Stone Cold Steve Austin has opened up about how an “awesome” former WWE Universal Champion played a role in his in-ring return.
Steve Austin had not competed in a match since March 2003, losing to The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) at WrestleMania 19.
But on the Road to WrestleMania last year, being able to face off against one WWE Superstar, in particular, was essential in fans hearing the famous glass shatter one more time.
During the build to WrestleMania 38, Kevin Owens insulted the USA, particularly Texas, goading the mainly American audiences in attendance at WWE’s shows.
By using The Rattlesnake in adverts promoting WrestleMania 38, and Owens weekly verbal assaults belittling the Great State of Texas, fans started to dream of seeing KO take a beating at the hands of Stone Cold.
As Mania 38 drew close, WWE announced that Austin would in fact be in attendance and also appear on the KO Show as the main event of night one, which developed into a historic comeback match.
After multiple attempts by WWE to secure Stone Cold on the card for the first time in 19 years, Austin has confirmed that despite rejecting ideas “several times”, Kevin Owens was always going to be his opponent.
Austin appeared on the Out of Character podcast and shared his admiration for Owens, and why this was the right time to lace up those black boots.
“Oh, I turned them down several times until they kept coming back with different creative. KO was always in the conversation and I was down with that because I love that guy. He’s awesome. On the inside, I was knocking his head off so many times. Because I had thrown a punch in 19 years and I told him when we got to the finish, I said, ‘Dude, I can’t believe you didn’t give me a receipt out there.’ That’s the good-natured heart of KO.”
Steve Austin Is Stone Cold On WrestleMania 39
Whilst delivering an incredible return at last year’s WrestleMania. Steve Austin does not miss the weekly grind of being a full-time WWE Superstar.
Stone Cold has also discussed retirement and it appears that this year, he will be enjoying a can of Broken Skull Beer without breaking a sweat.
Whilst it appears Austin won’t be in Hollywood this weekend, Kevin Owens will be in action, in a huge Undisputed Tag Team Title match after the long-term Sami Zayn Bloodline story took a violent turn earlier this year for the Honorary Uce.
Over recent weeks Kevin Owens has rejected Zayn’s approach to have each other backs in their battle to take down The Bloodline, but after an intervention by Cody Rhodes two weeks ago on Smackdown, Owens opened up that the cold nature of the offer was why he said no.
Zayn followed up by sharing how much he desired to be friends and on last week’s Raw the pair secured a match with The Usos for the Undisputed World Tag Team Titles.
H/t to Sportskeeda