No man in professional wrestling comes close to reaching the star-power of Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was the alpha, the box office draw, the best wrestler, and the most popular. His career was relatively short, but it was so incredibly impactful that he is regarded as a once in a lifetime talent. Unfortunately, Austin’s career was cut short because of injuries.

Stone Cold Steve Austin opens up on his decision to quit wrestling

In an interview with Larry King, Stone Cold Steve Austin went into detail about why he quit wrestling. Austin still hung around in the WWE after his retirement from the ring, but his injuries filled his last days with pain and agony.

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“Man, it was just a buildup of an accumulation of a lot of injuries. I got dropped on my head in about ’97, I was a transit quadriplegic for about 90 seconds there in the middle of the ring in front of the whole 20,000 people live on PPV. And I was thinking at that time as I was laying there looking up at the lights that I was going to be in the next Christopher Reeve.”

The incident Austin mentioned was his match at SummerSlam 1997 against Owen Hart. Hart hit Austin with a sit-out Tombstone Piledriver, which resulted in Austin breaking his neck. It was this neck injury that tortured him for the rest of his career.

“Finally, the writing was on the wall, that hey, this is the part of the movie where you need to ride off into the sunset.” After the horrific injury, Austin would wrestle for another six years before it all caught up to him.

The crazy career of the Texas Rattlesnake

Steve Austin was so popular at the time they gave him a bunch of nicknames to work with. He was called the Texas Rattlesnake, the hell-raiser and the toughest S.O.B to walk the Earth.

Austin rose to prominence when he won the 1996 King of the Ring tournament. He beat Jake Roberts in the final, after which he cut the greatest promo in all of professional wrestling, simply known as ‘Austin 3:16’.

Austin had many iconic feuds in the late 90s. From Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels to The Rock and Vince McMahon, these are the people who helped elevate Austin to the main event.

After main eventing WrestleMania thrice and winning the WWE Championship six times, Austin rode off into the sunset in 2003. His last match was against his most iconic rival of all time, The Rock.