There’s nothing quite like a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin appearance at WrestleMania.
“The Texas Rattlesnake” made his presence felt on Night 2 of this year’s annual spectacle event. Driving his ATV to the ring, Austin made an unplanned collision with the barricade, then read off the attendance count in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium and did his famous beer bash celebration. It was a small role in the two-night extravaganza, but could have been bigger, according to recent claims from Logan Paul.
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Paul, who defeated AJ Styles the same night, stated on his “IMPAULSIVE” podcast that he pitched an idea for Austin to wear a Prime bottle costume ringside and reveal himself during the match. He claimed Austin rejected the idea, which Austin confirmed Wednesday when speaking on “The Ariel Helwani Show.”
“If he said that, I’m not going to call him a liar,” Austin said. “I just thought that was kind of personal business, but since it’s out there, yeah, I turned it down. I’m in the beer business, I sell Broken Skull Beer and we’re in about 25 or 30 states. I don’t know anything about his product. I don’t know about the ingredients in it, if it’s good, if it’s bad or whatever. So, it just wasn’t my thing, so yeah, I turned it down, just because I wasn’t into it. And that’s no disrespect to him or his product.
“It’s just — that’s not my gimmick. Like I said, he’s doing really well. Obviously he’s hustling, he’s going and getting it, and more power to him. It just wasn’t a great fit for Steve Austin.”
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Had it not been for Austin’s second induction into the WWE Hall of Fame as one-half of his famous match against Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13, the former WWE champion may not have appeared at the 2025 event at all. Instead, we saw the now-infamous ATV blunder, when Austin nearly hurled himself into the front row of the crowd after driving too fast around the ring.
Thankfully, no one was hurt, but Austin is still unhappy with how his brief segment turned out.
“[It was a] different throttles setup than what I’m normally used to,” Austin explained. “Long story short, just a different throttle system, because I’m pretty damn handy on a four-wheeler.
“I was embarrassed about it. I think everybody’s OK, but I mean, you go out there on the biggest night in wrestling, and you end up like that, it’s not the greatest day at the office. You go out there and you want to give people the best show that you can, and when you fall short of that, it’s not great.”
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Regardless of the chaotic scene, the WWE universe was pleased as always to see the legendary “Stone Cold.” Outside of rare instances, Austin hasn’t been much of a fixture on WWE programming since his retirement 20 years ago. However, he did make one surprise return to action when he defeated Kevin Owens in WrestleMania 38’s Night 1 main event three years ago.
The wrestling business has changed significantly since Austin’s heyday, and even newcomers like the aforementioned Paul peeling back the curtain is hard for him to deal with. Austin, 60, was at the height of his popularity throughout the “Attitude Era,” when wrestling did it’s best to blur the lines of fiction and reality. Ideally, that’s how it should be, believes Austin.
“Man, I’m still a little old school on that,” Austin said of the art of kayfabe and WWE’s new “WWE: Unreal” show. “I’m a big magic fan, but if Harry Houdini is still around, I don’t want him to tell me how he does it. I want to figure out how he does it. And if I can’t, then I’m going to keep wondering and I’m going to keep watching, but I’m going to keep wondering. So, don’t tell me how he’s doing it, but let me see if I can figure it out myself. I know it’s not ‘magic,’ it’s an illusion, but let me keep wondering about that illusion.”
