WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross might be part of AEW these days (albeit on a limited basis) but he remains good friends with the Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
He worked closely with his fellow WWE Hall of Famer in the 1990s and 2000s not just as someone calling the action but as head of talent relations (and, occasionally, in the odd storyline).
During the latest edition of his Grilling JR podcast, JR reflected on Austin's impact on WWE's success.
"He’s the best there ever was, and his numbers prove it," Ross stated. "You can say, 'Well, so and so is a better wrestler. This guy was a better technical wrestler,' whatever the hell that means. The bottom line of success for a wrestler is, what do they do to the bottom line? Stone Cold impacted the bottom line enough for a company to go public. That’s significant."
"That’s better than drawing a big house in New Orleans on Thursday night and going to Lafayette on Friday. It’s amazing. I’m biased, which I fully admit, but he was the best I’ve ever been around as far as drawing money, adding to the bottom line," the legendary commentator continued. "Some of those checks I wrote him, or he received, I didn’t write them, were just amazing."
Talking more about Austin's dedication to be part of every show, regardless of whether it was televised, a PPV, big venue or small, Ross said, "The house show business, as we called it back then, now Live Events, nobody could touch him because he wanted to make all the towns, no matter if it was El Paso in a small building or Houston at the Coliseum, he wanted to be on every card, and he demanded that I book him in singles."
Why singles matches? Well, Ross revealed that Austin was eager to maintain his position as a main eventer, something he felt would be diminished by tag team bouts (even if those would have taken less wear and tear on his body).
"Every now and then, Vince would say, 'We need to take care of Steve. Put him in a tag this weekend on his next run,' and I would say, ‘'Vince, he doesn’t want to be in tags. It makes him angry to be booked in tags, so unless you order me to do it, when we get to the arena, he’s going to not want to work because he’s a singles guy.'"
"'He’s worked all his life to be a singles main event star, and that’s the only thing that’s going to make him happy,'" Ross added, "So, Vince would always relent. Anybody that can remember Stone Cold in a house show tag team match, raise your hand. There weren’t many of them."
After turning heel, Austin was paired up with Triple H for a brief spell before The Game was injured. They were both still treated as main event talents, though, and held singles titles at the same time as the WWE Tag Team Championships.