Steve Austin Recalls Having A Great Match With Chris Benoit During A SmackDown Episode In 2001

Recently on The Steve Austin Show, WWE Hall Of Famer Steve Austin shared his thoughts on wrestling in Canada and working a match against Chris Benoit in his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on the May 31, 2001 episode of WWE SmackDown. Austin went on to discuss his relationship with Benoit.

According to Austin, he always enjoyed working in Canada, as the people and crowds were "great". With that said, Austin did not enjoy crossing the border.

During the podcast, Austin recalled working a great match with Benoit on SmackDown in Edmonton. Apparently, Austin told Benoit to disregard the go-home cue and he would take the heat for it, as 'The Texas Rattlesnake' was left underwhelmed by the match the two had the night prior on RAW.

"I had a great match with Chris Benoit in Edmonton one night and I believe it was on the SmackDown show." Austin continued, "and we had worked the previous night on RAW and they only gave us a certain amount of minutes and I wasn't very happy with that match because we didn't have enough time to build a proper story. I'll never forget when we rolled into Edmonton that night. It was SmackDown and we were going to work together again. And I told Chris before we went out there, I said, 'dude,' I said, 'I don't care how much time they give us - we're going to go home when it's time to go home. And it's all on me. I'll take the heat, so if they give us the go home cue, disregard it.' And we really ripped it up that night."

Austin revealed that the spot was his idea. He indicated that he was not in any pain from the suplexes in light of his neck surgery, Benoit targeting Austin's perceived injured neck made sense for the story of the match at the time.

"I said, 'hey man, we're going to go as long as we need to go' and it was Chris's hometown, I believe. I think it was Edmonton. We had worked the night before. [We] didn't have the match I wanted to have because I knew how much Chris could go and I respected him. And so, I said, 'hey man, I don't see you making a traditional comeback on me. I see this being something where you just grab me from behind and let's go 10 German suplexes, 10 in a row, because I just don't see a regular comeback. I see 10 German suplexes and here comes Vince [McMahon] coming down and I barely escape with the belt.' And Chris thought about that for a minute and he goes, 'I like that.' And so, that's what we went out and did. So it wasn't in the moment. It was something that I called, I planned, I ran across Chris, and he dug it. And we did it." Austin added

I called the suplexes and I wasn't in any pain. And the pain in referring to is because I was returning from my neck fusion and I'd figured all the bumps that I had taken leading up to that match that I would be fine taking those bumps. And it would be a great ploy, a great strategy, for Chris to use to focus on my weakness, or perceived weakness, which could be construed as my neck because of the fusion, because of the surgery. And I was working heel at the time, so he's giving it back to me and then some. So it made sense for that in his comeback."

Austin said that the Chris Benoit he knew was a great worker and a cool guy.