“Stone Cold” Steve Austin raised a whole lot of hell and broke a whole lot of things during his pro wrestling career. He drove zambonis, sprayed arenas with beer, hit his finisher on the future President of the United States, and smashed an untold amount of vehicles. To say nothing of glass and asses.
But as the Texas Rattlesnake disclosed on a recent episode of his podcast, one of his WWE stunts almost ended up killing him. And it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of. And it’s probably not for the reason you’re thinking.
In 1999, during The Rock’s “funeral” for Austin, Stone Cold showed up in a monster truck and smashed up Rocky’s Lincoln Town Car. Then, of course, he drove the monster truck into the arena, where a can of whoop-ass was shortly thereafter opened. You can watch the segment here:
But it wasn’t the monster truck or the driving that almost did the Bionic Redneck in. Let’s let Austin tell it. (Transcript via News.com.au)
“So there we are, we go live. I get my cue and off I go running up and down that car, crushing the s*** out of it. Then there’s going to be a deal where I drive the truck into the arena. So I go into the back door of the arena and I’m in a holding room with a couple of curtains in front of me. The monster truck was loud as f*** and that 1800 horsepower motor is churning out exhaust fumes.
“So I’m in this room and they shut the door behind me. It was about a three minutes commercial break, so the whole time the people back home are watching commercials, I’m in a room, inside a truck, breathing methanol/alcohol fumes — I could barely breathe. I was just begging for the show to come back on air so I could charge out in the audience and get a breath of fresh air.
“I’m breathing all those exhaust fumes, mother***er, I was going to crash that gate doing 98 and go and take my own cue and haul a** into the arena, if they hadn’t have cued me when they did — I was about to die.”
This is an important lesson for all of you out there: if you’re going to be going around smashing up Lincoln Town Cars with a monster truck and then committing an assault, make sure you’re doing it in a well-ventilated area. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
