Stone Cold’s departure from the WWE in 2002 came out of the blue for fans but was a long time coming for those backstage. His heel turn in 2001 (both of them) were a lot of fun to watch and he performed excellently but that didn’t translate to the same box office success he was used to. His quick, unexplained face turn in November following the death of the Alliance was lukewarm at best and in reality, if it wasn’t for the WHAT chant catching on the way it did would have stayed that way.
Problems were beginning to surface backstage in early 2002 as Austin was unhappy with Hulk Hogan's return to the WWF. He was reported as refusing to lose to Hogan in a proposed match between the two at WrestleMania X8, while Hogan reportedly told McMahon the same regarding losing to Austin. I’ve discussed that plenty in the Wrestlemania X8 review. In recent years, Austin has claimed he didn't want the match as he didn't want to wrestle at a slower pace, and that he "didn't think we could deliver" from a quality perspective. That’s just Stone Cold playing politics and really he wasn’t the first or the last man to have issues working with Hogan.
Austin no-showed the Raw after WrestleMania as well as the following week, citing exhaustion. McMahon claimed his actions caused fury among fans who had paid to see him that night but in truth most were unaware of the behind the scenes drama and assumed he was just taking a couple of weeks off.
In a May 2002 interview on WWE's internet program, Byte This!, Austin stunned the company and fans by launching into a shoot-verbal attack on the creative direction of the company and slated the creative team for not using him as well as they previously did. The WWE started to move Austin into a feud with Intercontinental Champion Eddie Guerrero, while also prepping Austin for a feud with rookie Brock Lesnar. Austin balked at the proposition that he lose a King of the Ring qualifying match on Raw to Lesnar, and ultimately walked out of the company. Austin later explained that he thought hot-shotting a rookie made Austin look weak, and airing the match on free television with no build-up did not give Lesnar a proper stage for such a big win over a star of Austin's magnitude.
After Austin again no-showed the June 10 episode of Raw, all of his storylines were immediately dropped forcing significant rewrites and direction changes for Ric Flair and Eddie Guerrero among others.. Austin had walked out of the company again and publicly stated that he felt underwhelming storylines were presented to him by the creative team. McMahon, along with longtime Austin supporter and real-life friend Jim Ross, buried Austin on WWE programming, referring to him as "taking his ball and going home" because he was not getting his way, whilst also explaining to the fans that neither he nor Ross was able to persuade Austin to change his mind thereby putting all of the blame on Austin himself. McMahon’s handling of the departure including toasting Austin with a beer and thanking him for his service led many to assume that he wasn’t coming back and at the time, the company seemed to think so too.
For the remainder of 2002, Austin kept a low public profile and did not make any public appearances. A well publicised domestic dispute with his wife Debra added fuel to the fire. It was reported by the end of 2002 that Austin and McMahon met privately and resolved their differences. He agreed to return to the company in early 2003. In an interview with WWE Raw Magazine, he expressed deep regret over the situation that led to his departure and the manner in which he had left, and deeper regret over inaccurate speculation regarding his alleged grudges held against other WWE wrestlers, claiming he had no problem with Hall rejoining the company. He did admit he still held strong reservations about his singles match with Hall at WrestleMania only lasting seven minutes and felt the build-up to the match did not live up to the expectations of his fans or Hall's, and was angry about speculation he disagreed with Kevin Nash re-joining the company, insisting he and Nash have always been good friends. He did, however, maintain his displeasure with the storylines and creative changes the WWE had imposed around the time of his departure. In an interview with Vince McMahon on his podcast in 2014, Austin publicly revealed for the first time that McMahon had fined him $650,000 upon his return, but he was able to lower the amount to $250,000.
Austin also confessed he had a major rift with Triple H's role in the company upon his return in 2002 as now in a serious relationship with Stephanie McMahon, Triple H was effectively on the creative team with full control of his own storylines. He also had issues with The Rock, specifically his feelings were hurt, caused by The Rock coming out on Raw right after his departure to bad-mouth Stone Cold to the fans and tote the same “took his ball and went home” line that JR and McMahon had pushed. He says that both rifts were cleared up and resolved very quickly after his return in 2002 and that none of his disputes with the talent roster continued or played a major part in his departure.
I became a wrestling fan because of Stone Cold Steve Austin. I started this website because i missed and wanted to talk about Stone Cold Steve Austin. I made the decision to end my journey through the past at Wrestlemania XIX primarily because that’s Austin’s last match so it feels fitting.
Stone Cold is one of the biggest stars of all time, and it’s a shame that his full time career ended with such a dark cloud over it. His return in 2003 was short lived as injuries caught up to the Rattlesnake and he retired in 2003, not wrestling again until a one off match with Kevin Owens in 2022. Stone Cold won. The Rattlesnake always wins.
