Austin welcomes Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake to the show for Pt. 2 of his interview.

Austin mentions that he was never a big fan of flying. He’d often have a couple of drinks before boarding his flights so he could fall asleep on board. He’d also do a ‘pilot check’ before taking his seat to ensure that the pilots seemed fit to fly the plane. Beefcake informs that he’d do that same thing, taking a few minutes before taking his seat to go and say hello the pilots and ensure that they were sober and fit to fly.

Beefcake talks about his experience working with The Dynamite Kid and the British Bulldog. He informs that they were great guys, but they were somewhat green when he began working with them. He couldn’t believe how strong both of those guys were, and his biggest task when working with them was just getting them to slow down.

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Beefcake informs that he remembers one night at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto Canada, when he worked a tag team match against The Bulldogs. All four men in the match that night got colour (bled) and that was extremely rare, especially for a house show (non-televised event).

Austin says he’s never see a tag team match where all four men got colour. He looks back at how common is was for wrestlers to cut themselves and bleed years ago, given all the information we have now about aids and other diseases. He points out that wrestlers never thought twice about cutting themselves back then, and it was common place for competitors to be bleeding all over each other during matches.

Austin asks Beefcake about his run in WCW. Beefcake admits that his WCW run was “…all over the place” and it was poorly planned out from his perspective. He wasn’t able to use his “Brutus Beefcake” name because WWE had that name trademarked, so they had to improvise and come up with something new.

He filmed a lot of television shows and films at that time, specifically the “Thunder in Paradise” show with Hulk Hogan and a few other wrestlers. WCW weren’t all that interested in him working as a wrestler because they didn’t know what to do with him, given that they couldn’t use the “Beefcake” name. Nonetheless, he had a lot of fun at that time.

His WWE run was a lot of fun and he enjoyed it from start to finish, but he points out that his WCW run never felt great. His character seemed to lack direction and it’s almost as if the company never really knew what to do with him. Nonetheless, he had a family and WCW was still providing him with a good income so that was the main thing.

Austin asks him what made him decide to retire. Beefcake informs that turning 60-years old basically convinced him to hang up his boots. He also has some injuries and brain trauma from his career in the business, and was able to get some financial assistance from the government because of this. He’s quite proud of his 40-year professional wrestling career.

A listener writes into the show and asks Beefcake what he would do to unwind after a match. Beefcake informs that he’d unwind over a few drinks with the other guys after the show. Austin adds that having a few drinks was his way of unwinding after a match as well.

Austin asks Beefcake about the night The Rockers split up during one of his Barbershop segments. Beefcake informs that he basically winged it every time he went out there, but things went perfectly that night. However, he still feels bad to this day for Marty Jannetty, who slid down the WWE card after this and eventually found himself out of a job.

Beefcake informs that prior to his parasailing accident he was in line for an Intercontinental Championship run in WWE. That was actually the second time he was supposed to win the IC Title but something always got in the way. Back in 1988 he was supposed to work with Honky Tonk Man and win the Belt, but Ultimate Warrior “…threw a tantrum” prior to the event and Vince McMahon changed his plans at the last minute.

He mentions that he and Honky Tonk Man go back a long ways, and every time they see each other it’s as if they’ve never been apart. He always enjoyed working with Honky Tonk Man.

A listener writes into the show and asks Beefcake about his time working as The Disciple in nWo. WCW officials were looking for more talents for the nWo and when Hogan suggested Beefcake, officials said that he had too many gimmicks already and he wouldn’t be believable in that faction. Beefcake went home for a few weeks, grew out his beard and lost 40 pounds. When he went back to work nobody knew him, and then they realized he’d fit in just fine as part of the nWo.

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

Tags: Steve Austin
Steve Carrier

Steve is the Founder of RingsideNews. He has been writing about professional wrestling since 1996. He first got into website development at the time and has been focusing on bringing his readers the best professional wrestling news at it's highest quality.

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