Patterson. Pat always does The Rock’s matches. Jack Lanza, my favorite WWE agent, always does my matches, but this time he’s been asked to do someone else’s. But I do ask him for some ideas and go over some things with him.

That afternoon, Rock and Pat and I go out and sit in the ring. It’s kind of like a few years ago when Rock and I worked the main event at
WrestleMania X-Seven,
which set the all-time arena attendance record for the Houston Astrodome. For that match, Rock, Jack, Pat and I went out to a steak house in Houston. We had a private dining room all to ourselves, and we came up with the match. That match was a lot more complicated, with lots more twists and turns and false finishes than this
match is going to have. And we came up with that match over a steak and a couple of drinks.

So this time we’re sitting in the ring in Seattle at Safeco Field. I know what the finish is going to be, but I’m brain-dead. I don’t have a clue what else we’re going to do in this match. With what had happened to me the day before, and my concerns for my health, I hadn’t thought about what I could do or what we could do together. We talk different scenarios and I figure it out.

I say I’ll get a couple of Stunners in on him and then he’ll get me with three Rock Bottoms in a row. I’ll barely get out of the first two somehow, but on the third one, I tell him, “You hang that elbow out there and hold it for six or eight seconds, so the people know that ‘this is it’ for Stone Cold Steve Austin. Then let it drop.”

Whatever else we’re going to do in the match, we come up with it in about thirty minutes. I want it to be a match that not only won’t stink the joint out, but will be worthy of the spot it has at
WrestleMania XIX.
I’m worried about my health, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to wrestle Rock in a match that others like and I enjoy.

My leather vests are made for me by one of the WWE seamstresses, Terry Anderson. I have different ones, all of them with three different letters on them. Some of them say “DTA,” for “Don’t Trust Anybody.” Others say “SOB” for “son of a bitch” or “BMF,” for “bad mf—er.” But the three letters always mean something. On the vest Terry’s made for me for my last
WrestleMania
in Seattle, it says “OMR,” for “One More Round.” That’s how I feel going into this match, that I’m going to do this “one more round,” one more time.

More than likely, one
last
time.

But I’m not really sure I’m going to make it through the match. I’m a long way from the Sportatorium in Dallas. I haven’t been in the ring in a real match for eight months. So to go out there and be in the main event, after being out of wrestling for eight whole months, I’m afraid I won’t have my timing.

Then they crash the glass and hit my damn music. When my music goes on and 54,000 people light up like they’re on fire, I tell myself I can do it one more time—one more round. I guess I’m a pretty stubborn SOB. My exes would agree, I’m sure.

When I walk in the ring, I know everything is going to be okay. I truly feel like I’m in a sacred place.

I go into the match adamant that Rock will go over, that he will win the match. I haven’t discussed it with anybody, but I’m going to put The Rock over in the middle of the ring. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t have entered the match.

That’s a no-brainer. There’s no other finish to this.

A lot of times when the office calls you to go over matches and lineups, the finish of the match is the last thing they talk about. This is one of those deals where the office don’t have to talk about it with me. It’s for me and Rock alone to talk about.

I know what’s going to happen. I know what has to happen. And I want to do it because I’ve beaten The Rock a lot of times in big matches. It’s the right thing to do, because this is business. It’s the right time.

There’s a story—a reason for the match. I’ve beaten Rock at two
WrestleManias.
Rock’s going to go on the road next month and draw another Pay-Per-View against a different guy. He’s gotta win.

Stone Cold Steve Austin might end up being the general manager of
Raw
or he might be selling T-shirts. Who knows what he’s gonna do? So there’s only one logical conclusion and that’s to put The Rock over clean right in the middle of the ring. No cheating, no foot on the ropes, no pulling tights, no interference, whatever.

And that’s what happens.

Two of the top guys in the business work their asses off in a sold-out arena. It’s just a bad ass, see-saw, back-and-forth battle. People are going crazy.

In the end, Rock stands there for I don’t know how many seconds with that elbow hanging over me. And when it falls, the fans
know
this is really “it” for Stone Cold.

After Rock pins me for the one-two-three, he leans over me real close and says, “I love you, man.” I know he means it.

And I tell him I love him too, and he knows
I
mean it.

Then Rock says, “You’ll never know how much this means to me. Thank you so very, very, very much. You don’t know how much I appreciate this. I’ll never forget it.”

I’m glad to have been able to do it for him. The main thing, though, is that the fans seem to like it.

When I took a year off for that neck surgery, and then when I walked out for eight months … those were both career suicides. I’m fortunate to have worked hard enough to have a strong base of people who’ve stayed loyal to me. They’ve stuck with me, and I still wanted to find a way to entertain them.

After the match is over, I come up the ramp for the last time and I look at the fans. It’s a sight I’ll never forget. I give ’em the Double Birds and the crowd explodes. I get a huge cheer as if I had won the match, and that’s wonderful to hear. And my music is playing as I’m leaving, which is cool.

Rock was the so-called heel in the match, or at least he was doing his best to get his fans to dislike him. But when we did that finish right in the middle, one-two-three, it set him up to do business down the road. The Rock beat Stone Cold at
WrestleMania XIX.
That’s what the record book will always say.

It was never acknowledged on TV that this was my last match, but ol’ J.R. knew. If you look at me on the tape coming up the ramp afterward, you can see it on my face. I was pretty emotional. Hell, I felt like crying. It was like someone had just taken a big weight off my back.