WWE News: The Rock Was Nearly Forced Out Of ‘WrestleMania 15’ Main Event With ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin

An ideal WrestleMania main event features the two hottest and biggest stars in WWE at the time. However, as we’ve seen in recent years, WWE doesn’t always put the two biggest stars in the company in the main event of their biggest show of the year. But, for the most part, WWE has always delivered by giving the fans a main event to look forward to.

In March of 1999, WWE was getting set to deliver one of their biggest WrestleMania main events of all-time featuring the company’s two hottest stars — The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, but according to The Rock, that match almost didn’t happen.

During a live stream on The Rock’s Facebook page, “The Great One” talked about the events leading into WrestleMania 15, and how almost none of his peers wanted to see him in the main event of the biggest show of the year because he was “too young,” and because he “had no business being in it.” In fact, The Rock says that the only two people who wanted to see him in that match were Vince McMahon and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

“What makes that [match] so special was because it was my first WrestleMania as Heavyweight Champion and there were so many dudes in the locker room who were trying to squash that main-event. It was like a long a** line that formed to Vince McMahon’s office where all the top guys, many of them, were trying to stop that main-event. ‘Rock has no business being in the main-event,’ ‘he’s a young kid,’ ‘he’s a rookie,’ ‘he has no business being in it.’ But Vince had wanted that main-event and one dude, the only dude, by the way, who could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it, was Steve Austin and that cat went to them, the old man, Vince, and came to me, and he was like, ‘I want you to be my partner. You’re my partner – you’re my dancing partner in this thing.'”

It’s safe to say that Austin and McMahon made the right decision. The Rock and Steve Austin had amazing chemistry together inside the ring and on the microphone. They were also the two biggest stars of their generation, and they’re two of the three biggest names in the history of the business, with Hulk Hogan being the third.

Austin and Rock went on to wrestle each other at two more WrestleMania’s— WrestleMania 17 and WrestleMania 19, which turned out to be Austin’s retirement match.

[Image via WWE]