The Steve Austin Show – Unleashed!
Release Date: August 3, 2017
Recap by: Chris Gaspare
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Top Newsworthy Items
– Austin wishes he would have wrestled Hulk Hogan
– Austin said there are no current plans to bring the podcast back to the WWE Network
Show Highlights
Austin goes into battle against fire ants
Austin started the podcast with a story this week. While filming Broken Skull Challenge in the desert, he’s set up in a camper paid for by the production company. He decided the other night to go outside with his dinner – salmon and chicken – and cook it on the grill while watching the sun set.
In the middle of cooking, he started noticing that his feet hurt. Before long, they were burning and he looked down to find hundreds of fire ants. He said they “bypass[ed] the shine spot” and went straight for the heat as they attacked his feet. He continued utilizing carney language in his humorous description of the incident.
He then dropped his chicken – not once, but twice – because he wasn’t used to the tongs for the grill. He went to wash it off in the sink, but realized he might not be able to trust the water in the camper, so he had to throw out his chicken.
Listener calls on dream matches, favorite Undertaker moments, the podcast on the Network, and which territories he’d like to have wrestled
The first caller wanted to know who Austin would choose if he could go back in history and wrestle anyone. Austin’s first response was Hulk Hogan. He said he was recently watching a match with Hogan against Paul Orndorff in an outdoor Toronto stadium and how well Hogan sold the beating before his comeback. He said he had moved on when the match could have taken place.
Austin also mentioned he would have liked to wrestle Bruno Sammartino and “Superstar” Billy Graham, who he called “the first Stone Cold” and was twenty years ahead of his time. He also said he wished he could wrestle Bret Hart, Ricky Steamboat, and Ric Flair again even though he’s wrestled them.
The next caller and Austin discussed the Keto diet, which Austin has been on since moving to Los Angeles in an attempt to get down to 245 pounds. He gave the caller advice, especially that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to diet. Forgoing beer has been the hardest part of Keto, he claimed.
The next caller wanted to know Austin’s favorite match against The Undertaker. Austin recalled a match, right after he came back from his neck injury, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was tagging with Undertaker and someone else in a six-man match. He wasn’t supposed to take any bumps in the match since his return from injury was supposed to be slow, but the crowd was into it, so he tagged in, took a couple bumps, and tagged out. When he was on the apron, The Undertaker said under his breath, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Austin remembers it so fondly because it showed that ‘Taker cared about him.
The next caller asked about whether the Stone Cold Podcast was going to return to the WWE Network. Austin gave a rather politic answer that his contractual obligations had been fulfilled and there were no plans at this time.
The last caller before the break asked if which territory Austin would have liked to work in the 1980s. Austin said he had to pick two – Mid-South and NWA. He said Mid-South was “white hot,” and he would have liked to work under Bill Watts there. NWA, on the other hand, was one of his favorites since they presented wrestling like “a real sport.” He thinks he would have “thrived” in the kayfabe era of heel/babyface hotels, bar fights, etc.
Listener calls on ribs, future books, William Regal, and Terry Funk
The first caller after the break wanted to know what Austin did in Florida when WCW was doing tapings. Austin said that he bonded with William Regal quickly after he arrived in WCW and they became travel partners, so during the tapings he hung out with Regal a lot.
They would go to a pub called Rover’s Return where Austin drank whiskey and beer, and the two would throw darts. Then they would hit the gym in the morning before going to tapings.
Austin liked some of the small towns in Florida, but never considered living there because it was too far south and his home base of Atlanta served as a good place to make all the shows. He then went on a bit of a tangent and told a story about Brian Pillman playing a rib on Van Hammer in a match.
Pillman told Van Hammer to no sell the chops he was getting ready to give him, then he proceeded to give him hellacious chops. After the eighth one, Hammer’s chest was bleeding. He told Hammer to “Hulk up” on him and when he did, Pillman rolled out of the ring to make Hammer look foolish.
The next caller wanted to know if Austin has ever been star struck. Austin was taken off guard, but recalled that in the sixth grade, the world yo-yo champion, a guy named Bunny Martin, came to his school to do tricks. He approached him after the show for an autograph, which was the first time he asked for one, and still has the autograph to this day.
Another caller wanted to know if Vince McMahon ever ribbed Austin. Austin couldn’t remember any, although he joked that maybe some of his payoffs were ribs. He recalled a time where he thought McMahon had ribbed him. He was singing the national anthem with Lillian Garcia, who is a professionally trained singer. Austin started singing and he was so off-key, it took Lillian a bit to catch up to him, but Austin thought when she didn’t start singing that he was the victim of a good rib.
The next caller wanted to know if Austin was going to write a follow-up to his book, The Stone Cold Truth. Austin said that WWE convinced him to write that book and that it was a “painful” experience. He said that Dennis Brandt and Jim Ross put a lot of work into that book to help him write it. He said he doesn’t have the attention span for writing, and he recently wrote the foreword to Jim Ross’s new book, and it took him four months. The following caller asked about Austin’s memories of wrestling in North Carolina. Austin didn’t give any specific memories, but Greensboro Coliseum was one of his favorite arenas and crowds ever.
The last caller wanted to talk about Terry Funk. Austin put over Funk as a “lights out” promo, a guy who could wrestle or brawl and make it “look like a shoot.” Austin said Funk is one of his favorites. He wrestled him at a Shotgun Saturday Night he believed at one point, but his best memories are the few times he got to sit down and drink some beers with Funk.
Score and Review (5/10)
Much like the previous listener call-in show, there wasn’t anything earth-shattering revealed or discussed. Austin seems to go into less detail at times with callers than he does when talking to wrestling with others in the business. Still, the episode is an easy listen and enjoyable to hear Austin talk to fans in such an earnest and conversational way. The highlight of the podcast is the little stories he tells about Undertaker, Pillman, etc. throughout.
Timestamps
00:00: Austin goes into battle against fire ants
15:58: Sponsor Ads
17:40: Listener calls on dream matches, favorite Undertaker moments, the podcast on the Network, and which territories he’d like to have wrestled
34:36: Sponsor Ad
36:36: Listener calls on ribs, future books, William Regal, and Terry Funk
About Chris
Chris Gaspare is a teacher from Maryland who has been watching wrestling since 1989 when he saw his first WCW Saturday Night episode and quickly rented as many NWA and WWF VHS tapes he could find in local stores. He also attended Tri-State Wrestling Alliance and early ECW shows in Philadelphia, which really kicked his fandom into high gear. He lapsed in the mid-2000s, but returned to the wrestling fold a few years ago.
For more, check out last week’s recap of Steve Austin Unleashed! with Don Callis.
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