Austin Theory has been considered a blue-chip prospect since the better part of last year. In only a span of a few months, Theory has become a fixture on WWE’s flagship show, Monday Night RAW. What really pushed him over to the moon was his alliance with Vince McMahon. Theory recently revealed that he found out about Mr. McMahon’s plan to wrestle at WrestleMania on the day itself.
Austin Theory was signed by WWE in 2019, being placed in their developmental territory, NXT. He had an impressive run in the black and gold brand, notably his program as a member of the faction “The Way.”
After a brief start on the main roster in 2020 and then returning to NXT, Austin Theory had a resurgence following the WWE Draft 2021. Theory was drafted to Monday Night RAW and began his second run on the red brand.
Austin Theory would later be partnered with former WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon as his protege. This led to him becoming a mainstream rising star on RAW and going on to capture the WWE United States championship and the Money in the Bank contract.
The current United States champion battled Pat McAfee at WrestleMania 38, with Vince McMahon by his side. Austin Theory recently revealed that he found out about McMahon wrestling McAfee right after his match as the show started in Texas, while also reflecting on working with Vince. He spoke about this during an interview with Busted Open Radio.
“The egg started everything. I just heard, ‘Mr. McMahon wants to film this segment with an egg.’ I heard about it, it was him arriving with the egg and the story was somebody stole the egg. Literally, that day they were like, ‘You stole the egg.’ ‘I stole the egg, alright.’ We filmed the segment with Vince and I was super nervous for that. ‘I stole the egg? $100 million egg? Alright.’ I’m trying to figure all this out and it’s my first thing with Vince. It was almost like anytime we filmed anything, it felt so fast. We’d do it and that would be it. Onto the next one. Especially, WrestleMania was interesting because we had no idea if we were going to have Vince in the match until like the night before. I remember that day showing up, I met Stone Cold for the first time. ‘Hey, how’s it going, Austin, nice to meet you.’ ‘Hey, nice to meet you, I’ll be seeing you later tonight.’ He got on the golf cart and kept driving. ‘What is going on?’ I got to Gorilla, he told me the business, that’s it. Went out there and he gave me that look.”
Austin Theory successfully defended his WWE United States Championship last week on RAW XXX, against Bobby Lashley thanks to interference by a returning Brock Lesnar. However, A-Way is currently not scheduled for the Royal Rumble event, taking place this Saturday in San Antonio, Texas.
Do you think Austin Theory will be in the Royal Rumble match this weekend? Sound off in the comments!