Jim Ross recently spoke about a wide range of topics on his Grilling JR podcast.
During it, the WWE Hall of Famer discussed one of the most “intense conversations” he had with Steve Austin in WWE and it was around the time where the company wanted to turn him babyface.
“One of the most intense conversations we had on time was about him turning babyface. Goddamn, he hated that. He cussed me and he said, ‘I’m not going for it.’ I said ‘Oh, Jesus Christ. You’re not going to go for it? Why are you here? I know why you’re here, you’re here to make money. Right or wrong?’ I gave him some merchandise numbers of what Hogan earned back in the day and it had been years later, the information had been obsolete but it was accurate.”
“I said ‘You don’t want that t-shirt money? You don’t want that no-bump money? I know you’re smarter than that, that doesn’t make any sense, Steve. Here’s the beautiful part about it, the way you work, you don’t beg off much and you don’t do typical heel sh*t.’ I said you’re missing the boat and then I remembered when the checks were coming out and I asked the check guy to bring me a list of all the royalty checks, and Austin got a million-dollar check for selling t-shirts, Austin 3-16’s.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcript