Former WWE manager compares top AEW star to Stone Cold Steve Austin

Jim Cornette sees Eddie Kingston's rise in AEW in a similar light to that of Stone Cold Steve Austin's rise in WWE.

Eddie Kingston has gone from nearly quitting wrestling to main eventing AEW pay-per-views and fighting against the likes of CM Punk and Jon Moxley inside a year and a half. His meteoric rise in popularity and stature within AEW is a direct result of his connection with the fans. The raw authenticity of the Mad King's character endears him to fans like nobody else.

The organic rise in popularity of Stone Cold Steve Austin helped WWE defeat WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Jim Cornette compared Eddie Kingston's rise in AEW to that of the Texas Rattlesnake in WWE.

"This is kind of, as Thunderbolt Patterson would say, it's a little Austin-ish. It's Austin-ish in the respect that it's a sudden groundswell of support and liking, fondness, admiration of, or identification with or whatever positive social interaction you may want to. The phrase you may want to use for a guy kind of organically and several things happening right at the same time. To make it even more pronounced now, for the people who are going to **** on that when I know I'm not saying that it's Austin level in terms of the business response or what it's going to do for Eddie, because there were what eight or nine or ten times as many people watching wrestling shows as there are back then as there are now. So it was, you know, obviously easier to multiply, you know, the response and the tickets to the pay-per-views, whatever. But it's Austin-ish in terms of it wasn't really planned this way and it just started happening and happening naturally, and as I said, several things happen the right way and this article is not an article. It's a first person account," Jim Cornette said.

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What does Stone Cold Steve Austin think of AEW?

Earlier in the year, Stone Cold Steve Austin discussed what AEW's existence meant for WWE. The former WWE champion stated that it was a good thing for wrestling in general while also pushing WWE to constantly improve its product.

"Man, I love it. I think it's competition by proxy, just because you know they're wrestling. WWE is wrestling, but I don't think they're directly trying to compete, but in essence, they are. So, I love it because it gives more people within the industry jobs, it gives more people a chance to work, and it makes WWE, you know, it forces them to push the envelope rather than just sit back and just push out content. So now you know your competition makes everybody better I'll bottom line and like that, without going into minutiae and details."

Stone Cold Steve Austin is probably the most popular star that will ever come out of professional wrestling. He transcended the business and became mainstream in a way reserved only for the likes of The Rock and John Cena.

When wrestling was at its peak, Stone Cold Steve Austin was the face of the business. For Eddie Kingston to even be compared to him speaks volumes about the AEW star.