Steve Austin On Facing Kevin Owens At WrestleMania 38, Why Last Year Was The Right Time

Steve Austin made his return to the ring last year against Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38, and he talked about why that was the right time to return. Austin spoke about the match with Owens on Out of Character with Ryan Satin, and you can see a few highlights below:

On what made last year the right time to come back: “Well, part of the pitch was, you know, I did start my career in Dallas. And for you know all the years to pass by, to go back to Dallas, Texas where it all started, in Jerry’s house AT&T Stadium. Man that’s a huge building, and it’d be an honor to to play there, to work there. And so that was that was a big draw, to start and finish in Dallas.”

On what point he said yes to the match: “Oh, I turned them down several times. Until they kept coming back with different creative, and KO was always in the conversation. I was down with that, because I love that guy. He’s awesome. On the inside, I was knocking his head off so many times, because I didn’t throw a punch in 19 years. And I told him when we got finished, I said, ‘Dude,’ I said, ‘I could not believe you didn’t give me a receipt out there.’ That’s the good-natured heart of KO.

“I think he was thrilled to be out there, and I was thrilled to be with him. But it took some talking, we got everything lined up, you saw what happened.”

Steve Austin on not knowing how well the WrestleMania 38 was being received at the time: “You know, when we were out there I didn’t think we had that crowd. Because that was in a building where sound kind of escapes the ring sometimes. And it does that at Ford Field, it does it at Toronto at the Sky Dome. So I didn’t know we had them like we did. But when I looked back at, it we had them and it was a hell of a pop going out.”

On how much training he did for the match: “Zero. Zero in-ring training. I was doing cardio. Here an inside tip for you. I love Sheamus He’s got a great YouTube channel, the Celtic Warrior Workout, whatever they’re called. I got on there, I watched uh Edge’s. I watched Brian Daniels or Daniel Bryanson, whatever his name is. I watched his training routine. But the one that really got me was Becky Lynch’s comeback routine. So I did Becky Lynch’s routine over and over and over again, and then I invented my own out of that.

“So I was training hard at my house, but I didn’t have a ring. Once I got to Dallas, I got there like three four days early, because I always do. I ran the ropes a lot with Drew Gulak, who’s absolutely wonderful. He’s a great talent. Super guy, very intuitive in the ring. We did a lot of crisscross stuff, locked up, grabheadlock, do a couple of spots. Just a little bit of that and I was gassing. And dude, I was — when when I tell you I’m in good shape, I was. But doing cardio at the house, as hard as I was working at, is not the in-ring activity. And it’s very specific, cardio is. And so like when KO comes in or Drew, they’re road warriors. They’ve been on the road. So as much as I worked — it was short notice, but as hard as I worked out, I still wasn’t in the shape because they were doing a specific task.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Out of Character with Ryan Satin with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.