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Steve Austin’s Stone Cold Podcast Should Remain on WWE Network

By Alexander Podgorski

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WWE might be canceling their deal with the Stone Cold Podcast, which Steve Austin had run on the WWE Network for a few years. If true, that’s a terrible decision.

A few weeks ago, esteemed wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer reported that WWE might be changing its attitude towards Steve Austin’s Stone Cold Podcast. Specifically, he suggested that WWE would no longer be hosting the live podcasts on the WWE Network going forward.

The reason behind this appears to be yet another example of Vince’s micromanagement over the company. He was believed to be angry that Austin was ‘pushing the boundaries’ with some of his questions on his show.

The basic problem comes down to Austin taking things in a different direction from what Vince wants, essentially making Austin’s show ‘too real’ and different from the version of ‘real’ that WWE wants to be told.

Now, there is no confirmation of this decision as of yet. The only evidence one of this being true is the fact that WWE haven’t hosted or promoted a Stone Cold Podcast in months. The only apparent replacement seems to be ‘Legends with JBL’, but they haven’t plugged that show recently, either.

But if this is indeed true, then it’s a terrible decision for WWE to make.

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The Stone Cold Podcast has been one of the biggest draws to the WWE Network since its inception. Austin is a breath of fresh air when it comes to telling stories and asking tough questions. He is, in essence, the polar opposite of what WWE’s restrictive powers-that-be want out of their stars.

Austin isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers or ask difficult questions, and that’s why people love watching and listening to him. Granted, he’s not likely to ask a question about Chris Benoit or anything too sensitive. But he’s still more likely to call a spade a spade when WWE’s trying to convince you it’s something different.

Moreover, Austin is still the shining example of a wrestler coming up with their own character and turning it into something better. The only reason the ‘Stone Cold’ character became so popular was because Steve Austin himself made all the big decisions. He wasn’t playing a character that someone else had chosen for him; he was playing a caricature of himself, and it worked.

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WWE appears to have abandoned this approach almost entirely as of late. Nowadays, WWE’s characters are ridiculously outlandish and exaggerated. Worse, almost all of them are scripted to the point that they have little to no freedom to come up with ideas for themselves.

It’s hard to determine exactly when Vince McMahon went all censorship-crazy, but it appears to have been sometime within the last five years. Something has changed in WWE’s environment that has prevented anything from going off-script. Every wrestler has to conform to Vince’s interpretation of reality or face bitter consequences.

We’ve already seen some of this nonsense in action. Braun Strowman was apparently yelled at backstage for using the words ‘title shot’ instead of the Vince-approved terminology ‘title match’. Big E’s words ‘you know she’s Russian, right?’ in response to Lana ‘hacking his iPad’ were censored from the YouTube clip showing the New Day’s promo.

Because a wrestler simply cannot get over by saying something relevant and clever they came up with on their own. Everything has to be 100 percent scripted and pre-approved, otherwise, it’s edited out later.

But most importantly, anytime something goes against WWE’s chosen narrative, they go nuts in trying to punish whosoever does so. This is why Steve Austin appears to be in WWE’s crosshairs at the moment. He was alleged to have tried to ‘create an angle’ for a potential matchup between himself and Brock Lesnar.

This was something that allegedly infuriated McMahon, even though it didn’t lead to anything but still generated some degree of intrigue. For Vince to get angry over Austin coming up with something out of the blue that actually generated more interest in his product speaks volumes of the Chairman’s growing obsession with controlling everything in WWE.

It got even worse with Dean Ambrose’s appearance on the podcast. Granted, that episode wasn’t very good; probably because there seemed to be a lack of chemistry between Austin and Ambrose.

But what apparently had Vince fuming was Ambrose calling Lesnar lazy and criticizing the big draw that he is. Keep in mind that, a) Austin’s whole gimmick with this podcast is for his guests to share their honest opinions about whatever they’re discussing, and b) the Ambrose-Lesnar match from WrestleMania 32 was bad, and now we might know why.

So now, McMahon is so angry with Ambrose and Austin speaking honestly and going against the WWE-approved version of reality that the Stone Cold Podcast will no longer be hosted by the WWE Network.

We have reached a point in wrestling history whereby the overwhelming majority of fans know it’s scripted. A growing number of fans are more interested in hearing about ‘the backstage stuff’ and wrestlers’ stories about things they might not have heard of before.

No matter how much WWE may try to push back against this change in fan perception and fan interest, there’s no going back. After all, Vince had declared WWE’s product scripted decades ago, and the company’s still doing (relatively) well.

So for Vince to now get angry that the Stone Cold Podcast is getting ‘too real’ for WWE seems asinine. After all, isn’t this supposed to be ‘the Reality Era’?

If McMahon goes ahead with this, it’ll be more proof that the man’s as petty and obsessed with control as ever. It won’t look good for WWE, especially as they try to keep increasing their Network subscriber count.

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If Vince McMahon takes away one of the biggest draws to said network, he’s going to lose subscribers, fan interest, and most importantly to him, money. So clearly he has to choose between his ego and his profits. Because it’s reached a point where he can no longer have both.

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