The Inside Story Of Steve Austin’s Scrapped In-Ring Comeback At WWE Taboo Tuesday 2005

One of the featured attractions at Taboo Tuesday 2005 was set to be Steve Austin’s first official match in a WWE ring in almost three years, booked against Jonathan Coachman of all people. The match never ended up happening, however, and while some cried that Austin had left the company high and dry, as he had done in the past, the actual backstory as to why the match fell apart is, in fact, much more complex and interesting.

The final days in the full-time in-ring career of Steve Austin are well-documented. He was beat up and burned out and frustrated with the creative team, harbouring a general disdain for the direction of not only his character, but the WWE product more broadly, which indirectly led to his decision to ‘take his ball and go home’ after being presented with a scenario where he would lose a King of the Ring qualifying match to Brock Lesnar on the June 10, 2002 episode of Raw. 

After that much-publicised professional dispute and a domestic abuse arrest, the Texas Rattlesnake returned to the ring after an eight-month absence to first defeat Eric Bischoff at No Way Out 2003 and then put over The Rock in his squared circle swansong at WrestleMania XIX. 

From there, Austin remained on WWE TV as the co-General Manager of Monday Night Raw with Bischoff, which then morphed into him becoming the ‘sheriff’ of WWE’s flagship show. This lasted for close to a year, but further issues arose between Austin and Vince McMahon shortly after Stone Cold served as the special guest referee for the calamitous sendoff match for both Brock Lesnar and Goldberg at WrestleMania XX.

Steve Austin’s WWE Contract Expires

Stone Cold appeared on the two episodes of Raw which directly followed WrestleMania 20 in segments with Rene Dupree and Shelton Benjamin, before having a backstage meeting with Vince McMahon and his good friend & WWE Head of Talent Relations Jim Ross at the April 6, 2004 SmackDown taping in San Antonio, Texas. 

According to reports, the three men met for close to 90 minutes, with the most pressing issue being the negotiation of Austin’s new contract. The sticking points for Austin were shifting from a full-time television character to a part-time one in order to explore outside opportunities in film and television, as well as securing the rights to use the "Stone Cold" moniker in relation to projects outside of WWE's control. 

The meeting ended without a proper resolution but there was an understanding that the two sides would continue working together in some form or fashion going forward, which included a mooted Stone Cold Steve Austin brand beer and a WWE Studios-produced feature film. Just 10 days after the meeting, however, negotiations broke down and all projects were taken off the table after the two sides came to an impasse over intellectual property rights. 

WWE blamed the breakdown on the lawyer representing Austin, though the star himself was unwilling to accept an offer that prevented him from making his own deals. McMahon was reportedly fine with Austin making some of his own deals, but not those in areas he considered competition with WWE.

The two left their meeting in San Antonio on April 16 knowing that the door was open to do business together in the future. While there was intermittent chatter of Austin doing a match or series of matches with other organisations in Japan – including a potential pay-per-view bout with his good friend Goldberg – it seemed inevitable that WWE and Stone Cold would be back working in harmony sooner rather than later, which is exactly what happened. 

Steve Austin Returns 

On January 9, 2005, Austin and McMahon held a press conference and scheduled an appearance on The Best Damn Sports Show Period to announce that Austin had signed a three-picture deal for lead roles in WWE Studios film productions. Austin then made his WWE TV return at WrestleMania 21, appearing as the special guest on Piper’s Pit, which ended with Stone Cold giving stunners to Roddy Piper and Carlito. 

Austin would continue to make sporadic appearances, including serving as guest referee for a series of SmackDown house show main events in the UK and Ireland that June, and appearing at ECW One Night Stand where he showed up unexpectedly to give Eric Bischoff a stunner before leading the show-closing, beer-filled, ECW vs. WWE brawl.

Following this, Austin, advertised in advance, appeared at the special Raw Homecoming episode to mark the red brand’s first night back on USA Network after leaving Spike TV. In a long and occasionally funny segment, Austin interrupted Vince McMahon and gave him the inevitable stunner. Then Shane McMahon came out and got the same treatment, followed by Stephanie before, finally, Linda got dropped with possibly the second-worst Stone Cold stunner in history. The segment was the ratings peak of the show, drawing a 5.0 rating (or around 6 million viewers), which was the highest Raw number since the April 22, 2002 episode headlined by Steve Austin and Big Show vs. X-Pac and Scott Hall, which drew a 4.75 rating. 

WWE Removes Jim Ross From Commentary 

Backstage after the segment, Vince was shown on Raw threatening to fire somebody for what had happened to his family. McMahon’s revenge began on next week’s show, as he blamed the fans and took out his frustration on the announce team, with McMahon alleging they simply sat back and allowed his family to receive stunner after stunner. 

Jonathan Coachman instantly apologised in weasel-like fashion, while Jerry Lawler gave a more dignified apology that allowed him to save face. Jim Ross, meanwhile, told Vince he was sorry his wife got stunned. Stephanie then came out, to which JR told her he was sorry her mother got stunned, before Linda herself emerged and turned heel by telling Ross he was fired before giving him a swift kick to the nether regions to end the show. 

JR’s on-air firing didn’t just have storyline implications either. McMahon and right-hand man Kevin Dunn wanted to replace Ross at the announce desk as they believed the legendary commentator was too old, too out-of-shape, too southern, and a bit too ‘pro wrasslin’ for their tastes. And, as sad as it is to say, they also apparently had issues with the facial paralysis that was the result of JR’s bouts of Bell’s Palsy.

Looking to replace one of the most legendary commentators in the history of pro wrestling, WWE reportedly offered a three-year deal worth around $500,000 per year to UFC announcer Mike Goldberg. The UFC commentator, who knew nothing about modern wrestling but was a fan as a kid, contemplated the offer but ultimately decided against taking it after Dana White agreed to increase his pay. Goldberg also had other gigs outside of UFC that he enjoyed doing and wouldn’t be able to keep had he signed an exclusive WWE contract. 

There was some speculation that Vince wanted Goldberg to no-show a UFC pay-per-view before showing up on Raw, while former WWE writer Court Bauer later mentioned that Stephanie McMahon wanted him to change his name because they already had one ‘Goldberg’. 

With Goldberg out, the decision was made to use Coachman and Lawler, with Joey Styles (who signed a deal after receiving plaudits for his work at ECW One Night Stand) coming in to form a three-man booth shortly after. 

The October 17, 2005 episode of Raw began with Vince showing a highlight reel of all the times that Ross had been humiliated inside a WWE ring, before formally introducing The Coach, wearing JR’s trademark black cowboy hat, as his replacement. Later in the show, Austin showed up and had a verbal showdown with Stephanie McMahon, with Steve Austin vs. Jonathan Coachman being booked for Taboo Tuesday with the stipulation that if Austin won, Ross would get his job on Raw back. If Austin lost, however, he would be fired. The three potential stipulations fans could vote for were Verbal Debate, Arm Wrestling Match, and Street Fight. 

Stone Cold finished the segment off by threatening Coachman and filling his hat with beer before dumping it on his head.

A day later, Ross underwent surgery to remove part of his colon in Oklahoma. The then-53-year-old had been in pain for a while and had known he needed the surgery for a couple of weeks, leading some to speculate that his on-air firing had been done as an excuse to remove him from television while he convalesced. The evidence seemed to suggest that the timing was more coincidental, and McMahon simply wanted his longtime colleague gone from TV. 

Austin was absent from the October 24 episode of Raw,  but Vince McMahon was on the show in the infamous ‘Dr. Heiney’ segment where McMahon, as Dr. Heiney and aided by Nurse Slobberknockers, performed colon surgery on a Jim Ross dummy, pulling out a bottle of BBQ sauce, a football, an owl, Mae Young’s other hand, a goldfish in a plastic bag, an Oklahoma football helmet, a Steve Austin cup and, for the punchline, JR’s own head in a personal jibe as McMahon would often tell Ross he had his ‘head up his ass’ when they would have a disagreement. The segment ended with Vince throwing the nurse onto the table for extracurricular activities.

Bruce Prichard claimed in 2019 that the segment was done “out of love” for JR, saying (H/T 411mania): “Well first of all, no it wasn’t mean-spirited. And I think that a lot of people had a problem from the standpoint of the reality of JR having surgery. Now, I’m gonna get a lot of s**t for this, and I don’t give a f**k. This was done out of love and it was done out of respect to JR from the standpoint of this: we’re gonna do a skit, we’re gonna make fun of your s**t. We’re gonna laugh at it, we’re gonna have fun with it, because we want you to get through this.”

Jim Ross, meanwhile, revealed in 2020 that the segment brought his wife Jan to tears. 

Steve Austin Pulls Out Of WWE Taboo Tuesday

The whole farce would have made some sense from a storyline point of view had it led to Austin defeating Coachman at Taboo Tuesday, resulting in a Jim Ross return to kick his boss in the nether regions. That wasn’t going to happen, though, as Austin pulled out of the match. 

Vince McMahon announced on the October 31 episode of Raw that Austin had sustained an injury and wouldn’t be there tonight or at the pay-per-view the night after. Openly questioning the legitimacy of the alleged injury, McMahon declared Coachman as the de-facto winner via forfeit. He then booked a match between the ‘number one announcer’ on Raw and the ‘number one announcer’ on SmackDown – Funaki – who was beaten down by The Coach and Goldust, who had returned earlier in the segment.

Coach then challenged anyone else from the SmackDown roster to a match at Taboo Tuesday, as a means to further the ongoing SmackDown vs. Raw storyline heading into Survivor Series, with World Heavyweight Champion Batista emerging as his new opponent. The Animal was subsequently beaten down by Coach, Goldust and a returning Vader.

What caused issues was, according to reports, Austin had been told the planned finish of the Taboo Tuesday match on October 29, just four days before the pay-per-view, and it would have seen Coachman defeat The Texas Rattlesnake following outside interference from Goldust, Vader, and a returning-from-injury Mark Henry. 

There had been internal speculation that Austin was going to be booked to lose following interference and that the future Hall of Famer, notoriously protective of his character and who he loses to and even works with, would balk at the suggestion.

Austin – who contends that he has always been happy to ‘do business’ when it makes sense – questioned doing a job in his first match in two-and-a-half years to an announcer on what was basically a B show in a feud with a two-week build that would also see him fail in his quest to get the beloved JR back on the air. 

Austin told McMahon that he had suffered a back injury while moving heavy furniture, claiming he had tripped and put his back out, inflaming his sciatic nerve. The Texas Rattlesnake noted that he couldn’t bend down to tie his own shoes and wouldn’t be able to wrestle unless he was heavily medicated. Those who had been in communication with Austin around that time, however, made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t doing the match due to the suggested creative. 

WWE had booked themselves into a corner as Vince McMahon had no intention of bringing Ross back, and beating Austin would potentially dilute his future drawing power. Even if Austin had won the match and got JR his job back, Ross wouldn’t have been able to travel until the end of November anyway, since he was still recovering from colon surgery. 

Regardless of how Austin felt about WWE’s treatment of Ross at the time, he obviously didn’t like it and told people close to him that he wasn’t too hot on the televised product in general. In short, the whole situation was a mess and added to several other messes that were going on backstage in WWE at the time, including Christian giving his notice that he was not going to re-sign with the company on October 30. Captain Charisma had been unhappy with his position on the card for a while and decided to bet on himself elsewhere, namely TNA. 

Edge also suffered a partially torn pectoral muscle on the October 17 edition of Raw. Even though WWE were advertising the Rated-R Superstar for Taboo Tuesday, there was no way he was going to be cleared to team with Chris Masters against Matt Hardy & Rey Mysterio, and he ended up being replaced by Gene Snitsky on the night.

At the pay-per-view, Jonathan Coachman vs. Batista, as expected, was voted to be a Street Fight which made it a glorified Handicap Match as the World Heavyweight Champion fought off Goldust and Vader with relative ease before he pinned Coachman after four minutes following a Batista bomb. With the stipulation of JR getting his job back removed, WWE were more than happy to book Batista to defeat The Coach.

Post-Taboo Tuesday

When the smoke had cleared and Taboo Tuesday was in the rearview mirror, it was said that the relationship between Austin and WWE was back to normal. Both were going forward with the idea that the long-rumoured Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan match may finally end up happening at WrestleMania (spoiler: it never did) and those within the company were willing to accept that Austin did have a legitimately injured back and wouldn’t have been at his best had he shown up at Taboo Tuesday. However, they also conceded that the real reason he didn’t wrestle at the pay-per-view was primarily because of the planned outcome of the match.

In 2021, Coachman himself commented on the situation, ascertaining that the match didn’t happen because Austin felt as though doing it was ‘below him’. The Coach further stated that he held no ill-will towards the Texas Rattlesnake, even if he did wish he’d got the cheque that accompanied a pay-per-view match with Austin.

The next time WWE fans would see both Austin and Ross would be on the March 18, 2006 episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event, with WWE loading up the first iteration of that particular show since October of 1992. Austin was on hand to have a beer drinking contest with John Bradshaw Layfield, while JR took his rightful place at ringside to call the Shane McMahon vs. Shawn Michaels street fight main event.

Despite all of the animosity and baffling creative decisions, Jim Ross and Steve Austin would continue to be a presence on WWE television going forward, with Ross even taking back his full-time role as lead Raw announcer from Joey Styles. Austin, on the other hand, would make appearances every now and then when the occasion called for it – such as inducting JR into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007.

Taboo Tuesday has largely been forgotten about, as have any plans for Steve Austin vs. Jonathan Coachman, with the whole situation very much becoming merely a blip on the radar for two of the industry’s all-time greats in The Texas Rattlesnake and Good Ol’ JR. Now, it remains but a curious footnote in their legendary careers.