Stone Cold Steve Austin famously turned heel at WrestleMania when he formed a partnership with Vince McMahon that helped him beat The Rock for the WWE Championship.
It led to a lot of entertaining storylines. However, it was also a turning point for many wrestling fans who decided they no longer wanted to watch WWE if the Texas Rattlesnake was now in cahoots with his evil billionaire boss.
At Elimination Chamber last weekend, John Cena finally turned heel and formed an unholy alliance with The Rock. Yes, the Leader of the Cenation has sold his soul in a bid to win a record-breaking 17th world title (Cena will face Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania this April).
Talking with The Schmo, Austin shared his take on Cena's heel turn. "Hey, that happened. Sooner or later. Finally, it happened. So it’ll be interesting to see," the WWE Hall of Famer said. "You know whether the people accept him, accept Him as a heel, or has he turned himself more baby face?"
"I think it remains to be seen as the story unfolds. But nonetheless, they’ve kept they’ve kicked off in epic build into WrestleMania," he continued. "And that’s what they do every single year. And this year it’s here in Las Vegas, so it’s gonna be pretty damn awesome."
Asked if he'll be at WrestleMania 41 to lend the American Nightmare a helping hand, Austin said, "Hey, I haven’t been in contact with anybody, so I guess anything could happen. But I’m here to run the Mint 400 and that’s what my sights are set on. I’m not looking to Mania."
"I’m looking to the Mint 400. I got a brand new left knee, trying here to this my first race back. So I’m gonna go out there and kick ass and see if I can do as well as I can," he added.
In a separate conversation with Adrian Hernandez, Austin elaborated on possibly being part of the Show of Shows when he said, "I have some appearances, you know, I will be in town. I haven’t talked with WWE or anything like that. But, you know, I’ll be around."
The Attitude Era icon also shared his thoughts on CM Punk, a wrestler who has frequently been compared to him over the years.
"Me and Punk are friends from way back," he explained. "He was just a young kid. He was a Stone Cold fan back in the day. I’m a CM Punk fan. I’m a fan of his work and his promos. He can light somebody up."
"So, you know, we don’t talk a whole lot. We’ll send each other a text every now and then, but when we’re probably really, really good friends and don’t talk a whole lot. We have a lot of mutual respect for each other," Austin concluded.
You can hear much more from the Texas Rattlesnake in both of the videos below.