17 Most Brutal Hazing Horror Stories In Wrestling
8. Steve Austin Gets An Early Dose Of The Deadman
Stone Cold Steve Austin's rise in wrestling was meteoric, despite how believably annoyed he was that it had taken him all of eight years to make it to the top of the profession during his absorbing final push to world title supremacy at WrestleMania 14. Before "undeniable" was a bit of a catchphrase in wrestling, 'The Rattlesnake' defined the word with equal levels of talent, defiance and determination to power his charge.
He'd briefly crossed paths with The Undertaker before ascending in 1998, and the two broke all box office and ratings records (despite having lousy and drab chemistry) when the shared the spotlight during one of WWE's hottest eras. But it was during their earliest days where 'The Deadman' was able to stamp an authority he didn't really have on his future star-studded colleague - or at very least take a hazing attempt and shove it right back in Austin's face.
Reminiscing on their shared time together, Austin said; “I was the guy who was just new to Tennessee... I told him to watch out, [and said] ‘I might end up stretching you out there’. You know, just words to that effect and I was just kidding. I actually have a pretty good sense of humour... Well, Mark is a man’s man and if you know anything about the WWE, he’s the king of the locker room. He’s the go-to guy in the WWE. It has been that way forever. And I didn’t know his sense of humour. He didn’t know me from Adam".
Working on the assumption that his dance partner had picked up what he was putting down, Austin readied himself for his first exchange with the future locker room judge. But suddenly, he wasn't getting to work on much at all. As he continued...
"All of a sudden, there’s a time for me and [him] to lock up in that match and because I just got out of wrestling school, I only know a little bit of chain wrestling. I know how to take a bump and he puts a couple of damn sugar holds on me and I’m just kind of laying there... He proceeded to put two or three holds that he had learned in Japan and he was a big MMA fan way back in the day, so I’m in there laying in the middle of the ring, getting twisted up like a pretzel. And all of a sudden, he decided enough was enough. He was just stretching me and letting me know what time it was... Dusty [Rhodes] looks over at me in the corner right there by the ring post and he goes, ‘what was that all about?’ and I just shook my head. I didn’t know at the time. I said, ‘hell, I don’t know.’ But hell, I had insulted him on the phone by telling him that I was going to stretch him! This punk kid from Dallas, Texas with long blonde hair, two months in the business and I was going to stretch him! And he didn’t take a liking to that, so I quickly learned from that point on...I learned a lesson that night that would stick with me forever.”