Wrestlemania 27: Stone Cold Steve Austin Talks Wrestlemania And More

Stone Cold Steve Austin Talks A Number Of Topics In ESPN.com Interview

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin will be all over WWE television for the next few weeks. He will be the special-referee for the Michael Cole-Jerry Lawler match at Wrestlemania on Sunday. After that, he can be seen as the host of "Tough Enough," the WWE's version of "The Ultimate Fighter," starting the night after Wrestlemania.

Austin, who has been absent from television since signing the contract to be the guest referee, did an interview with ESPN.com to talk about Wrestlemania and other topics. Here are some highlights from the interview, conducted by Jon Robinson.

When asked about who on the current roster he would like to have worked with:

"John Cena has done well for himself. I like the way he talks, I like the way he handles his business, and he works his ass off. Another guy is Randy Orton. Everyone thinks Randy has gone down the same path as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, so I think that would be another natural storyline."

Cena is like Austin in some ways. He is the biggest star and drawing card that the company has today, he sells more merchandise than anyone else. Austin drew more money than anyone in the history of wrestling from 1998-2001.

WWE, as Austin pointed out, is clearly trying to make Orton into Austin, when Austin was stunning everyone and the rebellious guy that everyone got behind. The biggest difference is Austin knew how to work as a babyface and Orton still hasn't figured that part out.

Who his favorite person to work with was:

"...the chemistry that I had with Bret "Hitman" Hart in the ring, and the respect and the trust we had for each other was unbelievable. Another guy was The Rock. We brought out the best in each other and every time we got in the ring, magical things happened."

It was Austin's feud with Hart that helped make him a player in WWE, which he acknowledges in the follow up question. The submission match between those two at Wrestlemania 13 was one of the best matches WWE has ever had.

The Austin-Rock feud was probably the second-most important feud during the "boom period" of wrestling, behind Austin-Vince McMahon. Those two had something special that has really been missing in wrestling for about 10 years.

If he ever has the "itch" to wrestle again:

"I'll tell you what, sometimes you do, but it's just like an itch that you scratch and it goes away," he said. "Could I still do it? Damn right I could. It may not be quite as good as I used to, but I got it out of my system."

Everyone wants to see one more match with Austin, but sadly he is so beat up and focused on doing other things that the chances of it ever happening again are very remote.

Austin was one of the great characters in wrestling history, he's arguably the most important character in history and he is still great whenever he appears on WWE television. Thankfully, Wrestlemania will have him and it will be better because of it.

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