Steve Austin gave Kevin Owens the ins and outs of delivering the perfect Stunner
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Now that Stone Cold Steve Austin is out of wrestling he can pass on all his tricks to the new generation, even his most closely guarded ones.
The guest on Austin’s most recent edition of his podcast was current WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens, who retained his belt with a win over Roman Reigns in a match where he used Austin’s signature Stone Cold Stunner.
On the podcast, Austin reviewed Owens’s stunner (“Close ain’t good enough, brother”) broke down where it went wrong and proceeded to explain all the particulars of how to deliver it better the next time.
(The relevant section starts at about the 41-minute mark here.)
The first thing, Austin explained, is that there’s more to the kick to the gut than meets the eye.
“When you kick the guy right in the gut, right in the diaphragm, boom. You sap his lungs full out of all the oxygen,” Austin said. “You suck the oxygen right out of his lungs. All of a sudden, his brain’s like [choking noise]. ‘I need to breathe. I’m ‘bout halfway blown up.’ This is deep in the match. ‘I need oxygen.’”
“So that kick isn’t just about bending him over a little so that you have easier access to the head,” Owens realized.
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Austin also explained what makes second part of the Stunner so devastating. It’s like a “Mike Tyson-style uppercut” compounded by the force traveling up the spine of the one delivering the Stunner.
“Now, let’s take double body weight: 500 pounds, give or take, hittin’ you with an uppercut,” Austin continued. “That’s both men’s weight coming down on that shoulder. You hit your ass on the mat, the mat springs you back up. The vertebrae in your back give that energy a direct path through the shoulder to his damn jawbone. Wham. Lights out. That’s how scientific it is, Kevin.”
Now you can go try it in your backyard. Just be careful.