Stone Cold Steve Austin shares his biggest WWE regret – “I should have shown up”

Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the greatest wrestling performers of all time, with the rise of WWE in the late 1990s and early 2000s being credited mainly to his popularity.

However, things weren’t exactly rosy between Steve Austin and WWE the year before his retirement from the ring. Steve Austin retired from WWE at WrestleMania XIX in 2003 after his match with The Rock, but the WWE Hall of Famer had actually walked out on WWE the year prior.

Prior to the June 10 episode of Monday Night Raw in 2002, Austin walked out on WWE when he was asked to lose to Brock Lesnar in a King of the Ring tournament qualifying match. Taking part in a Q&A with WWE, Austin has revealed that refusing to lose to Lesnar is the “biggest regret” he has from his time with WWE.

The multi-time WWE Champion explained his reasoning for refusing to lose at the time, but says that walking out on the company was “total stupidity” and is something he really regrets.

“I disagreed with it [the match with Lesnar]. I never like to blow smoke up my a**, but guys like myself, like Hogan, and a few others, they don’t grow on trees. So you want to sacrifice what you’ve built up in me? And with no buildup? But that walk out was still total stupidity and hard-headedness on my part. I should have shown up, and that is my biggest regret in the business of pro wrestling.”

It ended up being Bubba Ray Dudley that lost to Brock Lesnar that night, going on to win the King of the Ring tournament that year.