As much as I like Rock, wasn't all this stuff a bit OTT? He buggered off for 7 years, waltzes back and now Vince is on stage kissing his ass? Austin was a bigger star, has never done a disappearing act, and still shows up regularly. I don't see them rolling out the red carpet treatment for him?
To be fair, Austin had his "moments."
I remember at least twice him storming out of an arena, refusing to work over some disagreement with management.
The one instance was, I believe, around 2001/2002, when he left not only the arena, but the state!
He went home to TX and JR spent the next day trying to get in touch with him and work things out.
Then, Ross appeared on the following episode of
Confidential and publicly proclaimed, "Austin took his ball and went home," about 23 times during the show.
I'm sure there were a lot of fans who were pissed over not seeing Stone Cold, and WWE wanted to clear themselves of Austin's actions by making certain people knew it was Steve who cancelled on them; NOT the Fed.