WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin made some contentious remarks in a recent interview for the “Mr. McMahon” documentary series, expressing skepticism about CTE, stating, “I don’t ‘buy into’ CTE. Just don’t believe in it.”
WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi discussed Austin’s recent statements on a recent edition of his “Off the Top” podcast. Rikishi explained that while he acknowledges CTE and concussion trauma, he understands Austin’s perspective.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the old-school mentality in wrestling: “I mean, ain’t the part of the game? Be it in football or any full-contact sports? We get hurt, man. But when you come from the old-school…I don’t even know or remember did I ever get a concussion, and if I did, back in the day, I’d just shake it off and keep going because out of sight, out of mind means no paycheck on the weekly. You’re already mentally prepared to put your body through it. If it takes me I guess getting a concussion and keep going to get that paycheck to feed my family and put food on the table, we’re talking 25 something years ago, I’m talking about 30 dollars a payday, a match. So I might have got a concussion before I got to WWE and didn’t know it. But I feel great. I’m sure if I did have a concussion, I would damn sure notice by now.”
On understanding where Austin was coming from: “We come from that old school, so I kind of relate to what Steve was talking about. Now, I can’t say I don’t believe in it because I do believe injuries. If it’s a concussion, you’re gonna feel it, and we’ve seen a lot of NFL football players get hurt from these, and whoever’s doing the study for this, I think it’s a good thing for the boys, to be able to know that something’s wrong with your brain, or this is the reason why I’ve possibly been getting bad headaches or I just feel kind of tired on a normal day, when I feel like I shouldn’t be tired. But with people that want to examine a lot of the wrestlers, I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’m not saying that I’m not a believer. Until I know a lot about it, then I’ll be that person to be able to make my own choice.”
On his uncles telling him not to tell WWE if he was hurt: “So I kind of understand where Steve’s coming from. When you get a chance at WWE, you got one shot and one shot only, and that one shot better count. My uncles used to always tell us, ‘When you’re hurt, don’t let the company know it.’ Never understood why. Then years, days, months go by, I start to understand because if you let them know, they gonna just take you out in the back, get rid of you, bring the next person in like that can run. So it was bigger than us, man. We were the sacrifice to make…to put food on the table.”
