5 WWE Superstars who refused to lose a match

#2 "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (to Brock Lesnar)

June 10th 2002, RAW. Steve Austin walked out of the WWE after he was scheduled to lose to Brock Lesnar. #WWE pic.twitter.com/drdWVe5lrm

— WWE Today In History (@WWE__History) June 10, 2016

The year 2002 was one of transition for WWE. While many future stars made their official main roster debuts, other more established stars drifted away from the company.

John Cena, Randy Orton, and Batista all debuted on SmackDown in 2002. Over on RAW, meanwhile, "The Next Big Thing" Brock Lesnar was certainly making an impression on Monday nights.

Aware that The Rock would be spending an ever-increasing amount of time in Hollywood and that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was battling a laundry list of injuries, Vince McMahon knew he needed to build for the future - and saw the monstrous Lesnar as WWE's next sure-fire Superstar.

McMahon was not alone, either. Almost everybody recognized Lesnar's potential, including Steve Austin. However, when Austin was asked to lose to Lesnar in an unadvertised King of the Ring qualifying match on the June 10 edition of RAW, relations between Austin and the WWE went sour quickly.

"The Texas Rattlesnake", who had already expressed his creative frustrations with WWE earlier in the year, did not believe that a match between himself and Lesnar should be given away for free with no build-up. So disillusioned, in fact, was Austin with WWE that he walked out of the company altogether as a result of the request.

Speaking on the Pardon My Take podcast in 2019, Austin explained the reason behind his refusal to lose to Lesnar:

They wanted me to fly down to Atlanta for Monday Night RAW and put over Brock Lesnar...I didn’t show up because it wasn’t time for me to do the favors yet for Brock in an unadvertised match in a tournament style TV match...Hey man, I love Brock Lesnar, I’d lose to him any day of the week, but build it up so we can all make money off of it and it’s going to mean something.”

Austin would eventually work out his issues with WWE, returning in February 2003 to wrestle the last few matches of his career. Austin's final match took place at WrestleMania 19 against The Rock - a far more fitting ending to his WWE career than simply no-showing a RAW taping!