WWE News: Vince McMahon Absolutely Not Willing To Let ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin Wrestle At ‘WrestleMania 32’
In the past 10 days there has been a tremendous amount of speculation and hype around a possible return to the ring for “Stone Cold” Steve Austin at WrestleMania 32. If you look at it, an Austin return next year makes perfect sense. It would be in his home state of Texas, in front of the largest crowd in WWE history. But, sadly it looks like there’s almost no chance of it happening, even if Austin was willing to do it.
It appears that Vince McMahon was unaware that Paul Heyman was going to ask Austin about facing Lesnar at WrestleMania 32 next year, and that he wasn’t happy that Austin and Heyman hyped up a match on his network that he knew wasn’t going to happen. It’s been reported that McMahon wasn’t happy with what Austin and Heyman did, and that he told Austin to squash the rumors on his podcast this week, because McMahon wants the hype and anticipation to go away.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, even if Austin was willing to get back into the ring, Vince McMahon wouldn’t allow it due to Austin’s injury history. Meltzer used the example of Jerry “The King” Lawler — who had a heart attack on live WWE television after a match — as the reason why McMahon doesn’t want to allow old, beat up wrestlers in the ring. Obviously Lawler is an extreme example, but Lawler’s heart attack did change WWE’s stance on letting certain wrestlers back into the ring.
“I was told that [the match between Austin and Lesnar] is absolutely not happening. Vince was really upset about them using his network to promote a match that’s not going to happen. So, he wants it to go away now.
“At the end of the day — even though Austin has always entertained that if everything goes right, and this is as right as it’s going to go — but there’s just fear that… There’s a reason he hasn’t wrestled. And, I guess at the end of the day, Vince isn’t willing to take that risk. There’s just the fear that if one of these guys, with known, serious injuries gets hurt, at the age that they’re at because of what happened to Jerry Lawler and things like that, there’s just a lot of fear on Vince’s side about that type of a thing.”
Back in 2003, Austin was forced to retire from being an active wrestler due to neck issues from when Owen Hart dropped him on his head in 1997. Since retiring, Austin has said that if the neck injury never occurred, that he likely would have wrestled until the late 2000’s.
Even though it’s becoming clear that Austin won’t be back in the ring at next year’s WrestleMania, the hype and anticipation for Lesnar vs. Austin probably won’t be going away any time soon, as most WWE fans will probably think that Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman and Steve Austin himself are trying to kill all the hype, so when Austin finally does announce his intention to wrestle, it’ll be a huge surprise.
[Image via Ethan Miller / Getty Images]
