Steve Austin On Tag Team Wrestling Not Being What It Used To, Which Team He's A Fan Of, Harlem Heat
Recently on The Steve Austin Show, WWE Hall Of Famer Steve Austin was joined by his former stunt double, Paul Lazenby. Among many other things, Austin shared his thoughts on the current state of tag team professional wrestling. Austin talked about whether The Hollywood Blonds, Austin's tag team in WCW with the late great 'Flyin” Brian Pillman, deserves to be on the proverbial Mount Rushmore of tag teams. Additionally, Austin put over many tag teams including Harlem Heat and The Revival.
According to Austin, with all due respect to current active tag teams, tag team professional wrestling is not what it used to be because of the lack of teams.
"Man, and that's the thing," Austin began. "The tag team scene just ain't what it used to be and that's not knocking any team that's out there. I'm just saying there aren't as many teams and they're not together as long to build the history, the chemistry, and you just know what the other guy is going to do when you go out there. You have four different people out there and a referee. With all the minds and all the different tricks you can do, there's so much to watch, so I love tag team wrestling. It's just that it [has] kind of faded off a little bit and that's with all respect to the tag teams still out there doing good work. It just has changed."
On the subject of whether The Hollywood Blonds should be on the Mount Rushmore of tag teams, Austin admitted that the team, which was only together for two years, is not even a top 15 or 20 all time best team. 'Stunning' Steve indicated that they could have been a conversation for top 5 tag team if they stayed together for a longer period.
"Hell no, we're not even close!" Austin exclaimed. "We're not even in the top 15 or 20. Brian and I were good for the time we were together. We could've been excellent! But we were good and had we had as much time together or as many matches as a lot of other tag teams, I venture to say we would have been in the conversation. But no, we're not in the conversation. We never were, but, man, did I have a lot of fun with Brian. Were we good? Damn right! Did we have chemistry? Yes, we did! But we're not in that conversation, not even close to it."
During the podcast, Austin put over many tag teams, such as WCW's Harlem Heat.
"I can't leave off Booker T and Stevie Ray. We tried to open the show with some Stevie Ray Vaughan and it didn't work!" Austin laughed. "When they showed up on the scene at WCW way back in the day, it was like two guys show up and they're both big and jacked up, and they got some charisma about them, and they've got some edge about them. And it turns out they can work too. And yeah, one of them is really athletic, so Harlem Heat had a hell of a damn run!"
Also, during the interview, Austin put over The Revival and #DIY.
"I love The Revival, Dawson and Dash. But I also liked when they were having those matches with, back at the time when they were a team and when they weren't feuding and they would go on to have lights out singles matches, [Johnny] Gargano and [Tommaso] Ciampa."
Check out the podcast here. If you use any of the quotations that appear in this article, please credit The Steve Austin Show with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.