Stone Cold Steve Austin will be at WrestleMania for a showdown with Kevin Owens, but what will the clash between the pair actually look like?
On March 30th 2003, Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestled the last match of his illustrious career against The Rock. Although very few realised it at the time, Austin was struggling with his long-standing neck issues, and was warned by doctors that continuing to wrestle could result in serious injury.
In the near two decades that have followed, Austin has remained true to his retirement, despite being offered the chance to get back in the ring on more than one occasion.
However, in the lead-up to WrestleMania 38, it was reported that WWE had reached out to Austin in an effort to get him to return to action. In the weeks that followed, Austin’s rumoured opponent Kevin Owens made several derogatory comments about Texas, seemingly in an effort to set up a match with the WWE Hall of Famer.
This came to a head on the March 7th episode of Monday Night Raw, where Owens challenged Austin to appear at WrestleMania for a special edition of the KO Show. The following day, Austin featured in a short video accepting the challenge. Despite this, it’s still unclear as to what this confrontation will look like.
Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer noted that the showdown won’t quite be a match, but will be more than simply a talk-show segment.
“As noted last week, the scheduled Austin vs. Kevin Owens match was changed. Austin did agree to do the show and to do a fight sequence, but not a match. Still, they are advertising it as Austin’s first physical confrontation in 19 years, even though he did things at a number of WrestleManias and some TV’s since his 2003 retirement after WrestleMania in Seattle.
It is being billed as the Kevin Owens talk show with Austin as guest on the Saturday show on 4/2. It is planned for more than just a stunner, although the stunner would appear to be the obvious conclusion. There was still talk about an angle leading to a match if Austin were to agree to it, but they felt they needed to announce Austin on the show this week.
What we do know is that Austin has been upping his cardio, so the plan is for a fight scene, and not just a quick stunner.”
The clash between Owens and Austin will take place on WrestleMania Saturday, on April 2nd.