THE STONE COLD TRUTH (6 page)
Read THE STONE COLD TRUTH Online
Authors: Steve Austin,J.R. Ross,Dennis Brent,J.R. Ross
MOM: Being the mother of four boys was challenging. I did my fair share of spanking, because my husband was in a band, he was gone a lot. Every morning, you might as well have lined them all up for a spanking, because they were gonna need one before the day was up anyway! They knew when I’d absolutely had it with them, and then they’d run to their room and dive under the beds. I’d yank on their legs and pull them out. They still give me hell about that. Sometimes they were awful. It was just boys’ stuff, but there was always something going on.
When we lived in Victoria, the nicest, sweetest people lived next door to us and they had one daughter. They really weren’t attuned to us, with this wild bunch of boys we had. They were so had sometimes.
One day, Jim, from across the street, called us and said, “Beverly, I want you to look out the window at what the hoys are doing. We’re not upset about it, so don’t get worried.” They had a dirt pile, because they were going to do some landscaping, and it had rained. The boys were just having a ball running and playing with the mud. They were filthy. We had to take them out and hose them off. They were all blond with big blue eyes, and all you could see were those big blue eyes. Steve was especially white-headed. They all were really blond when they were little.
DAD: What one of them couldn’t think of doing, the other would. They were always into something. But they never did anything we couldn’t forgive them for.
MOM: Steve was such a star in football. We lived one block from the stadium. They were doing well, so we always went to the games. Jenny was real little, and after the game, she’d run to the rail and Steve would come get her and give her and me a big hug. God, he stunk, and he was filthy and sweaty, but she loved it! After every game, he would do that.
Stone Cold Learns About Girls
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hen I was in seventh and eighth grade in Edna, Texas, I had little girlfriends. I mean, not real girlfriends—crushes, I guess. I remember I was in eighth grade and I was in the band, playing the tuba and the bass horn. One day I was sitting in the back where the tubas and basses go andsome members of the high school band came in to play their instruments for us.
Mom wrote on the back of this photo, “Just showing off.” She was right.
There was this one girl named Kathy. She had on tan pants and she had a star on one of her back pockets. She played the clarinet really well. I later found out that she was three years older than I was, salutatorian of her class, first-chair clarinet and a tennis player. She was just a supersmart person. I immediately fell in love with her. She was pretty
and she had a great body, not like some WWE Diva, but great, with dark brown hair. And I was thinking, God, how am I going to meet this girl?
I was a few grades younger than she was, so I knew I didn’t have a chance. Then, out of nowhere, an opportunity came up. This girl played tennis, and the tennis coach, who I knew from playing sports and just goofing around and being friendly, asked me and my friend, Michael Rab, to come out and play tennis.
My wheels started turning. Okay, that would give me a chance to get to know Kathy! I lived about a mile from the tennis courts and Kathy lived on the way to the courts. Michael and I used to walk to the tennis court, but I wasn’t going to let anybody see Steve Williams, the big football stud, walking carrying a tennis racket! I couldn’t let that happen no matter how much I wanted to get to know this “older woman.”
So I’d always lean over and tell my buddy, “Hey, hold my racket while I tie my shoe.”
I’d tie my shoe, stand up and start walking, and I’d conveniently forget to take the racket back. My friend would end up carrying it the whole way to the tennis court. I didn’t want anybody to think I was some kind of sissy, you see.
Just by playing tennis and being around the tennis courts, I got a chance to meet Kathy. I was shy, but somehow I got to know her. We’d go out to the athletic track and just sit around and talk, and the damn mosquitoes would just be eating us up. One time I worked up the courage to kiss her. I was real nervous, but finally I did it. She was an absolute sweetheart. I’ll never forget that first kiss.
We actually ended up being an item, Kathy and I, it started my freshman year in high school—when she was a junior—and lasted a long time. I went to Wharton Junior College in Texas while she was still at Southwest Texas State and got her degree. When I went to North Texas and she had graduated, we moved in together.
We were good for ten years. Then I got this wrestling bug, and Kathy was not a wrestling fan. That was the beginning of the end for us. But I’ll tell you that story later on.
Overall, it seems, the wrestling business has allowed me more success in the ring than in romance.
My First Memories of Pro Wrestling
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s a teen in Edna, I loved to watch the wrestling from Houston on TV every Saturday night. That was the show that Paul Boesch, promoter and former wrestler, put on every week.
Houston wrestling was the only wrestling show we got in Edna back then. It was a once-a-week deal, onehour long. I didn’t give a damn about the story lines. Back then there weren’t hardly any story lines. There were feuds, and there were guys going for the championship belts. That was the draw for me.
Bottom line, I just liked seeing those guys getting in the ring and wrestling each other, punching and kicking each other. I just liked watching it. I remember the commercials from that time too, with I. W. Marks Jewelers putting diamond earrings in Mr. Boesch’s huge cauliflower ears, and ol’ Mattress Mac. I was always a big Jim McIngvale fan because he was always “…
wantin’ to s-a-a-a-ave me money!”
I still have Mac’s phone number and we still do things together on occasion. He’s a super guy and a workaholic who owns Gallery Furniture in Houston. He’s very successful at what he does and extremely honest.
But I remember the guy from way back. I remember meeting with him before
WrestleMania X-Seven
a few years ago in Houston. Jim Mac and I bought the prize-winning steer at the Houston Stock Show right before
WrestleMania X-Seven,
then put it up for charity. That steer, Shorty, went for a million dollars, a world record at the time. And Jim wasn’t going to be outbid either. He was serious about it. Those are some high-dollar burgers!
I’m not sure I can explain what drew me to wrestling. You had Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Ted DiBiase, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair … all those guys would come through Houston and appear on TV. Jose Lothario would come through, “Mad Dog” Buzz Sawyer, a lot of other great wrestling names. I just had to watch wrestling—that smoky arena with one light over the ring, the way I wish it still was today. It was irresistible to me. It drew me to it like a moth to a lightbulb.
My dad didn’t watch wrestling. My mom didn’t watch and my brothers didn’t really watch it. But I remember watching it every week. My sister says she can’t remember me watching wrestling. That’s because she was too young. She’s a lot younger than I am.
My brothers always wanted to watch something else. I’d say, “No, we’re watching wrestling, and when the show is over you can watch whatever you want to watch.” If I told them that there was going to be something special going on in the ring and sell ’em on the thing, they’d
watch. I was doing wrestling promos, selling the product back then, and I didn’t even know it.
Here I am at thirteen with my dad’s guitar, still dreaming of rock stardom.
When I was a teenager, I started thinking that being a wrestler would be a good profession for me. I told my brothers that when I was a wrestler, my name would be “The Western Fandango.” I don’t know why I came up with that crazy name or what it even meant. Shows you how my gears were working. “The Western Fandango, Steve Williams”—I didn’t even know what a fandango was, but it sure sounded flashy.
I also wanted to be a rock star. For real. I’m a big music fan and I listen to absolutely everything. Back then, my dad was a huge country-western fan. He plays lead guitar and he sings a lot, so I figured I’d get my dad to teach me how to play guitar.