Sgt. Slaughter Shares Story About Steve Austin Making Younger Wrestler Apologize
Sgt Slaughter is a WWE Hall of Famer that had a legendary career as a wrestler and a figurehead on television in the Attitude Era. Slaughter has shared what it was like when “Stone Cold” Steve Austin wasn’t happy about something that happened when a rookie wrestler was disrespectful towards Slaughter.
During the Attitude Era with Austin running roughshod during his rivalry with Vince McMahon, Slaughter was in the role of a Commissioner. Often times it would lead to Slaughter getting beat up (along with “stooges” Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco) by Austin as well as other babyfaces in WWE.
The legendary Slaughter spoke exclusively to Inside The Ropes’ own Kenny McIntosh for issue 7 of Inside The Ropes magazine, with Slaughter explaining that Stone Cold was angry about having to deliver two Stunners to Sarge:
“I thought, ‘We really want to get this guy over,’ so he gave me the Stunner and I waltzed around and waltzed around, and then I fed him another one. It was the first time we’d ever done that. I didn’t know Steve much—I never really talked to him. I just knew by seeing him and watching him that he was under a lot of pressure. He had the weight of the company on his back because that was during the WCW and WWF wars. He didn’t handle it well.”
“I thought I did a hell of a job for him and really did something out of the ordinary. I went to my hotel that night and I pulled up and saw a big, black pickup truck, still running, door wide open, and nobody there. I started walking to the hotel front entrance—and out came Austin, doing his walk, and he stopped me and said, ‘You’ve got to learn how to sell sh*t.’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘Sell! You’ve got to learn how to sell. Two Stunners?!’ I thought, ‘Is he serious? Is this serious?’”
“The next day I told someone what happened and I said, ‘What kind of guy is this guy?’ They said, ‘He’s under a lot of pressure.’ So from that point on, I went more out of my way to take one Stunner and I’d just lay there forever. I just did whatever I thought he wanted and we never talked about anything until years later.”
Slaughter recalled a story when former WWE superstar Muhammad Hassan was disrespectful to Slaughter around ringside, so Austin vented his frustration about it, much to Slaughter’s surprise:
“I was doing a little thing with this kid [Muhammad Hassan] outside the ring. I was talking to him and, all of a sudden, he just gets up and walks away. Austin was standing there and he jumped up out of his chair, ran the guy down and pulled him around, and said, ‘When Sgt Slaughter’s talking to you, man, you listen! Don’t walk away from him.’ The kid goes, ‘Oh!’ Austin took his ear, almost like a principal at a school, and brought him back to me. He said, ‘You listen to what this guy’s talking about. He’s the best in this business. When he’s talking to you, you listen and do what he tells you to do.’ I was stunned. I couldn’t believe my ears.”
The locker room found out about the disrespect towards Slaughter and that led to Hassan getting some “receipts” during a battle royal:
“After the TV taping, I got on the bus to go to the hotel and Big Show came over and said, ‘Did we hear that guy disrespected you?’ I said, ‘Well, I guess you could say that.’ Then Undertaker came over and asked, ‘Hey, Sarge, did so-and-so disrespect you?’ Ten guys got on that bus and asked me the same thing. The next night, they had a battle royal and I was sitting outside the ring, watching. This poor guy, they wouldn’t let him out of the ring. They just took turns, one after the other, getting him into the corner and laying chops on him. I mean, the guy was crying. They wouldn’t stop giving him receipts.”
“The next day he came over to me and said, ‘I want to apologise for disrespecting you, I’ll never do it again. Sorry.’ I said, ‘It’s OK. You got your payback without me even touching you, but these guys mean business. This is a business and they don’t take kindly to disrespect.’ And he said, ‘I understand now.’”