Bowling, buggies, and bartending kick off A&E’s ‘Stone Cold Takes on America’
After giving a twenty-year chunk of his life to wrestling, with a sizeable donation of blood, sweat, and tears to go along with it, Steve Austin is not that much different from everyone else … in some ways. At the outset of the new series called Stone Cold Takes on America, Austin is looking for some new direction in his life, especially after the introspective time most everyone went through a couple of years ago when the world slowed down.
In the opening of the show, Austin says he happily gave up a lot to be the top guy in wrestling, but now he needs to revisit some of life’s adventures that he missed because of that.
He details his beginnings in wrestling from Stunning Steve, to The Ringmaster, to becoming Stone Cold. We go through his 1996 King of the Ring victory to him winning the 1997 Rumble, all the way to his retirement match at WrestleMania XIX (his most recent match with Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38 is passed over).
For the show, he’s hopping into an RV and taking invitations from people to try out their favourite activities. This is a retirement/bucket list/mid-life crisis tour on the grandest scale, and it starts, fittingly enough, in a bowling alley.
Austin has been invited by a woman named Diane to play a game in her seniors’ league and “see how the other side lives.” So it begins with Stone Cold Steve Austin wearing a bowling shirt and shoes, and being picked last for what must be the first time in a lone time.
The competitive spirit shows up right away as Austin is intent on handing it to these respected elders — and he bowls a strike right out of the gate. A miss on his next attempt at a spare brings him back to earth, but he pumps his fists in the air after another strike like he’s climbing the turnbuckle.
In truth, his chance at winning is sunk by his teammates and they’re thrashed, although Austin sets a new personal best by cracking 100 points for the first time. One thing hasn’t changed: he hates losing. Rest assured, though: no seniors were stunned in the making of this show.
Next up is getting into a dune buggy in Nevada to take on Sand Mountain. Austin doesn’t exactly admit to being nervous, but does acknowledge that he feels the weight of the expectations of the crew and those helping him out. His stunt involves riding the crest of the huge sand dune, and though he knows he can do it, he’s not sure how well he can do it. In the end, with some guidance, he’s able to check this one off as done to his satisfaction.
Last up is some flashy bartending in Las vegas, serving up some drinks at The Fuel Bar. Austin gets tips on how to do some basic, but still fancy looking moves as he mixes and pours. One thing Austin knows how to do is to tag in the fresh man, which he does by letting the other workers take over and show off the skills that they’ve got.
What really matters is that Austin gets a chance to stand up on the bar, smash a couple of beers together, and get a “Hell Yeah” from the patrons as he chugs them down.
As suggested off the top, Austin is like a lot of people in this one way: he has a list of things he’d like to do and is out to check them off his list. What’s unique about him, of course, is that he’s doing it for an audience. It’s fun to see little flashes of Stone Cold pop up (glaring at the camera after one of his teammates drains a ball into the gutter, for example), and any fan of Austin should have a good time watching this.
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