Stone Cold Steve Austin was of the biggest superstars of his time before he retired from professional wrestling in 2003
Jake “The Snake” Roberts faced Stone Cold in the finals of the famous 1996 King of the Ring tournament. Stone Cold won in what was a brutal affair.
Roberts is currently the AEW manager. He talked about his time in WWE when he was working with Austin in 1996. Roberts claimed that he knew Austin would be a huge star from The Rattlesnake’s initial days in the company. According to him, Vince McMahon contradicted his statement and said that Austin would be in the middle of the card and not the top.
On the latest episode of the DDP Snake Pit podcast, the 66-year-old said:
“He came up there as The Ringmaster, which stunk, and he knew it stunk, I knew it stunk, but Vince has this thing, man. He’s going to make it work. But it wasn’t working and it wasn’t doing anybody any favors, and it finally got bad enough that they gave him some time off and he came back Stone Cold.
“At that time, I was helping write the storylines and I looked at the whole thing there and I told Vince ‘that guy’s going to be your next megastar.’ And Vince laughed at me, he said ‘no way. Middle of the card. Maybe.’ I said ‘no, you’re wrong. You wait and see.’ And that’s probably one of my better feel-good moments too because I was right.”
Jake Roberts stated that Steve Austin kept in touch even after they stopped working together.
Roberts revealed that he kept pushing for Austin in all the meetings and stuff during the ’90s and it used to surprise everyone. Now the WWE Hall of Famer is glad that he was correct in his belief that Austin would be a huge superstar in the company one day.
“Every night he would call me and tell me about his match,” Roberts revealed. “And he would ask me ‘what did I do wrong? What should I have done?’ And I wouldn’t tell him what he should do, but I would tell him what he shouldn’t do. I did the same thing with Dallas, let him figure it out. Once you figure it out, you understand it. You really understand it. That went on for several weeks. I kept pushing him in the meetings and stuff and everybody was just looking at me like, ‘really?’ I was right.”
Austin would be returning to WrestleMania after 6 years next month. He will appear as a special guest on the Kevin Owens Show. There has been a war of words going on between Austin and Owens so it won’t just be a normal, peaceful interview for sure. Fans are waiting with bated breath to see Austin once again at The Grandest Stage of Them All.
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