It’s been almost 18 years since “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson faced each other inside of a WWE ring for the last time at WrestleMania XIX. But when asked what would happen if the two wrestled this year while on A Little Late With Lilly Singh, “The Texas Rattlesnake” sounded pretty confident that he’d be victorious.
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“Man, if you’re asking me, it’s gonna be ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. I would walk in there, stomp a mudhole in his ass and walk it dry. See, Rock’s been out there making all these movies. He’s the number one movie star in the world and I know he’s been in the gym, but I’m still pretty hard. I’m still pretty salty. I’m still leaning on theme beers. And to match us up right here, right now I’m predicting ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. I’m sure The Rock would tell you Dwayne Johnson.”
Singh promised that if she ever got Johnson on her show, she would ask him the same thing and let Austin know his answer.
Johnson reflected on his rivalry with Austin during a Q&A on Instagram back in March 2020. The two met in three WrestleMania matches and were the top stars of the WWF’s Attitude Era.
“Every night was a different match,” Johnson said. “We knew the finish, whether he would win or I would win, but we had to call everything out in the ring. Basically, based on how he would feel… We would have a phenomenal match. The night before we went out for a steak dinner, myself, Austin, Pat Patterson. We were talking about the match, it was a nice quiet before the storm because who knows what would happen the next day.”
Their match at WrestleMania XIX wound up being the last in Austin’s career. In a recent interview with Cari Champion and Jemele Hill, he revealed just how difficult the transition was to move on without his pro wrestling career.
“It wasn’t easy,” Austin said. “It wasn’t good, and I didn’t know what I was going to do because I didn’t have an exit strategy. But I knew after WrestleMania XIX with The Rock —and man we tore the place down, we headlined three WrestleManias together and Rock knew I was going to retire after that match — that was a hard thing to do. All my life, I either wanted to be a rock star or a pro wrestler. And it ended up I can’t sing so I turned into a pro wrestler and had a pretty good run. But after that, I didn’t have the rest of it figured out. So it was a very hard transition for me.”
