Steve Austin Talks SummerSlam Match With The Undertaker, Being Unhappy With It, Getting Knocked Out
After recently sharing a story about getting stretched by The Undertaker in a match early on in his professional wrestling career, professional wrestling icon, 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin, once again took to his podcast to discuss another match he had with 'The Deadman'. This time, Austin talked about his SummerSlam (1998) bout against The Undertaker.
According to Austin, the first time he was ever knocked out was on the so-called 'Highway To Hell', as he took an inadvertent headbutt from The Undertaker.
"We were out there trying to work our ass off, and prior to that match, I'm not the toughest guy in the world, but I've never been knocked out in my life. And part of the match, I hit the ropes, Undertaker goes for a backdrop, I kick him in his chest, he's going to straighten up and no-sell it, and when he does, the back of his big ass head hits me right under the chin. And, boom! Knockout blow. He flashed me. I went down on the mat. I was knocked out. I was only knocked out [for] maybe two [or] three seconds. All of a sudden, I'm laying on the mat on my back in Madison Square Garden. [I] don't know where I am. The referee of that match was Earl Hebner. Earl Hebner looks down at me. He kind of has this little grin on his face. He goes, 'God dang, boy! Are you alright?' I looked up at Earl. I said, 'where am I?' He goes, 'God damn it, boy! You're in the Garden!', so I get up and we continue the match. And one of my biggest disappointments in that match [was that] we [were] on our way to a hell of a match [and] I got knocked out. From that point on, I don't remember the rest of that match! I remember laying on the table. I remember Taker getting on the top turnbuckle and dropping that leg. And I'm thinking, 'we kind of talked about it. I don't know if he's going to do it or not, but I was going to stay there anyway because that's what you do'. But all of a sudden, that's one of the things I do remember about that match was Undertaker taking a courageous bump there and dropping that leg off that top turnbuckle. I'm like, 'alright, this is going to be interesting'. He lands. Everything crashes. We finish the match."
While 'The Bionic Redneck' and 'The Phenom' have nothing but respect for one another, Austin acknowledged that the two did not have the greatest in-ring chemistry together.
"I think the characters of The Undertaker and 'Stone Cold' were in many ways similar, you've got two bad ass guys and just neither one of us are true sympathy type babyfaces, if that's what you want to call us. I've got nothing but respect for Undertaker and I'm pretty sure he probably thinks pretty well of me. We didn't have the greatest in-ring chemistry like I had with Bret [Hart], that he had with Shawn [Michaels], that he had with Bret, or I had with some of the other guys."
Apparently, Austin and The Undertaker were underwhelmed by their match, as it failed to fully captivate the Madison Square Garden audience.
"The reason we were not happy with the caliber of that match [was]," Austin continued, "we knew that we could have had a better match. The crowd wasn't hanging on every single move or every single section of the match. And it wasn't a cookie cutter, prefab match. We had five [or] six bullet points and the rest was fill in the blanks. We knew that we had not captivated the crowd to the degree that we had them hanging from the rafters, waiting on the next move. Who was going to win? The drama wasn't high enough. The dare I say, interest, at the proper depth because when you go back to some of the matches that Taker had with Shawn, [or] maybe the one I had with Bret or maybe The Rock, when people were hanging on every single thing you do, we didn't have that [on] that night. And we knew that we could have done better and we didn't hook the crowd enough. Bottom line, we didn't hook the crowd enough. You can ask Taker and he'll tell you the same thing."
To listen to the podcast, click here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit The Steve Austin Show with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: The Steve Austin Show