WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin appeared as a guest on SI Media podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Austin was asked to give his thoughts on the CM Punk – AEW situation:
“I just sent a message to Punk yesterday and we were just talking about his dog. He posted a picture of his dog and I sent him a message. I heard through the grapevine that he pulled his tricep. I said, ‘Did you tear your tricep?’, and he confirmed that he had. I don’t know where he is on the healing process. I don’t know the ins and outs or the behind the scenes stuff. We own a TV and we stream shows every night, but I don’t watch TV. I don’t watch any shows. What I do keep up with wrestling is on social media. I don’t know if there’s a soap opera behind Punk. I think he’s a hellacious talent. I don’t know the trouble or the ongoings of which you speak, so I can’t answer that question. That’s an honest response because I don’t know.”
If he was shocked Vince McMahon sold WWE:
“I wasn’t shocked at all. It’s been in the grapevine and it happened and it kind of made sense. UFC did it, so why not WWE? Triple H went out there and cut that promo, saying that they’re not going anywhere, meaning the people that are running WWE. I think it needs to come from a wrestling minded, family type thing or those key players. That’s a tricky business. Not everybody with a television background walks into the pro wrestling industry or the sports entertainment industry, whatever they want to call it, and can produce great results, so you keep the people running it because they know their fan base probably as good as anyone or better than anybody. I remember when Vince took the company public years ago. I asked him, I said, ‘Vince, why do you want to do this?’ He said, ‘Steve, to legitimize the business.’”
How much money he made from the Austin 3:16 shirts:
“I don’t know how much. I mean, it’s definitely seven figures, probably eight figures now. In WWE you get your royalty checks every quarter. I remember when I first came up with that shirt with Jimmy Miranda after I started getting hot and I created a promo. All of a sudden they came out with that shirt and those shirts were everywhere. I went and had a conversation with Vince. I said, ‘Hey man, I see a lot of T-shirts out there and I noticed that my royalty check doesn’t reflect that. He goes, ‘Well, Steve, what do you think we should do?’ I said, ‘Well, I think we need to kind of change the percentages.’ He came up with a number. He goes, ‘What do you think about that?’ I said, ‘I like it’, and so it was a fair deal. That became known as an Austin deal. It was time to come out with the royalty checks for that quarter and Vince wanted to hand deliver this one to me. He handed it to me and said, ‘Steve, I’m just giving this to you because I’ve never given out a check like this before to anyone.’”
You can check out the complete show below:
(h/t to Jeremy Lambert for the transcription)
