Steve Austin Explains Not Wrestling At WrestleMania 39

Whilst many expected Steve Austin to lace up his boots one more time for a WrestleMania moment, he has now revealed the reason he didn’t.

At WrestleMania 38 in Dallas, Texas, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin turned his Kevin Owens Show segment in to a match with the host in the main event of night one. Picking up the victory, the match included many of the highlights you’d expect from ‘The Texas Rattlesnake’, as well as plenty of beer drinking before, during and after.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated to promote his new show Stone Cold Takes on America, which premieres on A&E on April 30, Steve Austin spoke about how he was contacted for WrestleMania 39, however his match with Owens was still firmly in his mind.

I haven’t spoken to this, but I’ll give you the story. I met with some people from WWE. We talked about the possibility of me wrestling at WrestleMania 39. The biggest thing in my mind was the presentation and what kind of match it was going to be.

Going back to 38, the way the KO thing was presented – I love KO – I turned that down three, four, five times until the creative finally came to what it ended up being. I didn’t want it constructed as a real match, per se. I needed something that could turn into one, and it did, but I think that’s why we got away with it. The Dallas crowd was very receptive. I hadn’t been around, so the timing was right.

Continuing on, Steve Austin explained how many times he turned down the Owens match before the creative was right, and for this year the creative combined with not having the time in his schedule to prepare led to no match happening.

But to do a proper match, I’d have to be in off-the-charts shape. I told them, and this is the exact truth, I said, ‘Guys, I’m just fixin’ to go into production on this show, Stone Cold Takes on America, and until we start production, I don’t know what my life looks like. I can’t commit.’ Sure enough, there were technical issues before we finished. I was supposed to finish a month before we did. There’s no way, with the schedule I was doing – driving an RV all over God’s creation, doing all I was doing – that I would be ready.

I had two 30-pound dumbbells, a 45-pound sandbag, and a 25-pound kettlebell. Working 15 hours a day, then getting in a 30- or 40-minute workout, that doesn’t get you ready for WrestleMania. And I was really protected at WrestleMania 38. This time, that wasn’t going to be the case. That was a true statement: Until this show was over, I couldn’t commit.

As for Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 39, he would go on to finally win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships, in a match alongside Sami Zayn where they defeated The Bloodline.