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Saraya Says Steve Austin’s WrestleMania Return Inspired Her

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Saraya will be making her in-ring return soon after a serious neck injury while noting that she was inspired by Steve Austin’s comeback match earlier this year.

The main event of the first night of WrestleMania 38 in April saw “Stone Cold” Steve Austin competing in a wrestling match for the first time in 19 years. The fact that the 57-year-0ld Austin could wrestle again was amazing considering he retired in 2003 due to a severe neck injury.

It was way back at WWE SummerSlam 1997 when Austin was wrestling Owen Hart for the Intercontinental Title. They did a Tombstone reversal spot in the match where Hart did the piledriver where he dropped to his ass instead of his knees, which exposed Austin’s head, so when Hart hit the move, Austin’s neck hit the mat hard.

Austin would end up getting major neck surgery, which caused him to miss nearly a year of action before coming back in the fall of 2000. For many years, Austin resisted coming back for one more match, but he was able to do it at this year’s WrestleMania, much to the delight of the fans in attendance.

Saraya lost five years of her in-ring career after suffering a major neck injury in December 2017 when she was wrestling as Paige in WWE. She had neck surgery just like Austin and many other wrestlers have had in their careers. It was unknown if she would ever wrestle again, but when she debuted in AEW in September, there was optimism that she would be cleared.

On the November 9th edition of AEW Dynamite, Saraya revealed that she was cleared to an announcement that she will wrestle Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. at AEW Full Gear next Saturday, November 19th. Saraya also recently shared a doctor’s note while noting that she was cleared by her doctor on October 31st.

During an appearance on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Saraya remarked that Austin’s return to the ring made her feel like maybe she could do that too.

“Stone Cold had that match with Kevin Owens but he didn’t bump that much. It was very limited but he still had an amazing match and that was inspiring to me. I probably could pull off doing a Stone Cold match, right? And it was just in my head… There wasn’t a crazy amount of bumps because the story that they told was so fantastic. Maybe we can do something like that.”

H/T 411Mania