The relationship between WWE and Stone Cold Steve Austin seems to have gone slightly screwy. Austin wasn’t involved in any of the WrestleMania 31 festivities, and he’s been replaced as the WWE Network’s podcast guy, leading many to speculate that Steve Austin and Vince McMahon’s on-again, off-again real-life feud is heating back up.
Well, Austin addressed the rumors in his most recent podcast. Austin really tried to play things down, saying that he was never meant to be a part of WrestleMania and never even booked a flight to San Jose. Austin not doing another season of Tough Enough was just a timing issue, as he was signed up to do another season of Broken Skull Challenge on CMT when Tough Enough would have been filming. As far as the WWE Network live podcasts go, Austin said they weren’t moving forward, but that there wasn’t any heat over any of his questions.
Okay, so everything’s hunky dory! Well, maybe not quite so much. According to PWInsider, Austin was booked on the same flight as the Undertaker to San Jose. There was also a spot in the locker room reserved for Austin. Take the PWInsider reports with a grain of salt, but it’s certainly hard to believe that things are as buddy-buddy behind the scenes as Austin would like us to believe.
In other Austin-related news, it seems as though Chris Jericho is stepping up to take over all the roles vacated by Austin. In addition to becoming the Network’s new main podcast man, word is that Jericho may be the new host of Tough Enough. Jericho may have been a bit toothless as an interviewer, but I could definitely see him giving Tough Enough rookies a good ribbing.
What are your thoughts on the whole Austin situation? Who do you believe? Are you looking forward to Jericho possibly hosting Tough Enough? Let’s have a good ol’ jaw wag in the comments.
