We got to interview Steve Austin for his film The Condemned, and were able to spend a good half of the interview talking about his athletic career. But he was in publicity mode so it was still a Condemned-centric interview. Now he has a wrestling DVD out, The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin, so a conference call promoting that was truly a biographical sports interview, despite a rough cell connection. The brackets indicate where it broke up.
CraveOnline: Are you happy with the way Wrestlemania 2008 is shaping up, with Ric Flair's retirement match?
Steve Austin: I haven't really watched enough to see what's going on but I don't think so just because Ric Flair is my favorite pro wrestler ever in the history of the business and [that story is not as good as it could be or should be.]
CraveOnline: What does Rick Flair mean to you?
Steve Austin: It's not what he's done for me, it's just the body of work he's compiled. From his start, all the world championships, he was the most legitimate pro wrestler there ever was, greatest champion there ever was. When all the exposes came and pro wrestling was supposed to be fake and it turned into sports entertainment, Ric Flair had the ability to go up there to his opponent and had a strong match with him. Whatever you thought about pro wrestling, you saw Rick Flair, you knew that that was the man in the sport. You had Hogan in the '80s and he was kind of the show biz-y type but Ric Flair was the real deal in the world of entertainment, which everything is these days.
CraveOnline: Will you have a role at Wrestlemania?
Steve Austin: I got a pitch thrown at me I wasn't too keen on, turned it down. I'd like to think that I'll be at Wrestlemania but obviously I'm not going to be there to wrestle. I'd like to go to Hall of Fame and see the big guys coming in, stuff like that. Wrestlemania's always a good time but I think they've got enough full cards. It's not my desire to get back in the ring at this point in my life. I have great memories of everything I did, had a great career, but it's time for those guys and girls to have the spotlight and proceed with their careers. Hopefully I'll have a career somewhat as an actor.
CraveOnline: Your latest DVD is a great collection of career highlights, but what are some favorite moments that are not on the DVD?
Steve Austin: You know, so much stuff is not on the DVD because it's on other DVDs that we've already done. I guess WWE's probably done five or six of me throughout my career in the WWE. We had a new one every year or two years. So we really were able to cover a lot of my career in those DVDs with what you have in Stone Cold Legacies. Some stuff from the ECW, some of the other key promos that I cut in my launching ground, the former platform of ECW and what would become Stone Cold Steve Austin. Just some stuff, some other matches from my WCW days when I was a decent mechanic in the ring but certainly not a star. It kind of really fills in the gap, to me, with all the other DVDs that I've done.
CraveOnline: How were the matches on the DVD chosen? Were you involved?
Steve Austin: Yeah, I had a part in picking some of them out. I always tell people, in the 15 years that I've wrestled, I've got a lot of great memories, but I'll remember more stuff about other guys' careers than myself. I remember when we were doing some of those sit down interviews, being tired being on the road and promoting The Condemned, all of a sudden I had to talk about all these matches. So I'm still pretty much tangled up in being on the road and trying to remember all this stuff, I remember really wanting Jim Ross to be there to help me out with it because talking to Jim Ross, it just seems like memories always flood back. We have a good rapport together so I had a hand in picking out a lot of them.
CraveOnline: Is there anyone you wish you'd had a match against that you never got to fight?
Steve Austin: Well, when I look back at Randy "Macho Man" Savage and Andre the Giant, Jack Brisco and Dusty Rhodes, people like that, oh yeah.