“Mike Is Ready for Any Big Moment”- Stone Cold Steve Austin Recalls a Conversation With Vince McMahon About Boxing Legend Mike Tyson

Stone Cold Steve Austin appeared on the recent episode of WWE’s the Bump. With the ‘Road to WrestleMania’ beginning, the hosts asked Austin about his many roads to the big PPV.

One very special Road to WrestleMania for Austin began in 1998. Austin won the Royal Rumble and faced Shawn Michaels for the WWE Championship, but their match had a special enforcer.

Stone Cold Steve Austin opens up on working with Mike Tyson

Boxing champion and one of the most dangerous men on the planet, Mike Tyson was in WWE for WrestleMania 14. His altercation with Steve Austin is one of the wildest moments in sports history, not just the WWE’s. On the Bump, Austin talked about working with Iron Mike.

“I had a conversation with Vince and he goes ‘hey man, I’m thinking about bringing Tyson in to be a part of this angle’ and at the time you know we were busting our asses. I said, ‘hey man, do we need Mike Tyson?’ and he’d go GD [goddamn] Steve. He goes ‘Tyson will bring so many more eyes to the product’ and I said ‘cool man, you think it’ll work bring him in.'”

Vince McMahon‘s gamble paid off, and the angle with HBK, Austin and Mike Tyson led to one of the greatest WrestleMania moments of all time.

“Mike Tyson was phenomenal. He brought, you know, mainstream media to our product. Vince is the greatest promoter of all time, he was right.”

Austin was afraid that the pressure of going from arena to arena, and the pressure of WrestleMania would be too difficult for Tyson. He could not have been more wrong.

“But Mike was a historian and a fan of the business. And he knew a lot more about the business than many guys in the locker room. Hell, Mike is ready for any big moment and he’s had an amazing career. So I was glad to do business with him.”

Austin talks about flipping off Mike Tyson

Austin faced HBK at WrestleMania 14. WWE revealed that Mike Tyson would be D-Generation X’s special enforcer. This meant Austin had to overcome Triple H, HBK, Chyna and one of the greatest boxers of all time. In one of the greatest Raw moments of all time, Austin infamously flipped off Tyson in the ring, sparking a wild brawl.

“Hey man, when you’re in there dealing with Mike Tyson, he’s a bad dude. And I put those fingers in his face and like alright, here we go. It is on. I’m looking dead at Mike and I put those fingers on his face it’s like here we go. And it was a hot crowd, and he pushed me and man, it was a straight up shoot.”

The segment would end up being one of the best shoot segments in history.

“I was trying to get back at Mike and Brisco and all those guys were holding me down and I was fighting to get back. And to work an angle at the highest level it has to be spot on, and I was gonna do my best to kick his a**.”