He doesn't "own" anyone, he's just fallen foul of Cranky Vince again and isn't biting this time.
It's the fallout from the Chyna question, which saw his son in law outed as a woman hitter. The whole thing seemed like Austin knew more than he was letting on, like this was an "open secret" in the business that it had happened, but that it hadn't gotten to the fans... It was like what really happened with Savage, just not talked about/a taboo subject. The Sheets/sites wouldn't discuss it or Vince would go after them, their access would be cut, anyone who wanted to work there and blabbed would be blackballed. While it's only Russo backing it up they can claim a vendetta.
By asking the question directly and his visible reaction to the answer, Austin was clearly signalling "there's more to this..he's lying" and perhaps with good reason. Austin took a lot of shit for his transgression with Debra and perhaps still feels aggrieved that Trips was given a pass.
From Vince's side it's caused a massive embarrassment to his heir apparent, right when he was taking his place on the board of the company. Investors who didn't know anything about Chyna, now know that Paul is accused of hitting her... and they had no choice but to go full denial mode, which is of course setting him up for trouble if any one else ever corroborates it other than Russo.
It's also complicated cos you have other talents like Heath Slater currently dealing with assault cases involving a woman. Suddenly if Trips, Heath and Austin are all women beaters, then how many more in WWE are? It's a slippery slope image wise that falls away very quickly in sponsors eyes.
Vince's standard tactic in these situations is to hold the talent responsible rather than the actual guy responsible. He thought it was clever to tout his interviews as AMA's so Austin did just that, perhaps with a bit of an agenda for himself to get it "out there" that other guys hit their partners too. It backfired on him but Vince can't "punish" Paul so he takes it out on Austin, pulls his podcast for what he hopes is more of a "company guy" in Jericho (have you LISTENED Vince? this too could backfire badly) who has a less "take it or leave me" attitude towards the company at least.
The whole concept will backfire, you can't ask people to watch "kayfabe" podcasts, they just won't...yet you can't host shoots on your WWE network or have HOF speeches and expect them to not be salacious...
As for Austin, he was a dick that night... he saw a chance to get something out there that most in the business knew but we didn't... he's taken a lot of abuse for hitting a woman over the years and it's hurt his career outside the biz... so while I can see he'd be fed up of the hypocrisy, he did this to himself. If he should own anything, he should admit that's what he was doing.
