Steve Austin On Who Created 'Bionic Redneck' Name, Why He Didn't Reveal WM 19 Bout Would Be His Last
On episode 394 of The Steve Austin Show, professional wrestling great Steve Austin talked about how he came up with the 'Bionic Redneck' gimmick and he discussed why he did not announce that his WrestleMania 19 match with The Rock was going to be his last.
According to Austin, he came up with the 'Bionic Redneck' gimmick in light of his reliance on hardware such as plates in his neck and his signature double knee braces.
"That was the reason I had those knee braces, man. It wasn't for looks. It was because I needed them. But it turned out to be part of the 'Bionic Redneck'. I came up with that gimmick just because, by the time it came down to it, my right arm wouldn't straightened out, I had some plates in my neck and I had those two knee braces on, it became part of my [ring] gear. And put that on top of those knee braces, and it was a very interesting look. It looked like I was ready to go in there and go to battle, stomp a mud hole in somebody's ass and walk it dry."
Moreover, Austin stated that he started experimenting with different colored knee braces during his heel run following WrestleMania 17.
"I always wore black and when I got a chance to turn heel after that famous WrestleMania 17 match, which we just got finished talking about, when I turned heel, I said, 'do you know what? Now that I'm a heel, I ain't got to be cool anymore, so I can f–k around and change colors.' So I went with snakeskin, red, white, gold, different colors because I could push the envelope as a heel and that's why the different colored knee braces came in later in my heel run."
During the podcast, Austin claimed that he did not announce his retirement from professional wrestling prior to his last match because WWE was still doing well and announcing his retirement may have slowed the company's momentum.
"The reason for that was, it was going to be my last match, WrestleMania 19. The neck had caught up with me. Everything had caught up with me. And we didn't announce that, 'hey, this is going to be 'Stone Cold's [last] match' because this was the third and final match with The Rock. He was going over. He didn't say it was going to be my last match because the promotion was still doing pretty good. The momentum was still good. It might have started to slow down a little bit, but if you've just announced, 'hey this is going to be 'Stone Cold's last match,' maybe that would kind of slowed business down or slowed the momentum down and maybe turned some people off. And it would be great to have a great sendoff, but it wasn't about that. We didn't want to slow the momentum of the company and make it about me having my last match because, I can't remember when I made that decision, and I talked to Vince that that was going to be my last match, but it was really close to leading up to that and we didn't want to slow down business, is the bottom line, and that's why it was never really announced is that being my last match."
Check out the podcast here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit The Steve Austin Show with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: The Steve Austin Show