Stone Cold Steve Austin Reveals The Truth Behind All That Beer Chugging in the Ring

“I can’t tell you how many times I left the ring and I had a little bit of a buzz.”

If you’ve followed wrestling at all in the past two decades, you know that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin likes beer. In his heyday, the Texas Rattlesnake was known to climb onto the turnbuckle and double fist two cans of Coors as the crowd roared in approval. 

But there have long been some mysteries about his drinking. Like, was the beer real? And did he ever get drunk in the ring? 

Austin sought to clear up some of the mystery in a recent episode of his podcast. In conversation with Mark Yeaton, the WWE ref and timekeeper who was responsible for tossing Austin his cans, the wrestling legend revealed the following: 

1. The beer was real

“And a lot of people said ‘hey man, was that real beer?’ And I say yes, it was always real beer… except for the one time. We were in Montreal, I think it was Sunday, something like that. Whatever it was, or maybe it was against the rules of the building, but it was NA beer, non-alcohol. And so all of a sudden those pictures start making the rounds and people are thinking ‘oh they’re throwing this guy non-alcohol beer.’ … that was one time.”

2. He’d get tipsy up there on the turnbuckle

“I can’t tell you how many times I left the ring and I had a little bit of a buzz because of all the beers I was drinking. When you’re shotgunning anywhere from six to 12 beers, and maybe you get half of ‘em in. On an empty stomach, after you’ve wrestled, it goes to your head pretty quick.”

3. He tried to get Goldberg wasted in the ring

“There was a couple of times when I got to do a little bit of business with Goldberg and we got to do something after a match. I go out there and I keep tossing Bill beers, and this is back when Bill didn’t really drink beer. He had to drink ‘em to keep up his gimmick because Stone Cold throwing ‘em to him. And I’d always keep shoveling him beers to get him buzzed, basically it was a rib.”

4. He once went through 115 beers in a Japan Beer Bash

“Were you in Japan the time we did the beer bash with the Dudleys and Stacy Keibler? …. We went through 115 beers that night [in Japan], and that was the most I ever went through.”