It's an understatement to say that there's a lot of history behind an Austin-Lesnar bout. "The Rattlesnake" was originally scheduled to lose a match to Lesnar on Raw in 2002, and dissatisfaction with that decision (among others) led him to walk away from the company. Since then, Steve Austin versus Brock Lesnar - a battle of the two most dominant stars of different generations - has become the holy grail of dream matches. Unfortunately, it seems highly unlikely that the match will ever happen. Austin, almost 51, is extremely reticent to return to the ring - he hasn't wrestled in more than 12 years, he's financially set for life, and he doesn't want to damage his legacy with a sub-par performance. Even a WrestleMania bout with Lesnar isn't enough to bring Austin out of retirement. Fuel was added to the fire when Paul Heyman appeared on Austin's podcast in June and the two began cutting promos on each other - ending with them all but agreeing to an Austin-Lesnar match at WrestleMania 32. Austin later apologized and said the match was not happening. Still, nothing will stop fans the world over from hoping to see Austin versus Lesnar - and there's no guarantee we won't.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
