Steve Austin Says His Last Match Was A ‘Relief’

In an interview with Iron On Wrestling, Stone Cold Steve Austin said that his final match back in 2003 at Wrestlemania XIX was a relief, although he regretted it later. Here are highlights (via PWInsider):

On leaving WWF for neck surgery: “I got a phone call from Vince. He said ‘Steve, I want to talk to you about an angle when you come back.’ I told him ‘Man, I don’t think I’m coming back.’ That kind of shocked him, because he thought I was going to be coming back. When you get dropped on your head, coming back is the last thing on your mind.

On meeting doctors: “When it first happened, I went to see Dr. Joseph Torg in Philly, and he was like the lead guy on Quadriplegia. He wasn’t going to let me back in the ring. He thought the business was a shoot. So finally, I had to tell the doctor, ‘I don’t gotta take a piledriver every time I go out. I can control what I do’.” And it was like a light went off in his head.”

On his retirement match: “When I walked up the ramp, I just felt a sense of relief. It felt like this 200-pound iron plate had been lifted off my back. There was no way in hell I wasn’t going to miss the business, and that would come back to haunt me later, but the initial relief of just saying, ‘Okay, I don’t have to put my body on the line anymore.’ It was a big relief. It was bittersweet. It was weird. But it was what it was.”