WWE Hall of Famer 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin will in fact make an appearance at WrestleMania 38, but it's not going to come in the form of a match.
Last month, several reports stated that WWE was trying to bring Austin back for a match at WrestleMania 38, which will run on the Apr. 2-3 weekend at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — Austin's home state. The Texas Rattlesnake announced on Feb. 26 that he'll be at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth to debut the brand new Broken Skull American Lager beer.
At the end of this week's episode of WWE Raw, Kevin Owens invited the wrestling legend to appear on "The KO Show" at WrestleMania 38 weekend. On Tuesday, Austin accepted Owens' invitation. Presumably, there will be a physical confrontation betwween the two, but not an actual wrestling match.
On a recent edition of his Grilling JR podcast (h/t WrestlingNews.co), AEW commentator Jim Ross — a close friend of Austin's — revealed that he recently spoke to The Texas Rattlesnake, who didn't seem keen on the idea of wrestling another match.
"It looks like Austin is not going to do anything at WrestleMania as far as wrestling in the ring," Ross said. "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."
Ross, who served as the lead WWE commentator during Austin's historic run with the company, added that Austin "is a perfectionist" and simply won't do something "unless he thinks he can pull it off as something perfect." Ross opined that a decision on Austin wrestling at The Show of Shows have been "decided six months ago", and that Austin should have been able to choose his opponent.
Steve Austin's Final WWE Match
Austin's final WWE match took place at WrestleMania 19 on Mar. 30, 2003. The Texas Rattlesnake lost a thrilling back-and-forth match to The Rock, and he would retire soon after.
Austin, who turned 57 years of age in December, retired from wrestling in 2003 due to a series of injuries. This included a serious neck injury that had bothered Austin for several years. At this stage, it's safe to guess that Austin remains firm on his retirement decision, and that he won't be returning to the ring for one more match.