Steve Austin Reveals He Declined Match With Top WWE Star
Stone Cold Steve Austin had long been rumored to repeat his success from 2022 and compete at WrestleMania 39 and now the WWE Hall of Famer has explained why he turned down that chance.
Austin hadn’t competed in a wrestling ring since 2003 when he was defeated by The Rock at WrestleMania 19 before his appearance on The Kevin Owens Show at WrestleMania 38 turned into a match that The Texas Rattlesnake won.
Before WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles, reports had suggested that Austin could be set for the show against either the likes of Brock Lesnar or Roman Reigns but neither of those bona fide dream matches came to pass.
Speaking in a new interview for Bleacher Report, Stone Cold Steve Austin discussed why he turned down appearing at WrestleMania 39 and says it all came down to scheduling for his new show Stone Cold Takes On America:
“Originally, the show was going to take, I think give or take three months to shoot it, but it took close to five. It chewed up a lot of time. The weather threw some monkey wrenches at us too, but it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.
“So yeah, man, I mean, from just interviewing people for the podcast, as far as people say, ‘Hey, Man, why don’t you do Mania?’ You know, they asked me to be a part of it.
“But as I told them and I’m telling everybody today if you ask me, I didn’t know what my life was gonna look like until I finished filming the show. I finished filming the show about four days before WrestleMania.
“I drove every single mile in that RV. I took dumbbells with me on the road, a sandbag, and a kettlebell. That’s how I got my workout in. I was a decent shape for the show. When they greenlit the show, before I started getting ready, I hired a nutrition coach. I got down to 7% body fat.
“I got in the best shape I’ve ever been in and then it didn’t pay off because the whole time we were in 10 degree weather. I got about 10 layers on. So I got into shape in my lifetime to be all covered up. So if it goes into another season or whatever, it’ll be in warm weather, and I’ll be jacked.”
Austin then confirmed that the idea presented to him for WrestleMania 39 was a match but stopped short of revealing just who WWE wanted him to face:
“Yeah, the concrete idea was a match. It was a match and one of the top guys in the business, period. I will let everybody speculate about that.
“But yeah, it was a match, and I didn’t think I could get ready for it in time because I didn’t know my schedule, which is what I told them.”
With WrestleMania 40 taking place in 2024, it remains to be seen if Steve Austin can find time in his schedule to stomp one more mudhole and walk it dry on the grandest stage of them all.