The Steve Austin Show Unleashed Recap – Ric Flair 30 for 30 Documentary, WM13 Match Against Bret Hart, Dangers of Getting ‘Colour’, More!

Austin informs that the Ric Flair 30 for 30 documentary brought back so many great memories for him because he grew up watching and wanting to be Ric Flair. In the early part of his career he even modelled his character off of Flair, but he admits that he couldn’t come close to what Flair accomplished with that type of character. He says that Flair is his favourite professional wrestler, and he considers Flair to be the greatest of all time.

He considers Flair’s career to be amazing because of the length of his in-ring career as well as the things he was able accomplish throughout the years. He was a travelling World Champion who’d work 60-minute broadways night after night before transitioning into the later part of his career in WCW and WWE, where he’d go on to entertain another generation of fans.

Austin says it was great to see Hulk Hogan give Flair so much praise during the film because those two men were presented as bitter enemies and fierce rivals throughout the entirety of their careers. They shared the prime of their careers but they really weren’t ever enemies, and it was wonderful to hear how much respect Hogan has for Flair.

Austin says it was also great to see Sting make an appearance in the film, speaking about how much Flair did for his career early on. The film also touched on Flair’s lengthy feud with Ricky Steamboat which produced some of the greatest matches of all time. Austin says that Flair might be his favourite performer of all time, but Steamboat is right up there as well.

A listener writes into the show and points out that Austin looked pretty beat up in his WrestleWar ’92 match. This was a War Games match and basically every competitor in the match was bleeding, and the listener wonders if anyone thought about the dangers of HIV back in those days.

Austin says that looking back now, it looks like the dumbest thing in the world. That’s just the way the business was and that’s as much thought as anyone put into it. Luckily the business has changed since then and today all the competitors are tested for those types of diseases. In addition, bleeding has all but disappeared from the business in general.

Another listener writes into the show and asks Austin about his WrestleMania 13 match against Bret Hart, where Austin was left bloodied. Austin informs that WWE had a strict ‘no colour’ policy at this point, but Hart felt that Austin really needed to get some colour for the finish of the match.  Hart offered to get blood for Austin, and in turn he was offering to take the heat for it as well if there would have been any issue with it backstage after the match.

Austin was still fairly new to WWE at that time but Hart was a veteran there. Hart took Austin under his wing in the sense that he’d be able to take the blame for the blood, and he’d also be able to talk his way out of it if he had to. Austin says he would have lied to Vince McMahon about Hart blading him if he would have asked about it, but nobody said a thing about the blood when they walked to the back. The match was phenomenal, and Austin credits it (and Hart) with playing a huge role in his rise in WWE.

Another listener writes into the show and asks Austin what he would say while he was walking down the ramp during his entrance. Looking back at Austin’s entrances it’s clear that Austin was always mouthing something. Austin says that he was basically just talking trash the entire way down the isle, and this featured a lot of swearing. He’d basically just spit profanities and threats at his opponent from the time his music started until the time he got in the ring.

That sums up this week’s episode of The Steve Austin Show Unleashed. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!