“Stone Cold” Steve Austin initially retired from wrestling following WWE’s WrestleMania XIX pay-per-view in 2003. He decided to come out of retirement for an impromptu No Holds Barred match with Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38 earlier this year in Dallas, but that appears to be very much a one-time affair. Austin recently gave an interview with Bill Apter where he discussed the struggle of retiring from pro wrestling at just 38 years old.
“Believe me, retiring at 38 was the toughest, one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do, walk away from the business that I love so much. This is one of the things that I love more than anything in my life. I have my family, and of course, they are very close to me, but professional wrestling, you want to call it Sports Entertainment, it’s all the same to me. This is one of my biggest, if not the biggest, passions of my life. So it was very hard for me to walk away at 38 years of age. There is no telling as to what I would have done had everything else played out the same with respect to the development of the character. But you know, things along the way, getting dropped my head forced me to turn into a brawler but god, if I could have had that kind of physicality and you know, that kind of health that I had in my youth. The run would have lasted a lot longer,” Austin said.
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The six-time world champion’s decision to retire was heavily influenced by the severe neck injuries he suffered throughout his career. He previously talked about the struggles with the decision on the Cari and Jemele Won’t Stick to Sports show back in January 2021.
“It wasn’t easy,” Austin said. “It wasn’t good, and I didn’t know what I was going to do because I didn’t have an exit strategy. But I knew after WrestleMania XIX with The Rock —and man we tore the place down, we headlined three WrestleManias together and Rock knew I was going to retire after that match — that was a hard thing to do. All my life, I either wanted to be a rock star or a pro wrestler. And it ended up I can’t sing so I turned into a pro wrestler and had a pretty good run. But after that, I didn’t have the rest of it figured out. So it was a very hard transition for me.”
“I would tell anybody this, whether it’s football, baseball, wrestling, something like that where the career window can be short, to be looking on the other side,” he added. “And be looking at things you can do to gain some attention. Obviously, your main job is your main job, but look at what you’re going to do once it’s all over with. I didn’t do that. It took my a long time to come to grips with the fact that I pulled the plug on myself. And turning back into, as I see it, a civilian and getting a job in the entertainment business. I kind of wasted three years of time living down in San Antonio. I originally came out to LA to maybe get to the movie business. And I made a few but I realized I didn’t really like it. It became a means to an end. And I found hosting and podcasting and this show as presented to me. So I’m really happy in this world, but it was not easy for me at all.”
