WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross discussed on the latest edition of Grilling JR what the plans would have been for WrestleMania 18 had the nWo not come in that led to Steve Austin facing Scott Hall on the show.
According to JR, WWE would have done Austin vs. The Rock again. Whether a potential Brock Lesnar vs. Austin match was discussed, the legendary commentator said no.
“Don’t think so, little early, little early. But eventually, that was the match. Eventually that’s the match we wanted to have, Brock Lesnar and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Both healthy as they could be, and with a great build, but again, Brock wasn’t ready yet. He was ready physically, Conrad, my God he was ready physically when he was in 9th grade, he’s a freak, and I wrote a lot about, we were talking about my new book, he said there’s a lot of WrestleMania 19 like content, and to show how much we appreciated his work, he and Kurt Angle closed the show at WrestleMania 19, it wasn’t Rock and Austin. And the reason for that was Steve was in the hospital the night before, got out on Sunday, and we didn’t know what we were gonna have there. Is he gonna be fatigued? Dehydrated? What’s the deal? But I don’t think so. But the eventual match, no doubt about it, man, would have been Austin and Lesnar. And that’s the thing that drove Steve home, is that he was booked to wrestle Lesnar [on a RAW and lose] and not even advertise it, it just happens. And that was so stupid and nearsighted and a lot of us felt that way, but nobody demonstrated their feelings more than Steve. I won’t say better, but more aggressively, because he just said, ‘Fuck it, I’m going home, I’m not doing this.’ He didn’t mind putting Brock over, it’s a different issue, but why are we wasting this?”
H/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
