Stone Cold Steve Austin Addresses Past Comments About CTE

Austin addresses his past comments.

In 2024, a Netflix docuseries was released about former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon titled ‘Mr. McMahon.’ Among the subjects covered was the murder-suicide involving Chris Benoit, Nancy Benoit, and their son Daniel.

CTE became a talking point, and during Stone Cold Steve Austin’s interview, he said the following:

My take on that has always been if you’re just wrestling and you got a bunch of concussions, you’re probably doing something wrong. I’m not a CTE guy. I just don’t believe in it.

While guest appearing on Busted Open, Austin addressed those comments:

“Well, I remember they were doing a documentary one time and they were talking about CTE at the time, and this was, Jesus, 15, 20 years ago. I think we just had this conversation on the telephone a long time ago. 20 years ago, and I said that, ‘Hey man, I don’t think if you work in the business of pro wrestling, you shouldn’t have a whole lot of concussions and maybe you’re doing it wrong’ and I was speaking from a classical, Ric Flair-type style of wrestling that you shouldn’t be having a bunch of things and man, all of a sudden — I’m not really answering your question but, I just remember my Twitter timeline started blowing up and the people got mad as hell at me and they said, ‘Oh! You don’t believe in CTE?’ I was like, ‘God dang.’ I said, ‘No, I believe in CTE. Just not as it really kind of applies technically to pro wrestling.’

It’s gonna be a hot button that everybody starts sounding off so, I’ll get out of it but, that was just kind of being put on the spot about it and I answered accordingly so, sh*t, I don’t know… I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor… I took a lot of bumps and took some shots but, do I forget things every now and then? Yeah, well, I’m 61. I think that kind comes with the territory,” Austin laughed. “But, I’ve seen most of the guys that I know are pretty cool.”

Austin is doing media for 3:16 Day. The 3/16 WWE Monday Night Raw is emanating from San Antonio, Texas.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Busted Open with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.