While multiple wrestlers are inking shoe deals right now, Stone Cold Steve Austin almost had his own back in the Attitude Era.
WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin recently went shoe shopping with Complex and spoke about a variety of subjects. During the discussion, Austin revealed he would have had a shoe deal back in the day had his agent not suggested he wait to hear from Nike first.
“Well, not so much. But then there was one company: Hi Tec, the Magnums that I was wearing. And I was stomping mud holes in people and walking them dry,” Steve Austin said. “And I can’t remember how I started wearing those things, whether I bought them on my own or they had sent them up to the office, and I tried them on, and I was in love.
“So I love the way those boots feel, and I still wear those today when I’m out riding side by sides, or I’m going hunting for three days. That’s what I wear. So back in the day, they approached my agent, and they approached me and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to have Steve as a brand ambassador and do a sponsorship with him.’
“They had an amount of money, and my agent at the time, you always think that your agent is smarter than you. And they said, ‘Steve, I think this is a good deal, but we want to hold out and see if Nike comes at you instead.’ I was like, okay, that’s the agent, so he’s supposed to be smarter than me. So we didn’t do the deal with Hi Tec.
“And then, as nothing happened with Nike, I went back, and I was like, ‘When was Nike ever gonna make a badass boot man for a badass wrestler who is kicking the hell out everybody on TV? They don’t, and they didn’t. So my agent blew the deal, and I’ll never forget that.
“[The deal never happened] because we were gonna wait on the next bigger deal. But you got to start somewhere. And that’s key to everybody. I’ll give everybody advice, and sometimes you gotta go by your gut. Me and Hi Tec was a match made in heaven.”
It was brought up that when Stone Cold appeared at WrestleMania 32 and stunned New Day member Xavier Woods that he was wearing a pair of Asics. Austin revealed that he’s moved on to wearing Brooks now.
“I kind of went off the Nikes got into the Asics, and then segwayed into the Brooks. That’s pretty much what I wear exclusively now,” Steve Austin revealed. “The biggest thing I saw was people felt that I shouldn’t be wearing tennis shoes that it didn’t fit the Stone Cold persona. I didn’t get that on the fashion side.
“I got the Stone Cold purists who were just used to seeing me in the black boots. That was the feedback I got, so no, it was cool to see that people have stepped up my game a little bit. Yeah, I dig the Asics brand. We go back a long way. I’ve worn them for many years. I still got a couple of pairs of men’s workout shoes, but yeah, I moved on to the Brooks. But I never knew that people took the shoe game so seriously. I just like a good pair of kicks.”
READ MORE: Steve Austin On Roman Reigns: ‘I’ll Acknowledge That He’s Doing Some Amazing Work’
What do you make of Steve Austin’s comments? Are you disappointed that The Texas Rattlesnake never got his own pair of shoes? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Complex with a link back to this article for the transcription.
