Jim Ross Hints At Steve Austin’s Unhappiness At His Role At WrestleMania 38

Legendary pro wrestling analyst, Jim Ross has hinted at the very possible fact that Stone Cold Steve Austin isn’t at all happy with his upcoming role at WWE’s WrestleMania 38. For weeks rumors have been running rampant about a Steve Austin return, many even believing recently that Steve would be wrestling a match. Of course when Austin failed to appear on episodes of Raw, many questioned his involvement.

Of course all of that ended this week when Kevin Owens invited Austin on his KO show, slated for WrestleMania 38. This announcement landed awkwardly though, as many were disappointed that Steve would not be wrestling a proper match after all but merely showing up for an appearance on the KO Show as a guest.

The cacophonous sound of multiple species of crickets calling in unison is overwhelming… … … … … … …

Of course Austin would respond the next day in a produced video filmed on his property at the Broken Skull Ranch, he accepting the invitation.

Jim Ross, who was instrumental in Steve’s rise in WWE decided to shed some light on what’s happening behind the scenes with Steve and his involvement in Mania 38, as the two are still very close. As it would turn out, Steve isn’t all that happy with what’s been decided, according to Ross. JR made these statements on an episode of Grilling JR:

“It looks like Austin is not going to do anything at WrestleMania as far as wrestling in the ring…He and I have talked, but at the time we talked, he didn’t know what he was going to do and he didn’t sound overwhelmingly enthusiastic about it…

People have to understand that Steve is a perfectionist. Even though he stays in great shape and he looks wonderful, especially for a guy his age, he looks great. He can do a photo shoot and it looks like that can be Steve from any era, but that’s the athlete in him. He likes to train, eat right, and all those things…

If he was going to wrestle at WrestleMania, and this is just me talking, I would suggest that it should have been decided six months ago, not only to build a story to that crescendo in Dallas at WrestleMania, but to give him time to train better and have more peace of mind. You know he’s going to hand pick his opponent…

Why wouldn’t you let him hand pick his opponent? If you’re the promoter, all you do is you want him on the card so he will sell tickets or Pay-Per-Views. I don’t have a lot of optimism for it. I don’t want to be a negative Nelly, but he’s not going to do it unless he thinks he can pull it off as something perfect, and I don’t know that he can do that even in my mind or his mind with only a few weeks to prepare for it…

It all can change by the time people hear this. It could be the biggest announcement of the day, the trending news of the day, I have no idea, but I know him, and he doesn’t like surprises. He likes to prepare, and if anything, over prepare because he always wants to give the fans their money’s worth. He’s got a legacy that he’s built around the Stone Cold brand that he’s not going to purposely, or by his own hand, make himself look bad, and I don’t blame him.”

via Grilling JR /wrestlingnews.co (Transcription)

Comparing the projected WrestleMania 38 to AEW’s Revolution PPV

I won’t keep you, dear readers. I just wanted to compare the two events, even though Mania hasn’t happened yet. But if the events that have unfolded all year in WWE don’t shed a light on what Mania will be like this year, I’d be pretty surprised.

What we’ve seen all year: Bad finishes, predictable winners, bad selling in the ring and botched bumps. If I have to see Charlotte Flair walk around like Lady Frankenstein on those high heels attempting to take bumps like a kindergarten level entrant at the Performance Center, I’ll simply flip!

So yeah…it looks like WrestleMania 38 is doomed to fail this year. They just can’t seem to get it together. The storylines going into it are stale, and we’ve pretty much seen it all before. Lesnar and Reigns…who knows where that will go, but in all likelihood, Reigns will retain and with a terrible finish, much like all of his latest matches had. Sad but true.

The Pat McAfee angle…what the hell? Edge as heel? Okay, he’s been there before, but did he remind anyone else of Malakai Black?

Overall the matches seem to be more of a ‘let’s see where we can fit everybody,’ and to not have a storyline for Seth Rollins, who is the ace of that roster, four weeks out from Mania is dreadful.

This Austin deal is the pits, I’d say. No way to treat the best in the business; the greatest of all time.

So if we can juxtapose what Revolution gave to the fans vs. what’s to be expected from Mania 38, we can see one thing as clear as day, folks: AEW cares about what the audience wants; WWE cares about what they themselves want. That CM Punk entrance alone was enough to blow the lid off of the biz, and the ensuing match was incredible. If you didn’t get chills during CM Punk’s entrance, get your pulse checked…he walking in to the epic sounds of his old ROH theme by AFI – “Miseria Cantare” – and it was EPIC!

Now that’s how you treat a legend.

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