8 Things We Learned From Steve Austin On Stephanie McMahon's WWE Show

This was referenced in the intro to this piece, but it's worth mentioning again.

When recapping Austin’s legendary career, Stephanie noted that he’d gone “toe to toe with the boss”. She stopped there. Vince’s name wasn’t mentioned once, even by his own daughter, but clips of Austin hitting a stunner on him were shown, and there was more footage of McMahon later in the show. Even so, neither Steph nor Steve uttered Vince by name. Wow.

How things change, eh? There was a time when McMahon's handprints would've been all over this ESPN product. Hell, Vince might've even produced the entire series and directed his daughter to talk about certain subjects. 'Mention this, don't talk about that etc etc'. You know the deal. Not in 2025. Vince is practically persona non grata in WWE circles nowadays.

Being fair, nobody can blame the company for that given everything surrounding him, but it's still odd to lifelong fans who recall a time when WWE and Vince McMahon went hand in hand. Seeing company projects happen without him is one thing, but...seeing footage from the archives of his old heel character without his name being mentioned once? That was inconceivable even just a few short years ago when people were talking about him in Hall Of Famer terms.

Disgraceful departures and ongoing lawsuits have changed everything. Vince was always viewed with an eye roll by many, because he always seemed like such a ridiculous human at the best of times, but now a much darker and seriously grim side has emerged into public view. There's no going back, so ESPN, Austin and his own daughter sidestepped McMahon mentions here.