Will Steve Austin Fight Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 32?

Steve Austin hosted Paul Heyman, who was his former manager in WCW and boss in ECW, on his podcast on the WWE Network last night. Much of it was compelling, but not headline-grabbing. That was, until the end when Heyman badgered Austin about fighting his client Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.

At this point, and there’s a 98.7% chance this was a planned work, Austin launched into a 2015 version of his 1999 self. He said that while he didn’t know if the fight would happen or not, he’d definitely win, that it would have to be a Texas Death Match (where after you’re pinned you have 10 seconds to get up), got testy with Heyman for looking at his phone, and threatened to beat him up then and there in Lesnar’s proxy.

WrestleMania 32 happens to be at JerryWorld, in Austin’s home state of Texas, and there’s unfinished business with him and Lesnar stemming from when Austin stormed out of WWE in 2002 after refusing to lose to the behemoth on an episode of Raw, with little build-up. Whether Austin would even agree to fight Lesnar remains to be seen, and whether he’d do the job is a whole other layer of intrigue.

You can talk about wrestling being fake all you want, but a Texas Death match between Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar as the WrestleMania main event would be a fascinating multi-month storyline and draw stupid amounts of money. Because of that, and because everything in WWE happens for a reason, I’d wager that it’s more likely than not this match happens next April.