I Listen So You Don't Have To: Steve Austin Show Ep. 174

Austin's unleashed show this week piggybacks off his McMahon conversation
Photo Credit: WWE.com

If you're new, here's the rundown - I listen to a handful of wrestling podcasts each week. Too many, probably, though certainly not all of them. In the interest of saving you time — in case you have the restraint to skip certain episodes — the plan is to give the bare bones of a given show and let you decide if it’s worth investing the time to hear the whole thing. There are better wrestling podcasts out there, of course, but these are the ones in my regular rotation that I feel best fit the category of hit or miss. If I can save other folks some time, I'm happy to do so.

Show: Steve Austin Show Unleashed
Episode: 174
Run Time: 1:36:47
Guest: Kristin Austin (4:40); Ted Fowler (16:38)

Summary: Stone Cold opens up again with a chat with his wife about life at the Broken Skull Ranch. He spends the rest of the show with buddy Ted Fowler, who accompanied Austin on Monday’s trip to Tulsa to interview Vince McMahon on the WWE Network. In addition to reviewing the actual conversation, adding context live listeners might not have fully grasped, they talked about the WWE jet and Fowler’s impression of being backstage at RAW and meeting other wrestling stars. They wrapped up talking about nutrition and fitness, music, ranch wildlife and dog training. Austin’s Match of the Week is the new Bobby “The Brain” Heenan special on the WWE Network.

Quote of the week: “When I called out the dressing room on the podcast with Vince McMahon, it was just about these guys going out on a limb, pushing the envelope and taking a chance. I got a lot of damn response on my Twitter account, SteveAustinBSR, that said it’s hard for the talent to step up when they’ve got a foot on top of their head keeping ’em down. That’s bullshit. There wasn’t nobody lit a fire under my ass. And I’m not going to sit here and talk about Steve Austin all day long, but I saw that I was going to have to do something to shake up the system and turn up the volume and push the envelope because the Ringmaster was a suck-ass gimmick.”

Why you should listen: Austin does provide some useful insight on the McMahon interview, such as how or why he chose to pursue certain questions and what he thought of McMahon’s answers. I enjoyed hearing Fowler describe his encounters with various stars, but not nearly as much as Austin detailing his encounters, notably a session with Cesaro, as well as the high marks he has for young talent like Luke Harper and Erick Rowan.

Why you should skip it: If you for some reason haven’t listened to the McMahon show yet (it shows up in the podcast feed next Tuesday) you might as well wait, as the comments here will be more informative in that context. If you have listened to McMahon’s show, you might get upset with Austin for parroting some of the company line in a few instances. You can certainly skip everything past the main commercial break, because once they stop talking wrestling the only real interesting tidbit is learning how much Austin and Fowler dig Nickelback.

Final thoughts: I’m not real certain why Austin released this show ahead of the McMahon file. It probably was as simple as he wanted to get his impressions recorded before they got clouded, and perhaps he didn’t have time to do that and record a new episode for Thursday. Fortunately nothing he says is too timely, even the Punk stuff, so anyone who is waiting for Tuesday to hear McMahon can just bank this episode and listen right after finishing the Vince talk.