5 best Stone Cold real life stories

#2 Readying himself for confrontation vs. Vince McMahon

After years of staging fights, Austin readied himself for a real-life confrontation with the boss

Stone Cold Steve Austin rose to fame in no small part based on his on-air rivalry with Vince McMahon. The clash between the beer guzzling everyman and his megalomaniacal boss was instantly relatable to the WWE fan base. The individual talents of each man, and the chemistry they shared created magic across a period of years.

In real life, Austin and McMahon got along nicely, particularly after Austin had established himself as the man in WWE. However, the two hit a rough patch after McMahon handed down the creative that Austin would be jobbed out to Brock Lesnar in an unadvertised, free TV match to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament.

Austin wanted to, at minimum, build to a big payday for the match to draw some money, and wound up walking out on the company.

When Jim Ross orchestrated a meeting between Austin and McMahon months later, Austin wasn’t sure what to expect. He has articulated in interviews that he hoped they might reconcile, but also entertained visions of a fight that would send them crashing through McMahon’s office window to their death.

It seems Stone Cold’s imagination got the better of him then, but it still makes for an entertaining account of what was going on in Austin’s mind.