In the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With Podcast, former WWE Manager Bruce Prichard talked about the infamous incident when Steve Austin walked out of the company back in 2002 and revealed the backstage reaction to it.
According to Prichard, at first when Austin no-showed the Raw episode everybody at backstage was in pure shock and this feeling later evolved in anger:
“I think it was disbelief. There was a consensus of, of everybody; the last person you would think that would leave was Steve. You kind of felt that he’s a lifer, he’s our guy and no matter what, good times and bad, he’s going to be there. It was shock. It was pure shock, not believing that this was really happening. And then the shock went to anger. ‘How can he do that?’”
Continuing on the topic, Bruce revealed that after the incident, Austin stopped taking calls from anybody related to WWE, including himself:
“It was a whole range of emotions. Steve wasn’t taking anybody’s calls. I reached out to him, he didn’t take my call. He didn’t want to talk to anybody and I think there was a point that was the last straw with Vince in his mind at that time, that if he’s going to walk out ‘I won’t tolerate that.’”
It’s worth noting here, that Stone Cold Steve Austin left WWE back in 2002 in an absurd manner. There are lots of stories of what actually happened but ultimately, it’s said that WWE had planned for Brock Lesnar to beat Austin clean.
This match was supposed to be a normal match on Raw with little to no build-up which the Texas Rattle Snake didn’t like and he walked out of the company.
