Jim Ross had been closely associated with Stone Cold Steve Austin throughout his WWE career. The two old friends still keep in touch with each other.
The now AEW commentator talked to the Texas Rattlesnake as recently as a few weeks back. The duo also discussed the former champion’s WrestleMania role this year.
Ross talked about Austin on his Grilling JR podcast and claimed that the Attitude Era star didn’t sound ‘overwhelmingly enthusiastic’ about a WrestleMania match:
“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.”
Jim Ross explained that Steve Austin is a perfectionist. Even though he stays in good shape, he wouldn’t want to get back in the ring without proper preparation:
“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.”
The AEW star later said that in his opinion the program should have been finalized at least 6 months before WrestleMania, not only to build a story but to give Stone Cold the chance to train better.
