10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 1998
5. You'll Never Guess WHAT Steve Austin Buried
In 2002, Steve Austin buried WWE's creative direction.
His incendiary Byte This! rant became infamous; pissed off beyond belief that the promotion had let the boom period slip with a botched Invasion and a toothless nWo reboot, amongst other things, he said that the creative was "piss-poor". He unleashed this rant before refusing to do a job for Brock Lesnar on free television. Austin has since apologised for that, but as ever, with his genius instincts, he was right. That was a huge potential pay-per-view match. WWE however was desperate for some success on television. The numbers were alarming.
What you might not know is that Austin actually said something comparable while he was at the peak of his drawing powers.
In 1998, Bruce Newman wrote a huge cover story about pro wrestling for the print institution that was TV Guide. In it, a remarkably candid Austin was not exactly playing the mascot when interviewed.
"I can't say that I agree with every storyline we have. Every time you hear some racism or a bunch of the sexual stuff, that's a complete turnoff for me."
It's little wonder, then, that Austin was apprehensive about putting Triple H over a year later. Perhaps Austin thought that Helmsley dealt in low-rent midcard trash. Looking at the Nation of Domination parody, he'd be right.
But Triple H didn't just deal with that sort of racism...