Stone Cold Steve Austin Names his Two Greatest Wrestlers of All Time

To those who lived through WWE’s Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin is unquestionably one of the greatest wrestlers to ever enter the squared circle.

Arguably wrestling’s greatest anti-hero, at a time when the notion of a rule-breaking hot-head with a devilish smirk beating up his own boss on live television every week caught a global zeitgeist, few can parallel Stone Cold’s legacy on the business.

Nonetheless, the man himself was relatively humble when asked to name his wrestling Mount Rushmore by omitting himself. In typical Stone Cold style, he also refused to follow the traditional format of revealing four picks for the honour of ‘greatest of all time’. Instead, the 61-year-old listed his ‘1A’ and ‘1B’, while speaking to Wrestling Youtuber and Podcaster Chris van Vliet.

Stone Cold Names Shawn Michaels and Eddie Gurreiro as 1A and 1B

Credit: WWE

Speaking with van Vliet, Stone Cold insisted it was impossible to whittle it down to just four names, but revealed he saw Shawn Michaels and Eddie Guerrero as ‘interchangable’ 1A and 1B options.

“I won’t build one [a Mount Rushmore]. Because right now, there are so many people that did so many things for the business. It’s hard to pick four. My list is greater than four. I’ll say this though. Shawn Michaels is one of the best to ever get in a ring, if not the best, and if he would be 1A, then 1B would be Eddie Guerrero, and I don’t know if those aren’t interchangeable. Eddie Guerrero was straight money – so good, at so many things.”

Steve Austin’s Honourable Mentions

After discussing Michaels and Guerrero specifically, Austin also listed other legends deserving of a shout as the greatest of all time: “Hulk Hogan, just larger than life. Brock Lesnar, Undertaker, [John] Cena with the longevity of his run.”

Austin also clarified his stance on Ric Flair, who he previously attributed the GOAT tag to. The Texas Rattlesnake described the Nature Boy as his favourite wrestler, a subtle distinction from being his pick for the greatest wrestler ever – albeit, belonging in that conversation as well.

“Flair is my favourite wrestler of all time, and he’s the greatest travelling world champion of all time because no-one ever did it at his level, all over the world. For Ric Flair to do what he’s done, for as long as he did it, and just the way that he did it – this is when it was still pro wrestling.”

Also mentioning Harley Race, Austin makes an excellent point that it’s almost impossible to narrow wrestling’s GOAT debate down to a four-person shortlist, when there have been so many different territories, companies, eras and styles down the years. That said, it’s difficult to imagine any time, place or genre of wrestling where Guerrero and Michaels wouldn’t have found success, which is perhaps why they rank 1A and 1B for Austin.