While Dale Earnhardt Jr. invites a variety of famous racing figures to be on his podcast — from Clint Bowyer to Will Power to Richard Childress — that’s certainly not a requirement for his guests. And this week, the retired NASCAR driver had WWE’s “Stone Cold” Steve Austin on the Dale Jr. Download.
Among the many topics covered was how Austin ended up with the “Stone Cold” nickname. Austin said it was somewhat inspired by hitman and serial killer Richard Kuklinski, whose alternative names included The Iceman.
But when Austin took that inspiration to WWE and told the organization he wanted to be a cold-blooded, remorseless antihero, people there offered him some terrible suggestions for possible nicknames.
Austin explained:
“I told them about The Iceman name. Well, there was a guy in Texas at World Class Championship Wrestling who had already been the Iceman — Iceman King Parsons — [so] we don’t want to do that. And so they sent me three pages of these horrible names: Fang McFrost, Otto Von Ruthless and Ice Dagger. And I’m thinking, ‘These guys are supposed to be creative geniuses, and this is the best [expletive] they got?!'”
They also covered Austin’s theatrics in the spotlight, which famously include smashing beers together and pouring them all over him while also aiming for his mouth. And to those who might criticize Austin for wasting good beer, he explained why that actually wasn’t the case.
