Steve Austin Reveals Plan Behind His WrestleMania 38 Match

Steve Austin intentionally avoided excessive hype for his WrestleMania 38 match to exceed lowered expectations and surprise the audience.
He admitted facing challenges in preparation due to a lack of ring-specific conditioning, despite rigorous training.
Austin acknowledged his physical appearance was good, but his endurance ("gas tank") wasn't at peak performance level for the match.

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Steve Austin provided insight into his return to the ring at WrestleMania 38 during a recent appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” The WWE Hall of Famer discussed his deliberate choice not to create excessive hype surrounding the encounter.

Austin explained his reasoning for downplaying expectations, stating, “If you’d had built it as such, those would have been high expectations to live up to. So then you overdeliver on something that’s unexpected.” This approach aimed to surprise the audience favorably.

He elaborated on the difficulties he faced preparing for the event, citing a lack of ring-specific conditioning. “We were in uncharted waters when they came up with that,” Austin admitted. He continued, “I trained like a son of a b*** to get in shape for that match and when you don’t have a ring or you’re not doing cardio, specific activities like running the ropes, picking somebody up, slamming them, doing wrestling activity, your cardio is just not there … I wasn’t in that kind of condition. I looked good, but my gas tank wasn’t there.”*