Kevin Owens has looked back on his WrestleMania match with Steve Austin, getting The Texas Rattlesnake to come out of retirement and major uncertainty surrounding the match until the day of the show.
Although pro wrestling retirements have a habit of not sticking, Austin looked to be the rare exception to the rule. Following his loss to The Rock at WrestleMania 19, Austin would regularly appear on WWE programming but never indicated that he would get back in the ring one final time.
However, after being called out in 2022 by Kevin Owens, Austin appeared as a guest on The Kevin Owens Show in the main event of night 1. After being repeatedly insulted by Owens, Austin agreed to a match with KO that was also the Hall of Famer’s first in 19 years.
Looking back on the match and the events that led up to it while speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Owens first admitted that he wasn’t the one to convince Austin to come out of retirement. However, Owens did admit that when he asked Austin to use the Stunner as his finisher, he hoped that there was a small chance something could happen:
“So I would have to admit, tying back to how he came back, when I asked him to use the Stone Cold Stunner yes, I wanted a new finishing move and yes, I think it’s the greatest finish of all time. But there was a big part of me who thought in the unlikely event, which won’t happen, but if he ever were to come back for a match, it’s going to be against the guy who was doing his finishing move, and that’s exactly what happened. So I don’t think that played a part in it.”
Continuing, Owens stated that Vince McMahon wanted Austin to be on WrestleMania as it was in Dallas and that the Hall of Famer initially turned down the offer. Owens also added that neither he nor Austin knew what was going on until the day of the show:
“I think Vince wanted him to be on WrestleMania in Dallas and he wasn’t sure in what capacity. I’m not sure how. I think they talked. He said no at first from what I understand. Then they went back to him, and he’s like, Okay, who would it be with? And I think that’s when they said me, which I think he was good with. Then somehow, was it going to be a talking segment? Was it going to be a match? Was it going to be a stunner? Literally up until the day of the show we had no idea.
Me and Steve had talked, I would talk to Steve, ask him, ‘What are we going to do?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t know, depends on Vince.’ So I talked to Vince, and Vince goes depends on Steve. And I’m like can’t you guys talk to each other for f*ck sake? But yeah, up until that day we really didn’t know for sure what it was going to be, turned out to be what it was and it was pretty great. I’m very lucky to have been a part of it. To this day the craziest thing that I’ll ever have done in my career, and I don’t think anything will top it.”
Kevin Owens Discusses Bold Triple H Idea
With Triple H now in charge of creative following Vince McMahon’s exit in early 2024, WWE is run a lot differently compared to previous eras. Speaking about one unique Triple H idea, Kevin Owens admitted he had some doubts.
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