“Stone Cold” Steve Austin has admitted that walking out on WWE in 2002 ranks among his biggest career regrets. The incident occurred on June 10, 2002, after Austin learned that he was slated to lose to rising star Brock Lesnar in a King of the Ring qualifying match. While he wasn’t opposed to putting Lesnar over, Austin was frustrated that the match was scheduled without any proper build-up. That creative decision, along with several others that had been piling up, led to Austin’s abrupt departure from the company.
Speaking recently on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Austin revealed that the fallout extended beyond the ring — it even cost him a potential beer deal. He said,
“Way back in the day, I was red hot as Stone Cold. We were doing some beer testing with a place up in northern New York, getting ready to launch Stone Cold beer. Then they booked that match with Brock on RAW, and I said, ‘F this.’ That blew the beer deal up.”
As a result, the legendary “Steveweiser” never made it to shelves — at least not back then. Austin eventually returned to WWE in February 2003.
Tudum is reporting that the April 14, 2025 episode of WWE RAW drew 2.9 million global views on Netflix for the week, earning it the No. 9 spot worldwide and placing it in the top ten in six countries.
The previous week’s episode, aired April 7, garnered 2.8 million views.
During a recent appearance on the “Outta Pocket” podcast, WWE Superstar Seth Rollins commented on his concern for the upcoming generation of WWE talent who might not have as much time to gain experience.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his concern for the NIL generation not getting as much experience with more WWE live events: “My biggest concern, and I’ll try not to expound on this too much, but my biggest concern is the generation that is being groomed now, we are dipping our toe heavily into the NIL world. Taking a lot of college athletes who, maybe after college, there is no future for them as far as money in sports, so we offer them deals to get paid while they are in college to come and maybe be part of WWE when they are older.”
On training recruits from scratch: “There is nothing wrong with training these people from scratch, I have no problem with that, but couple that with our live event schedule. We used to do them every weekend, sometimes two shows every day on Saturdays and Sundays, there would be two running simultaneously in different towns. That’s where I learned my craft and the art of wrestling and storytelling. If you don’t get the repetitions to learn that, I don’t care what kind of athlete you are or how impressive your vertical leap is or how many times you can bench press 400 pounds, it’s not going to translate because you don’t know how to tell stories. You might be a hell of a performer, but ‘I need a promo. Go out there, five minutes, get it done.’”
On no substitute for in-game experience: “If you don’t know how to do that because you haven’t learned and practiced and failed so many times that, there is no substitute for in-game. There is no substitute for doing a live show in front of a paying audience because they will give you instant feedback, and you’ll know what you have to change. That’s my biggest concern for our next generation. You’re plucking from a world where these guys don’t really follow wrestling or may not be fans, and then they’re not getting the experience on top of it to learn how to be part of what we do and how to tell those stories. I do have a concern that over a few generations, that might be harmful to the future of the industry.”
