At WrestleMania 38, Stone Cold Steve Austin completed one of the more surprising comebacks in WWE history.
In competing against Kevin Owens, Austin ended a retirement that began way back in 2003. At the time it was widely believed that the star would never wrestle again thanks to a number of serious neck issues. Furthermore, the man himself had always insisted that he was happily retired, although he never fully ruled out doing something physical one more time.
At WrestleMania 38 Austin rolled back the years roared on by a packed house in Dallas, Texas. His performance and its reception led to speculation that he could repeat the trick at WrestleMania 39, although a match didn’t end up happening.
During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Austin was asked whether he had one more match in him at WrestleMania 40. The WWE Hall of Famer explained that a match is a possibility, although he isn’t going to lobby for one.
“I could. I’m not necessarily going to lobby for one, because that would be silly. That’s a year away, but a year away in this business is like that [clicks fingers]. They asked me to be a part of 39, they really did, but I couldn’t do it, just because there is no way.
I knew what my life was going to look like due to the filming schedule of the show. We had some internal stopdowns where the show took about 5 months to film, that’s a long time. We finished filming about 5 to 7 days before WrestleMania 39. And the position that they were going to put me in, which was a big one, you can’t prepare for WrestleMania and do yourself justice or do that crowd justice.
Dallas was set up for a Stone Cold return, and the way we framed that with KO, who I love, was perfect for the time and setting. For this match to play out, I needed to perform at a high level. I didn’t work out before 38, I haven’t thrown a working punch in 19 years. I was killing KO right there, I truly was, ask him.
When we got to the back I said, Man I can’t believe you didn’t throw a receipt. And he just laughed because his job was to just take care of me.
So anyway, in the future, I am not lobbying for it, but could anything happen? Yes. Because I say never say never.”
Steve Austin Turned Down Match With Top WWE Name
Speaking elsewhere, Steve Austin revealed that he turned down a match with “one of the top guys in the business” at Wrestlemania 39. In the lead-up to the show, it was reported that the WWE legend had been offered matches with both Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar.
If you use any of the quotes from this article please credit the original source with a h/t back to Inside The Ropes.