It is the late ’90s. You and your gang are back from tuitions and glued to your 16-inch box television sets, watching Monday Night RAW. The sound of glass breaking makes a packed Madison Square Garden erupt into cheers, and in walks Stone Cold Steve Austin with a swagger — clad in a black leather jacket and denim shorts, and delivering stunners (his finishing move) one after the other.
Cut to December 2024, Steve Austin is a 60-year-old man who owns a beer brand and enjoys spending time on a farm with his pets. But age hasn’t deterred the Texas Rattlesnake, as fans lovingly called him, from being the badass that he was during his heydays as a pillar of wrestling’s Attitude Era.
Even today, Austin — known by his WWE name Stone Cold Steve Austin — has a physique to die for. He’s a regular at the gym, lifts heavy weights and cranks up the kilos when he has to knock off the fat from the beers.
Back in the 1990s, when Bollywood explored narratives revolving around a middle-class hero’s fight against the affluent, Austin emerged as a blue-collared warrior, refusing to bow down to the suited men in power — perhaps one of the reasons why his in-ring persona resonated with the Indian audience so much.
His longstanding rivalry with businessman Vince McMahon made for an interesting plot. For the unversed, Austin also delivered a stunner to Donald Trump at Wrestlemania 23 in 2007. Though scripted — the revelation that came much later was a heartbreak moment for the fans — Austin’s dramatic face-offs in the ring had us rooting for him.
The former WWE heavyweight champion recently underwent a long-range shooting course with US Special Forces veteran Jim ‘The Kraken’ Erwin in Northern Nevada. Austin shot to 1,000 yards and fired over 100 rounds using a sniper at the training camp in November.
As an actor, Austin has worked in at least 16 films, with cameo appearances in Adam Sandler’s 2005 comedy The Longest Yard and a supporting role in the The Expendables franchise, starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He landed the lead role in the 2007 film The Condemned, where he played a prisoner stranded on a murky island.
Before starting a career in acting, Austin was known for making memorable entries into the WWE arena on his chunky all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The affair with ATVs continues even to this day; Austin is now an off-road racer with a win in Gold Rush 350, an event held in the US for off-roading enthusiasts.
You cannot talk about Austin and not mention beer. He would often offer a beer to a fellow wrestler and land a stunner out of nowhere in the ring, making everyone go ‘wow’. Even in 2024, beer continues to be his go-to drink. He is the co-owner of Broken Skull Beer, an American lager, and often visits breweries to check out what’s on offer.
An animal lover who would pose with a snake in the early days of his wrestling career, Austin owns cats, dogs and horses now. His cats, Pancho and Macho, make regular appearances on his Instagram. Austin also has a pet horse, Rebel, and two dogs, Moolah and Cali. His four-legged friends accompany him on his truck during weekend drives.
In a wrestling career spanning over 20 years, Austin emerged as one of the most popular WWE stars, with several titles and memorable matches with wrestling legends like Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, Kane and wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson.
Even though WWE’s Attitude Era is long gone, and the ‘do not try this at home or school’ warning doesn’t pop up on your TV screens anymore, Steve Austin’s stories live on. And ‘that’s the bottom line’, as Stone Cold Steve Austin would say before a mic drop in his wrestling days.