Brian Gewirtz Recalls Proposing Steve Austin vs. Brock Lesnar Bout In 2002

In 2002, Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar were set to meet on WWE Raw in a King of the Ring qualifying match. The bout had not been built on television as both men were involved in different programs.

The match never happened as Austin infamously left the company. On television, it was said that Austin “took his ball and went home.” Lesnar would go on to win the 2002 King of the Ring. 

Speaking on the Cheap Heat podcast, former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz recalled proposing the match. 

“I cop to it. I’m the one who proposed Austin vs. Brock that led to…it didn’t lead to good things. The story is, at the time, this was supposedly going to be a brand split that was a true brand split where it was going to be ‘these guys are not going to face each other anytime soon.’ The idea at the time, as we were talking with Vince in the creative meeting, was to really use it as a springboard for this Austin and Eddie Guerrero angle that we were doing at the time. Eddie was going to do a run in and cost Steve the match. We had done stuff like that in the past. We did something somewhere similar with Austin causing a distraction that led to Hurricane beating Rock. I know Hurricane vs. Rock isn’t a future main event and potentially the biggest match in WWE history, but at the time it was, ‘we’re not going to have this for years. When we do it, we’re going to treat it like the biggest match in existence. We can afford to do this match and have it with a (distraction) finish,’ and eventually, Vince (McMahon) changed it from a finish to a non-finish, with a DQ. ‘Let’s do this as a last hurrah kick-off before we truly split the brands.’ I think everything, my part included, if I didn’t know any better, when Steve gave an interview at the time to WWF Magazine and said, ‘I don’t need some kid straight out of sitcom school handing me a piece of paper.’ I kind of deduced that he might have been talking about myself at that time,” said Gewirtz. 

Gewirtz said he understood Austin’s position about writers as Austin got over during the Attitude Era without others telling him what to say. He also said he was a big Austin fan and just wanted to be his friend. 

Brock Lesnar previously admitted that Austin leaving was probably the right decision at the time. You can find his full comments by clicking here. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.