WWE is reportedly trying to squeeze one more WrestleMania moment out of arguably its all-time biggest star.
The company has discussed bringing the retired “Stone Cold” Steve Austin back for a match with Kevin Owens at the two-night WrestleMania 38 at AT&T Stadium in April, according to multiple reports. Fightful Select reported that WWE has made “an overture” to the Texas Rattlesnake himself about such.
Owens, who has a strong relationship with Austin and currently uses his Stunner as a finisher, has been bashing Texas and its citizens on WWE television in recent weeks, including this past “Monday Night Raw”
“Read my lips. I can’t stand Texas,” Owens said this week. “I despise Texas and everything about it.”
That sure sounds like something WWE could turn into an angle for a potential match with Austin or some kind of Stunner segment with him. If Austin declines, they could still potentially use Owens’ talk to put him in a match or moment with another Texas legend. The Undertaker is also from Texas.
The WrestleVotes account on Twitter reported back in December that WWE wanted Austin to be part of WrestleMania 38 “not in a wrestling role, but a meaningful part” of its biggest event of the year. WWE will have to sell around 200,000 tickets to completely sell out the Home of the Dallas Cowboys over both nights and an advertised Austin clash would likely provide a boost if needed. As of Feb. 3, approximately 6,137 tickets were available of the 41,182 distributed so far for Night 1, according to WrestleTix†
The 57-year-old Austin hasn’t wrestled since his retirement match against The Rock at WrestleMania XIX in 2003 and has made it known he has very strong reservations about a comeback match and has turned down WWE before.
“I think Vince tried talking me into coming back a couple of times,” Austin said on an episode of “The Broken Skull Sessions” with Chris Jericho last April. “But you know Chris, I love the business so much – I can’t say I love it more than anybody else, I can only speak for myself.
“But I just love the damn business, and it hurt me so much to leave it. And to me, going back for one match, being like man, why? What am I proving? What are they going to remember?”
He goes on to say it wouldn’t be about the money and he would need at least a three or four-month camp to get ready for one match. Even if he was able to do so, he didn’t sound thrilled with the possible endgame and its potential meaning in the “big picture.”
“All of a sudden, if I’m gonna put in all that hard work and get back to being around the ring, being around the business, that is one of my number one passions in my life,” Austin said on the show. “To get hooked on it again just for one match and to me, it would have been so anti-climactic.”
If we do hear his signature glass break between here and April 2-3 in Arlington, Texas, WWE fans just may get to find out if Austin was right.