Steve Austin Talks Too Much Comedy in WWE, James Ellsworth, NXT and More

Steve Austin appeared on the latest episode of the PWTorch Livecast "Interview Thursday" with host Wade Keller and talked for well over an hour about the latest big storylines in WWE, including the use of comedic elements.

They sent us these highlights:

Regarding trivial comedy in WWE content:

"A little bit here and there, but in your top angles, man, I see a hard time drawing money at the arenas with that."

On James Ellsworth:

"Now, I give props to the kid. he's doing his job and he's doing a good job of it. It's interesting… I like what they're doing. Monday Night Raw or Smackdown, credit to the James Ellsworth guy, he's doing a great job, but I'm all about the serious stuff."

On his preferred style of wrestling:

"I go back to the old school days of that Attitude Era stuff. Everybody knows when I speak of the Attitude Era, my favorite stuff is of the mid-'80s, all that NWA stuff, the World Class stuff, the stuff that Bill Watts was doing. The AWA was kind of starting to get on a little bit of a decline at that point and the WWF was still slipping on banana peels. That's my favorite stuff."

On his history of adding comedy to his character:

"Wrestling is a very serious subject for me. Yes, people would sit out there and say, 'You did a lot of comedy, Steve.' Well, yeah, I did. I had three broke bones in my back. I had to do something to be an entertainer, so I went out and did what I did. I had to push the envelope creatively. Still at the end of the day, I took what I did very seriously. Not to beat a dead horse. This isn't an indictment of Steve Austin onto the company. They're following their vision, their path."

How NXT is getting it right:

"I think it's basically the simplicity of the show. I mean, you've got these angles that are wrestling-based, announcers staying within the system. They're not talking about anything going on in pop culture. If you go back several months, Corey [Graves] made the comment that Bobby Roode had flown because he wanted to spend the least amount of time in Manhattan as possible. So just sticking within those parameters, the announcing I think is a little better on the NXT front right now. Just the action in the ring, it's a better look, it's dimmed down a little bit, it's not too dark – I thought Lucha Underground was too dark this year from a visual standpoint. I like the production values. I like their entrance music. I like what they're doing in the ring. Of course, they've got one of my favorite tag team in The Revival."

Austin also talked about what's preventing some top WWE wrestlers from getting fully over, including Seth Rollins, reflects on his controversially testy WWE Network interview with Dean Ambrose, his thoughts about the resurgence of squash matches, the high praise that The Miz has been getting lately, thoughts on Goldberg's impending return match against Brock Lesnar, and more. You can listen to the full interview by clicking here.