WWE News: Jim Ross Explains Why ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin Won’t Wrestle Again

It’s been well-known for quite a while now that WWE legend “Stone Cold” Steve Austin won’t be wrestling on this spring’s WrestleMania 32, and it’s almost a guarantee that he won’t ever wrestle again, no matter how good a particular idea or opponent may sound.

Most people don’t realize that Steve Austin hasn’t wrestled a match since 2003. If he were to return to the ring, it’d be quite a layoff, and he’d have to train extensively before his return match to knock off some of the ring-rust that he’d undoubtedly have.

WWE has wanted Austin to come back to the ring over the last couple of years, but the “Texas Rattlesnake” has refused to do so. But, he has accepted quite a few non-wrestling roles since his retirement.

Austin will presumably be involved in something at this year’s WrestleMania; however, no one, including Austin himself, has no idea what that will be. In an interview with Sirius XM’s Sam Roberts, “Stone Cold” said that he still hasn’t been in contact with anyone in WWE, so therefore he still doesn’t know what he’ll be doing at WrestleMania 32, or if he’ll be doing anything at all.

In reaction to that news, Mark Madden, who was Jim Ross’ guest on this week’s Ross Report, asked JR if WWE is annoyed with Austin because of the fact that he won’t come back and wrestle. Of course, Ross has been out of the WWE loop for quite some time now, so he wouldn’t know if WWE management is annoyed with his buddy “Stone Cold.” But he did reveal why, in his opinion, Austin won’t ever wrestle again.

“I don’t know if WWE’s mad that Austin won’t come back and wrestle. But he’s not anybody. He’s a unique guy, he’s not going to phone anything in, he wants the right opponent with the right storyline, and the autonomy to use his own instincts.”

Since Austin’s retirement, WWE has shifted to a more scripted type of product, and, because of that, he’s avoided coming back for any major storylines. According to Ross, if WWE won’t allow Austin to have any creative freedom, then he won’t come back and wrestle.

Austin did express some annoyance with the WWE creative team during an interview on Sirius XM’s Opie with Jim Norton Show, saying that the last time he came back, they handed him a script that they wanted him to repeat verbatim.

“The last time I went out there, I was just going to do a podcast with Brock Lesnar, and I got a text message saying, ‘we want you to open the show.’ Then they said, ‘we want you to say, are you ready for RAW? Are you ready for WrestleMania 32? I’ve got Brock Lesnar coming up later, and now it’s my pleasure to introduce The Undertaker.’ They wrote me a script for that, and I’m thinking, ‘it’s four f***ing lines, are you kidding me?'”

Both Ross and Austin have said in the past that WWE’s inability to let their superstars have any creative freedom has prevented “Stone Cold” from returning to the ring. Austin wants to do everything his way, and if he’s not going to be allowed to do that, then he just won’t come back. It’s that simple.

At this point, it does seem likely Austin isn’t really interested in wrestling even if they will allow him to come back and do everything his way. It’s been nearly thirteen years since he’s wrestled; to come back and have a good match he’d have to devote a lot of time to training, which may not be something he’s not interested in doing at this point in his life.

[Image via Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press]