More On WWE Reaching Out To Steve Austin For WrestleMania 38

UPDATE: A second report has confirmed that WWE reached out to Steve Austin about his interest in being involved at WrestleMania 38. PWInsider reports that WWE did make an overture to Austin in late December to early January to see if he was interested in being involved.

The site notes (as Fightful did) that there’s no confirmation whether Austin agreed to wrestle at the show. PWInsider reports that the idea pitched at the time was to have Austin return and compete as a one-time sendoff, as it would help boost ticket sales for the venue which needs around 200,000 tickets sold to sell out both nights. The site says it initially heard about the idea of Austin doing something back in early January and was described as a “Hail Mary idea” with no indication that it would pan out or that Austin was even considering it.

It is noted that even if Austin doesn’t wrestle, he has always been planned by WWE to be part of WrestleMania 38 in some capacity.

ORIGINAL:
WWE has reportedly made a “significant overture” to have Steve Austin return to the ring for a match at WrestleMania 38. According to Fightful Select, WWE has reached out to Austin about returning to the ring for a match at the Dallas, Texas show in April.

WWE has not given anything in a request for comment, but the site reports that those they have asked in WWE have had a “range of responses” with some being coy and others saying they assume the match will happen. The site says that Austin is expected to have a “physical role” at the very least. There’s no word on a potential opponent or whether there’s been any real progress made toward getting Austin on board.

Austin’s last match was at WrestleMania 19 in 2003 and he has largely maintained since that he’s happy in retirement. He said last year on Chris Jericho’s podcast:

“I think Vince [McMahon] tried talking me into coming back a couple of times. But you know Chris, I love the business so much – I can’t say I love it more than anybody else, I can only speak for myself. But I just love the damn business, and it hurt me so much to leave it. And to me, going back for one match, being like man, why? What am I proving? What are they going to remember? It ain’t about the money. It took me a long time, damn near three years to get over the fact that I left the business.”

Austin said in a TikTok fan Q&A that if he had one more match, he’d want it to be against Brock Lesnar. However, Lesnar is set to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 38.