“Stone Cold” Steve Austin is one of the most well known professional wrestlers of all time, but when he first joined WWE he was struggling to break through as The Ringmaster.
Eventually Steve set the wrestling world on fire, but first he had to develop a relationship with Vince McMahon.
Austin recently opened up about his early days in the WWE during an episode of Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia, and he talked about how he convinced Vince McMahon to let him be himself.
“At a very early stage I wasn’t afraid to ask. Don’t get me wrong, me and Vince got to be very very good friends, but as you know, talking to Vince or developing a relationship with Vince is a very intimidating thing when you first walk in there. I knew after seven and a half years that I needed to take care of my ass so I had the wherewithal to talk with Vince McMahon and establish a relationship with him and offer my thoughts and ask questions to the man himself. Like I told him, my response to him was, ‘Vince, you got guys here 6’10, 7 feet tall, 300 to 330 pounds,’ I said, ‘I’m 6’2, 250, black trunks, black boots. If you take my personality, from me, I can’t compete. If you give me my personality, I can compete with anyone you got.’ And he says, ‘Okay Steve.’ And then he stopped editing me and that’s when we starting flying. You got to control your destiny. You can’t just hang it up and say, ‘Hey, creative ain’t got nothing for me.'”
It’s safe to say Vince made the right decision when he allowed Austin to cut loose, as The Rattlesnake went on to make massive amounts of money for WWE during his run with the company.
