10 Wrestlers You Didn’t Know Have Bad Reputations
8. Stone Cold Steve Austin
Not to be too cynical about things, but ethics are never pure. Standards are never consistent. Sometimes, you wonder just how much anything can matter, how seriously you can take anything, really, how good your fellow man can possibly be.
In 2020, a horde of British wrestlers were rightly erased from the industry for doing the same things Steve Austin did. Steve Austin, however, was a bigger star to whom wrestling fans are far more strongly attached. Steve Austin didn’t work the same overlong back-and-forth matches everybody else in the scene did for 25 minutes at a time in Byjove, England or wherever.
Steve Austin got over as a blood-soaked badass in the best finish of all time.
Austin was the most entertaining wrestler perhaps ever, and many of his fans watched him during a time of their lives when they were carefree. The nostalgic pull is powerful. If you did know that Austin has a bad reputation (and you do), you forgot it, consciously, because it’s convenient. Very few people are not hypocritical. Very few.
If you ever listen to Debra’s account of the abuse she endured, you will be sickened. All that “rough patch in his life” stuff really doesn’t cut it.