The Undertaker and Steve Austin were at the centre of WWE’s explosive rise during the Attitude Era, sharing the ring numerous times while both men were among the biggest attractions in professional wrestling.

While their televised battles and pay-per-view encounters reached enormous audiences, The Undertaker has revealed that some of his favourite experiences working with “Stone Cold” actually happened away from the cameras at WWE house shows.

Speaking on his Six Feet Under podcast, The Undertaker explained that live events offered wrestlers a different environment. Without the demands of television production, storyline progression and strict timing, performers had greater freedom to experiment and react naturally to the audience.

For The Undertaker, that freedom made working with Austin particularly enjoyable. Although the Stone Cold character was built around aggression and intensity, Austin could also bring plenty of comedy into a match when the situation allowed it.

“I enjoyed working with Steve more in house shows than I did on TVs or pay-per-views. The house shows, back in the day, that’s when you really got to go out and be creative and be spontaneous and just really do the craft of professional wrestling. It was so fun with him because his character, as intense as it was, he could be a funny son of a b*tch in the ring,” Taker said, via Wrestling Inc.

The WWE Hall of Famer recalled one particular example of Austin showing that humorous side.

During one of their live-event matches, Austin decided to parody The Undertaker’s signature “Old School” spot. Rather than climbing high and walking along the top rope in Undertaker fashion, Austin performed his version while balancing on the bottom rope.

It was exactly the type of spontaneous interaction that could thrive on the house show circuit, where wrestlers were able to play around with their characters and entertain the audience without every moment needing to serve a larger television storyline.

There was another significant advantage to sharing the ring with Austin during the height of Stone Cold’s popularity. As one of WWE’s biggest draws, working with him usually meant being positioned prominently on the card and receiving an enormous response from the crowd.

“One of my favorite things working with Steve , one, you were definitely going to be on top, right? Your payoffs were going to be good, your fan reactions were going to be amazing,” Taker said.

Austin and The Undertaker would become major rivals during the Attitude Era, competing over the WWE Championship and headlining some of the company’s biggest events. However, Undertaker’s comments suggest some of the most enjoyable moments between the two legends were experienced only by the fans attending WWE live events.