00:00 Steve Austin, I say this all the time, literally became a millionaire, a multi-millionaire
00:07 in two minutes.
00:10 Hello everybody, my name is Vince Russo and I was a head writer in the wrestling business
00:22 from the years 1994 to 2012, WWE, WCW, TNA, I worked with the greatest, but a lot of times
00:33 you have to help create superstars and today we are going to start with the creation of
00:40 one Stone Cold Steve Austin.
00:47 I was a fan of Stunning Steve Austin in WCW, I was well aware of Stunning Steve Austin,
00:53 so when he came over to the WWE and I was the head writer, I knew the talents of Austin,
01:00 but I really don't think Vince McMahon did, because when I had my first creative meeting
01:06 with Vince McMahon pertaining to Steve Austin, my directions directly from Vince was, don't
01:14 let him speak.
01:16 I don't want Austin to say a word, we are going to put Ted DiBiase with him as a manager,
01:23 he is going to be known as the ringmaster.
01:26 I looked at Vince and I said, really Vince, is that what you want?
01:30 I knew Vince had no idea what Austin was capable of, but that's what the boss wanted.
01:38 I had a friend in the office, his name was Rich Baker, and he was also friends with Steve.
01:46 Vince would keep coming to me telling me that Steve wanted to do this character, Stone Cold
01:53 Steve Austin, and he would tell me all about Steve's ideas for this Stone Cold character.
01:59 Now the character did come from Steve, and I thought it was absolutely tremendous, but
02:05 how do I change Vince's mind?
02:09 Remember Vince did not want Austin to speak at all, so what I had to do was, I had to
02:13 create an opportunity for Steve Austin to show Vince McMahon what he was capable of,
02:21 and that is exactly what I did.
02:23 I picked a spot in one of the matches on Raw, and I put Steve Austin on headsets.
02:32 And literally those two minutes, given that opportunity, Stone Cold Steve Austin came
02:39 to life.
02:40 Steve Austin, I say this all the time, literally became a millionaire, a multi-millionaire
02:47 in two minutes.
02:49 He absolutely took control of this opportunity, made everything he could out of it, thus the
02:58 birth of Stone Cold Steve Austin.
03:07 So as we move to the next step of this process, we now have Stone Cold Steve Austin.
03:16 But it needs to be bigger than that, bro.
03:18 It needs to be a brand.
03:21 And how do we brand Stone Cold Steve Austin?
03:24 Well that came directly from Steve.
03:27 And I'll never forget it, man.
03:28 We were at King of the Ring, Steve was ready to go into a match with Jake "The Snake"
03:35 Roberts, and he pulled me to the side and he said, "Vince, I want to bounce this promo
03:40 off of you."
03:41 And Austin bounced off the promo, and he ended his promo with Austin 316.
03:51 As soon as Austin said that to me, I knew that was it.
03:57 I knew that was the line.
03:58 I knew that was the brand.
04:00 I knew that was a million dollar.
04:03 And Austin went out at King of the Ring and he delivered that great, great promo, ending
04:08 it with Austin 316.
04:10 I was so excited.
04:11 I ran back to Titan Towers, man, where I was still the editor of the magazine.
04:16 I got the magazine cover ready from King of the Ring.
04:19 It was a beautiful black and white shot of Austin, but the blood was in red, and the
04:25 headline read, "Austin 316."
04:29 So now with every magazine cover, man, I had to bring it over to Vince McMahon, and he
04:33 had to approve the cover.
04:36 And I'll never forget, man, he looked at me and he said, "Vince, what is Austin 316?"
04:43 And I was a bit taken back because I was thinking, "Vince, did you not watch your own show?"
04:48 So I had to explain to Vince, I said, "Vince, this was Austin's promo directed at Jake.
04:55 This is going to be huge, Vince."
04:59 And Vince looked at me and said, "I don't understand it.
05:04 Take it off."
05:05 So I literally changed the headline on the magazine.
05:10 However, myself and Steve really, really believed in Austin 316.
05:16 So what did we do, bro?
05:18 I kept writing it.
05:19 He kept saying it.
05:20 I kept writing it.
05:21 He kept saying it.
05:22 And the fans started chanting it, and now Vince McMahon clearly understood what Austin
05:31 316 meant.
05:32 Man, when I look back and I think about all of the t-shirts that Steve Austin and the
05:41 WWF sold with Austin 316, millions and millions and millions of t-shirts, and the reality
05:49 of the situation is that almost didn't happen.
05:54 Okay, so now we move to the next step in the process.
06:02 We've got a star, man.
06:03 We got Stone Cold Steve Austin.
06:05 He's got a brand, Austin 316.
06:08 Okay, now what?
06:10 Well now what was we needed to find a nemesis, but it couldn't be any nemesis.
06:17 It had to be perhaps the greatest nemesis of all time.
06:21 It had to be somebody at Steve Austin's level, because if it wasn't, you would have pulled
06:28 that character down.
06:30 So here's where we had to be very, very careful.
06:35 Who could go toe to toe with the great Stone Cold Steve Austin?
06:39 And there was only one man, and he was sitting right in front of me, and his name was Mr.
06:44 McMahon.
06:45 Mr. McMahon became the greatest villain for the babyface Stone Cold Steve Austin.
06:54 They were parallel in talent.
06:57 They went toe to toe.
06:59 One was stronger than the other, then the other would go up and out, the other would
07:02 go up and out, the other.
07:03 They were raising each other's game.
07:07 This was magical.
07:09 Without having a great nemesis, Austin may not have reached the heights that he did,
07:15 but Vince McMahon, I give him all the credit in the world, one of the greatest on-screen
07:20 characters of all time.
07:23 So this was in fact a match made in heaven.
07:27 You know, there are a lot of people that ask me, "Why was it Mr. McMahon?
07:32 Why was he the nemesis?
07:33 Why wasn't it somebody like The Rock?"
07:35 Well, the answer to that question is, at that time, man, we had a lot of great talent, bro,
07:42 and they were all on their own trajectory.
07:46 And Rock's role was taking over the nation.
07:50 That was Rock's role.
07:52 Then you had Taker.
07:54 Undertaker was consumed with his brother.
07:57 Then you had Triple H, who was now the new head of DX.
08:02 So all of those characters were on their own trajectory.
08:07 That's why Vince McMahon worked so well.
08:10 And now you've got the white-collar boss and the blue-collar worker, and it fits like a
08:15 glove, and it is absolutely magical.
08:19 These were two absolute pros at the absolute top of their game.
08:26 Now unfortunately, when myself and Ed Ferrara left the WWE in around September of 1999,
08:37 Steve Austin left the company a couple of years later, and the main reason was he wasn't
08:43 happy with creative.
08:45 And this is important because this is what I tell people all the time.
08:49 So many people, especially my people who love to hate Vince Russo, they all say, "Oh, well,
08:55 yeah, of course Russo was successful.
08:57 Look at the roster that he had."
08:59 Well, I just want to remind everybody, when I took over the roster, Stone Cold Steve Austin
09:05 was the ringmaster.
09:07 The Rock was Rocky Maivia.
09:10 They were already on the roster.
09:13 What I was able to do was find an opening for Austin, give him that opportunity, and
09:18 he ran away with it.
09:19 But my challenge every week was I had to write up to Austin's level.
09:25 I had to keep raising the bar.
09:29 I could not give Steve Austin a crappy script that would start taking him down the ladder.
09:37 I believe that's what happened to Bray Wyatt.
09:39 I don't believe the writers at WWE had the capability to write up to Bray Wyatt's standards.
09:47 So what did they do?
09:49 Their writing was below his because he was such a genius, and he started coming down
09:54 the food chain.
09:55 I had to assure that every week Austin topped himself again and again and again.
10:03 You could have the greatest talent in the world, which Austin was, but you got to feed
10:07 him.
10:08 You got to give him meat on that bone.
10:10 That's why we did the beer truck.
10:12 That's why we did the Corvette filled up with cement.
10:17 It was spectacle after spectacle after spectacle, and that's what kept Austin hot.
10:25 So you had the performance of the talent, you had the right material for the talent,
10:30 and that kept going up.
10:32 If the writing does not meet up to the talent, you're going to start getting this.
10:39 And I think that's what Stone Cold Steve Austin was experiencing, and I believe that's why
10:44 he left only a couple of years after.
10:48 So that is how Stone Cold Steve Austin was created.
10:54 But again, I want to make one thing perfectly clear.
10:57 I give all the accolades to Steve Austin.
11:02 He had a vision, man, and he was going to make sure that that vision was seen through.
11:07 I give accolades to Mr. McMahon, who played an enormous role in the success of Steve Austin.
11:16 This was kismet.
11:17 This was made to happen, and it did, and it will never, ever, ever be repeated again.
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