UPDATE: As we reported earlier here on eWn (see original report below), WWE has reached out to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin regarding the possibility of having him work a match at WrestleMania 38. According to a report from Pwinsider, it has been confirmed that WWE did make an overture to Austin during the late December to early January timeframe.
There is still no confirmation on whether Austin will be wrestling at the big pay-per-view event. As of today (Monday), Austin still has yet to commit to wrestling on the show. WWE officials pitched the idea to have Austin return and compete in “one last match” and have a sendoff at the show. Obviously, this would help boost ticket sales which aren’t all that great right now. WWE would need to sell close to 200,000 tickets between both nights for the event to be a legitimate sellout. They are not even close to that number as of this writing with each night having around 48,000 tickets sold.
The rumors of Steve Austin working another match began circulating backstage in WWE in January. At the time, it was described as a “Hail Mary idea” and many people had no idea if it would happen or if Austin was even considering it.
With that being said, Austin has always been planned to be a part of WrestleMania 38 whether he wrestles or not. The ongoing storyline where Kevin Owens “hates” the state of Texas and doesn’t have a WrestleMania 38 match seems to indicate that he’ll be involved in a match or angle with Austin at the event.
ORIGINAL: According to a report from Fightful, WWE has made a “significant overture” to have Steve Austin make his official in-ring return at WrestleMania 38 in Dallas, Texas. The company is very interested in having him work a match at the event and there are some rumors that it’ll be against Kevin Owens based off the current storyline where Owens isn’t a fan of the state of Texas.
While WWE is refusing to comment on the rumors, WWE officials and talent have had a “range of responses” with some refusing to comment while others are assuming that the match will be taking place.
With that being said, Austin is expected to have a “physical role” at the very least. It remains to be seen if he’ll be facing a potential opponent or whether Austin is on board with the idea of that happening.
Steve Austin’s last match for WWE was at WrestleMania 19 in 2003, losing against The Rock. During an appearance on Chris Jericho’s “Talk is Jericho” podcast, Austin noted that Vince McMahon has tried to talk him into coming back “a couple of time” but it’s never happened because he has his doubts about how well he’ll be able to perform. He said,
“I think Vince [McMahon] tried talking me into coming back a couple of times. 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? It ain’t about the money. It took me a long time, damn near three years to get over the fact that I left the business.”
Austin also revealed in a TikTok fan Q&A that if he ever did have one more match, he’d want it to be against Brock Lesnar. Of course, Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns has already been confirmed for WrestleMania 38.
When WrestleMania 32 took place in Dallas, TX back in 2016, Austin appeared during a segment with Mick Foley and Shawn Michaels to clear the ring of the League of Nations following their win over The New Day.
Stay tuned to eWrestlingNews.com for more updates on this developing story.
