Steve Austin was arguably the single biggest star of the Attitude Era, while John Cena became the poster boy for the Ruthless Aggression Era that followed.
When Cena made his debut in June 2002, Austin was absent following his now infamous walk-out having been scheduled to lose to Brock Lesnar on Raw. By the time Austin returned in early 2003 for one final flourish before retiring, Cena was a long way from being the star who would dominate WWE for the next decade.
As a result, the pair passed like ships in the night and fans never got to see them square off in the ring.
Appearing on the Out of Character podcast with Ryan Satin, the WWE Hall of Famer was asked what it would have meant to him to wrestle Cena. Austin admitted that it would have been a personal highlight while ruling out the possibility of the match ever taking place.
“Working with him would have been a real highlight. I had a bunch of highlights. It would have been a real special thing because there’s something about John that people get so invested in his matches. He’s a very special talent. It would have been great to have a match with him. But will it ever happen? No, but I think very highly of John.”
When Did Steve Austin Last Wrestle?
After initially retiring in 2003, Steve Austin returned to the ring at WrestleMania 38 to take on Kevin Owens. It has been reported that WWE has tried to get Austin to wrestle at the spectacular in 2023, but he turned down matches against Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns.
For his part, Austin has claimed that WWE hasn’t contacted him about appearing on the show.
H/t to WrestlingNewsCo