Last week, Paul Heyman appeared on “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast on the WWE Network to much praise from audiences. During the show, Heyman pressed Austin about a potential match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 32, which Austin said if it took place, would need to be a Texas Death Match.
The segment raised a lot of eyebrows, and started the ball rolling to what many believed would be a match between the two.
However, in the newest edition of his podcast, which is a replay of the one airing on the WWE Network, Austin prefaces the taped conversation with a warning that WWE fans should not get their hopes up for a match between the two sides:
“Paul E kind of flipped the script and he wanted to ask a few questions. I didn’t know what Paul was going to ask, and he started talking about Brock Lesnar and WrestleMania 32 in Dallas. And of course, boy I bit hook, line and sinker. ‘Stone Cold’ mode. Started cutting a half-assed promo. Wasn’t trying to. And it ended up, me talking about whooping Brock’s ass. Because as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, that’s the only way I could see that match going down. But here’s the thing, what it did was, kind of raise the hopes of people, or halfway kind of, half-ass book myself into a match, which was not my intention.
So at WrestleMania 32, I don’t believe you’re going to be seeing Brock Lesnar and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin in the same ring. So it was wasn’t my intention to book the territory, or to spin a match or to sell a match, so I just wanted to make that clear to everybody. And I’ll tell you what, the people that have followed my career from Day 1 or from whatever, follow it to this day, have been so good to me and have been to hell and back with me. So, wasn’t trying to spin anything up. Don’t want to sell a match. Not trying to book a match. So Brock Lesnar will continue down the road that he’s going down, I’m going to continue going down the road I’m going down, which is hosting podcasts and hosting the ‘Broken Skull Challenge.'”
With this, it appears Austin is closing the book on a match at WrestleMania 32.
The whole excerpt can be heard here.
Editor’s Note
Never say never, but this is always the impression I have gotten from Austin. I do believe he is done in the ring, though WWE will do all it can to get him to appear at the show.