THE STONE COLD TRUTH (34 page)

Vince was thinking I was saying okay because I agreed to do it. But I was saying,
“Okay,
I’m fucking fed up.
Okay,
this is bullshit.”

Something similar had happened not so long before that. When we were over in England, they wanted me to do a job for the Big Show in another no-buildup, no-story match.

Now they wanted me to do a job for Brock with zero buildup. I started seeing the writing on the wall. That was when I decided to walk, right or wrong. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Brock. It could have been any of a dozen other guys. I love Brock to death. He’s a great kid and he’s going to be a big Superstar in this business.

But here’s the bottom line: I’m Stone Cold Steve Austin. I’ve drawn more money than anybody in the business. I’ve reportedly sold more merchandise than anybody in the business, and I’ve sold more Pay-Per-Views than anybody in the business, so Stone Cold is not the first in line to do a job to Brock Lesnar.

I’m happy to do a job for anybody—when it’s time to do business. If you know the business, and you know what
is
business, then I’m the last one to job to Brock. That’s the money match, the ones the fans are supposed to be dying to see.

His catching a quick win over me in a TV tournament-style situation with no buildup, no advertisement, no story line … that was just wrong. It wasted a situation where money could be made.

If there was a buildup and a reason to beat me, it would have been different. If it had meant something, I would have been willing to listen.

I had no problem with putting him over. But I should have been the last in line, not the first. It made no sense to me. I thought it was poor planning.

This stuff—what I thought were stupid creative decisions—set me off. It was the fuse that lit the dynamite. But the fact was that I had a lot of other problems going on at the same time.

My health had been failing for the last six to eight months. My serious neck and back problems were getting worse, and so was the problem I had with the reflexes in my legs. Of course, I wouldn’t admit that
any of it was happening. I kayfabed it—I didn’t say anything about it. But these were ongoing problems, and I could tell my body had had enough. I couldn’t perform the way I wanted to.

I was frustrated and I was scared. In my mind, I was feeling like less of a man than what I wanted to be—less of a man than I had been.

And while I was going through all the frustrations of my health issues, I was also dealing with the problem of my marriage to Debra and the problem of my kids moving to England. I was completely stressed out with so many things going on. The BS just kept piling up on me.

Finally, I’d had enough. As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal—I was
gone.

I had already told J.R. I wasn’t going to be there in Atlanta, and I wasn’t going to argue with Vince on the phone. And I wasn’t going to show up the next day and try to hammer it out at TV. They had screwed with me to the Nth degree.

As soon as I hung up the phone with Vince, I looked at Debra and I said, “We’re going home tomorrow.”

She said, “No, no, no.”

I told her what they wanted me to do. Then I called WWE Travel and changed my flights. That was the wrong thing to do, because they call their bosses to see if it’s okay that you’re making the changes. I should have made them on my own.

That’s how J.R. knew I was on the airplane when he called me. Also, I learned that Debra called someone at the office from the plane, freaking out that we were on our way home and saying that’s why she wouldn’t be at
Raw—
basically covering her ass.

So that’s how it ended with me and Vince and WWE. On June 10, 2002,1 walked out on the greatest job I’ve ever had.

Everybody thought I left because I was mad about creative decisions. But that wasn’t the real reason. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I can see where people would say, “Oh, this guy got pissed off at the company because he didn’t want to do a job, or because he thought he was treated badly.” In that light, I looked like I was just bitter.

But the bottom line was, I was just overwhelmed, mostly by my
health problems. You don’t know how it feels to have those kinds of problems unless you’re actually physically going through it. They just weigh you down. They change your whole outlook.

The stuff that was going on at WWE was only part of the picture. It was a tough time in my life because I was standing on the sidelines, people were throwing rocks at me, my body was quitting on me and I didn’t have any recourse but to try to get out of it.

Back on that
WWE Confidential
episode that aired the week after I left, the one where Vince and J.R. explained why I had screwed myself and walked out, they speculated on why I wouldn’t meet face-to-face with Vince in Atlanta that day at
Raw—
why I instead “took my ball” and went home.

J.R. told the audience that someday the real truth might come out. When, he didn’t know. The attack on me was typical of the type of smear campaigns a company carries out when a valued employee leaves on bad terms. Or maybe that’s just in the wrestling business.

I’ve seen it plenty of times before, so it wasn’t a surprise. I expected it. But some of the comments made by some of the talent surprised me. Others, I knew, were just saying what they were told to say. But as I said, I understood the game that was being played.

Everybody thought, Oh, he left because he was mad. No, I left because my health was failing miserably. No one else really knew what was going on with me. I was feeling all these crazy things going on with my reflexes. I didn’t know how to handle it. I wouldn’t talk about it to anyone. It’s not like I was going to sit there and call Vince and say, “Hey, Vince, my health’s gone south.”

You don’t do that as an athlete or as a performer. You don’t just go up to your boss and say, “You know what? I’ve got this big bunch of limitations I want to drop on you now.” I was hiding it and hiding it, and I finally got tired of hiding it. And because of all the situations that kept presenting themselves, it gave me an excuse in my own mind to get out.

I walked out. I took myself out of the business. That was a hard thing to do. WWE had given me a great opportunity. But I had held up my end of the bargain. I had provided them with lots of entertainment. I got paid for it, the company got paid for it and the fans had gotten their money’s worth.

You know, it’s funny, when WWE did that damn “anti-Austin” campaign on me, and they did a prettyy good job on it, I didn’t say anything. I just sort of sat back and took it. I mean, they owed it to me and I deserved something like that for leaving like I did. But, man, it wasn’t fun. It was brutal.

So I went home for seven or eight months and stayed in shape and continued seeing my doctors. Vince left me a message once, but I was still mad at him and didn’t call him back.

I wasn’t going to call
anybody.
I was going to sit at the house, stubborn as a mule, because I truly felt like I’d been messed with time and time again. And I was going to stay just where I was until something moved me off high center.

One day, that something happened. I got a card in the mail from J.R. He sent me a nice hand-written note that said,
I’m here. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me. J.R.

That’s when I picked up the phone and called Jim Ross and we talked for two hours, because I know I went through two cell phones. We talked for two straight hours about what was going on and where my life was.

Finally he said, “Is there any way you’d want to meet with Vince and talk about how things got all screwed up at the end? I know that’s not how you would have wanted to finish up.”

I said, “Yeah, I’d love to talk to him and find out why everything happened like it did, and he can ask me the same thing.”

J.R. said, “I’ll talk to him and see if I can set it up, and I’ll call you later.” So he set up the meeting.

It took place about a month later, when
Raw
was in Houston. The WWE office set us up in the penthouse at the Westin Hotel, at the Galleria in Houston.

It was a big-ass suite and I got there early, as usual. I was just waiting around watching ESPN and Vince walked in. You can imagine it was a little uncomfortable for me, seven or eight months after doing a “walkout” job.

But we hugged and we shook hands, and he asked how I was doing. It was one of those weird deals where he was beating around the
bush a little bit. Then we started talking about current story lines and where I thought they might go.

Finally he was sitting on one couch and I was sitting on the other and he said, “What happened?”

And that’s when I opened up to him all my frustrations about what they wanted to do to my character and how it was bullshit. But I didn’t clue him into what I was going through with my health. He asked me if I would consider coming back, and I said, “I’d consider coming back, but not in an active role in the ring.”

He said, “Well, that’s how Creative works, they get you back in a story line and then you’re back in the ring.”

He didn’t know where I was coming from and I wasn’t ready to tell him about my recent health diagnosis.

I told him I was sorry, but that I did what I did. Vince and I have that relationship where I’d do anything for the guy. On a personal level, I love that guy to death. But when it comes to business, he has to understand that. I don’t like to brag, but I do know what I’ve done in this business and I got a pretty big freakin’ ego just like he does.

This was a case of J.R., the outside referee, making the match and putting us together. We hugged, we talked about what was wrong and in the end, we buried the hatchet.

I said to him, “Hey, Vince, I’ve been thinking about doing some personal appearances; I didn’t want to go behind your back, so I put them off. Is it okay if I do them?”

He said, “Sure! Let us know if we can help promote them. No problem at all. If there’s anything I can do, let me know, I will.”

So we shook hands and I wished him a good show. They went on to do
Raw
and I watched it on television.

It was an unreal relief. Damn, I love Vince in a strange sort of way. He’s given me a lot of knowledge and wisdom. It’s been a great job. I’ve had so much fun doing it.

I trust that guy hitting me in the head with a steel chair and vice versa. I’ve given him stitches, he’s given me stitches. He’s not afraid to do anything that he’d ask me or anyone else to do. It’s like a fifty-fifty partnership. He’s my boss, but we’re fifty-fifty. Well, fifty-one-forty-nine.
It was more personal than professional, because I knew I was going to be limited coming back. And like I said, Vince treated me like gold.

I think that same attitude Stone Cold has on TV is the attitude that Vince has in real life. I think that’s the reason we got along so well and the chemistry has been so good between us. Vince is a headstrong, go-forward guy who takes the bull by the horns and does what he wants. He’s very shrewd. I’d rather have Vince on my side than against me, any day of the week.

At the end, there was that animosity and friction, and things fell apart. But even if I never went back to work for WWE again, Vince McMahon and I would have remained friends. He would still have respected me and I would still have respected him.

When I came back to WWE it was because I didn’t like the way I left. I don’t like quitting anything. I wanted to fulfill my obligation—more because of my personal loyalty to Vince than because of my legacy as Stone Cold. I just wanted to wrap it all up the right way, rather than think I had disappointed Vince or the fans.

I didn’t want to screw Vince. That’s the bottom line.

That’s why I met with him, after J.R. sent me that note, and it looked like we were going to work out my return.
Raw
magazine did a cover feature story on “Why Stone Cold Quit.” I hear it was the biggest-selling issue of the magazine in years. Everything I said in that interview was true.

I finally got to tell my side of the story. And I haven’t had one person come up to me and say, “Hey, that article sucked.” Everybody liked it.

But I didn’t talk about the serious issues with my neck and my back, or my personal problems, the way I’m talking about them now. Taken together, they were really the deciding factor in my leaving.

I hadn’t left the business solely because I thought the story lines were not up to par, as most folks seemed to think. It wasn’t about losing. The creative part was just the icing on the cake.

When I came back to
Raw
the first time, I went up to each one of the boys—even those who said unkind things about me in the magazines and on
Confidential
and
Raw.
I looked every one of them in the eye
and shook their hands. Most of the boys in the locker room welcomed me and were glad to see me.

A few guys didn’t want to respond to me, and that was their prerogative. I don’t want to name names, because I don’t want to put any heat on anybody. But when it came to those guys, I met with them privately and we talked about it.

In general, I seemed to get a fine reception. And I did the same thing on the first Pay-Per-View after my return, where I saw the
SmackDown!
talent for the first time in about eight months.

There were a couple of people who I pulled aside, or who pulled me aside, and we buried the hatchet with regard to the stuff that had gone on. In the cases of the guys I had referenced in the
Raw
article, I got them alone and said, “Hey, it wasn’t my time. I was going through some personal problems. Professionally, I was running into a brick wall.”

I’ve always had a good relationship with Chris Jericho. We had stayed in touch. The same with Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero … guys who know what it’s like to be jerked around by the system like we all were in WCW. I knew I’d get no heat from those guys.

The bottom line is I did what I did, and so be it. Some people can understand it, and some people aren’t going to understand it, but that’s just the way it is. It seemed like almost everybody was glad to see me back, and I was sure glad to see
them.