WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin was the latest guest on the Wrestling Inc. Daily to hype up his Broken Skull Sessions interview with AEW superstar Chris Jericho, and how he sees AEW as a good thing because it creates competition by proxy. Highlights are below.
Says he loves having AEW around because it creates competition by proxy:
Man, I love it. I think it’s competition by proxy just because they’re wrestling, WWE’s wrestling, but I don’t think they’re directly trying to compete. But in essence, they are and I love it because it gives more people within any of this jobs. It gives more people a chance to work. And it makes WWE, you know, forces them to push the envelope rather than just sit back and push out content. Competition makes everybody better.
On WWF’s old rivalry with WCW:
The product is better because you’re forced. What are these cats doing over here? This friggin’ stuff, we gotta up it a little bit!’ There’s checks and balances. I remember when we put WCW out of business, I remember going up to Vince and saying, ‘Was it our mission to put them out of business?’ They kicked our a– for two years, you know, but I didn’t know that was the mission! We just wanted to win the ratings war. Of course, he ends up buying them for pennies on the dollar, that’s the genius of Vince McMahon. But to answer your question, yes, AEW is a good thing. It’s a good thing for everybody, including WWE.
On Vince McMahon’s reasoning for buying WCW:
Oh, I don’t know what kind of answer he gave me, it was so long ago. It was like when I used to ask him about putting all these guys out of business and he goes, ‘Steve, I didn’t put everybody out of business. They simply didn’t have the foresight or the vision-’ and he goes on and on and on. Vince is the master of the Jedi mind tricks. Vince is a super interesting guy, you should talk to him one of these days. I have so much respect and love for that guy, it’s unbelievable.