Stone Cold Steve Austin called the time on his career after WrestleMania 19, where he contested in the final chapter of his critically acclaimed trilogy of matches against The Brahma Bull at The Grandest Stage Of Them All. Austin’s career was dragged back a few years as a result of a botched piledriver at the hands of Owen Hart at Summerslam 1997.
On the recent episode of The Steve Austin Show, the WWE Hall Of Famer shared some thoughts from that night in Seattle. He admitted to being reluctant to watch the encounter, he said:
“I really did not want to leave the business of professional wrestling,” Austin divulged. “This is a match, WrestleMania 19, that I might have watched one time, maybe soon after it happened, but I never watched that match because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to watch that last match. But this is the match where I had the vest made, OMR, One More Round. Not everybody knew that was going to be my last match. Only a handful of us did [know].”
The Texas Rattlesnake revealed that only he, The Rock, Vince McMahon and Jim Ross knew that it would be the final time that Steve Austin would grace the squared circle as an active performer. He stated:
“I remember going to the building that day and it was just a very emotional day because if anybody said anything to me, I would damn near start crying because I knew that this was my last match. This was me riding off into the sunset. Nobody else knew that. The Rock did. Jim Ross did. Vince did. But I think Jim Ross probably put a little extra mustard on his commentary on this in building me up and talking about me. Maybe Lawler knew.” Austin explained, “maybe Jim had told him.”
Austin claimed that he was hospitalized prior to the clash after being unable to return back to his hotel room after a work out session. He revealed that he had to call 911 after which the medical team proceeded him to take him to the hospital. He said:
“I finished working out with Kevin [Nash] and I said, ‘alright, man, I’ll see you later.’ And I go back to my hotel room. I was staying at the Grand Hyatt. I’ll never forget it and I was way up on about the 25th or 26th floor. And, man, I remember right before I got to my floor my heart started beating out of my chest. I was thinking to myself, ‘oh man, this is just like Fred Sanford, ‘this is the big one’ – I’m going down!’ My heart rate reached about 180 beats a minute and I’m about to just s–t myself because I’m scared to death. I don’t know what’s up. Anyway, those elevator doors open and my room is right to the left, literally about 15 steps away and I know I need some help.” Austin continued, “when I got out of the elevator, there was one person coming down the hall and that was Liz DiFabio. She used to work in the [WWE] office. I don’t know if she still works there. And man, when those elevator doors opened and I was standing there, trying to walk to my room and my legs were shaky. I was in a panic, but I was trying to maintain my composure. But as soon as Liz saw me, she knew something was up. And I looked at her and I said, ‘Liz, I need help,’ so she grabbed my key from me. She slid it on the magnetic thing and we went to my room. And I said, ‘Liz, I need help,’ so she dialed 911. And shoot, before you know it, there [are] two ambulance crews in my room trying to figure out what’s going on with me. They’ve got heart rate monitors hooked up to me, they’ve got blood pressure things on me, and there are literally two ambulance crews there.
To conclude, Austin revealed that it was the neurological issues that forced him to retire. He said:
“My neurological issues were a shoot and I was living fast,” Austin admitted. “And I decided it was going to be in my best interests for my longterm future to ride off into the sunset and that’s exactly what I did.”
