Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: kevin owens, One More Match, retirement, steve austin, Stone Cold, stone cold steve austin, the rock, Vince McMahon, Wrestlemania, wrestling, wwe

WWE Wants "Stone Cold" Steve Austin Return Match At WrestleMania

This April's upcoming WrestleMania event in Dallas, Texas doesn't exactly have WWE fans boiling over with anticipation.  Ticket sales haven't been great, as evidenced by yesterday's two-for-one deal, and fans seem overall disinterested in headlining matches such as Brock Lesnar versus Roman Reigns for the thousand and first time.  So what's the WWE to do after they already promised the most "stupendous" WrestleMania ever?  Well, if last night's big reports are true, it looks like they're turning to their biggest draw in history, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, in hopes of a comeback.

Fightful Select is reporting that WWE is in the market for a huge marquee match for April's WrestleMania and their target to headline that match is none other than WWE Hall of Famer "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.  Austin wrestled his last match in 2003 at WrestleMania XIX, doing the honors for The Rock.  He was forced into retirement due to ongoing spinal issues stemming from a 1997 neck injury and has thus far been one of the very few wrestling stars to stay retired, despite numerous offers over the years for him to return.

The reported plan is for Kevin Owens to lure Steve Austin back for one more match at WrestleMania, where the two would go one-on-one.  You could see seeds for this being planted on last night's Raw, where Owens was openly trashing the state of Texas (Austin's birthplace) and bragging about not having a WrestleMania match.

Dave Meltzer confirmed the report on today's Wrestling Observer Radio show, saying "They have a lot of tickets left to sell.  And the impression I have is the match is on.  I mean that's why he (Owens) started doing the promos.  I know that backstage at WWE all day, that's all I kept hearing about."  He continued that nothing is certain, but there's plenty of smoke right now.  "I don't know that it's a done deal, but people were talking like it was."

Mike Johnson of PWInsider also provided an update, where he says WWE pitched the idea to Steve Austin in late December/early January as a "hail Mary idea" and that originally, they hoped to have kicked-off the story at last month's Royal Rumble, which obviously didn't happen.  "The idea pitched (at the time) was to have Austin return and compete in Texas as a one-time sendoff in front of a massive crowd with the idea that Austin's involvement would help boost WrestleMania ticket sales as the company needs to move in the area of 200,000 tickets to sell out both nights at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas."

So, will he or won't he?  That ball is entirely in Steve Austin's court and while the reasons to not do it are stacked pretty high, apparently, WWE is ready to stack dollar bills even higher.  Meltzer spoke about that, saying "Obviously there will be a lot of money involved.  I mean WWE has got an incredible amount of money and Vince (McMahon) spends a lot of money on the top guys and this would be a big-money match."

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