Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock was the second last fight at WrestleMania 19
Jim Ross was speaking to Inside The Ropes ahead of his new book launch which touches on several important moments in the WWE.
JR, as he is known, is now part of AEW, but will be remembered as one of the great commentators during the Attitude Era.
Ross is still one of the best ever to have graced the business and was asked about WrestleMania 19 not being as big a financial success as WrestleMania 18.
The commentator highlighted that Austin could have main evented the show but health issues didn’t permit that:
“Austin vs Rock would have closed the show but Austin spent the night in hospital, the night before.
“We weren’t sure before Sunday morning if he was able to go and then our thoughts were ‘We should not have put him on last’ because he doesn’t have the gas in the tank.”
Ross also went on to say that this was the first time Austin was OK not main eventing WrestleMania:
“The first time ever we talked to Steve about you’re going to close WrestleMania, and he didn’t get p***** off, because he likes to close the show.
“He has worked his whole life to be the Main event guy to close the show. He had no problem acquiescent to the other two guys because of his hospital stay.”
Ross was also at a loss to why WrestleMania 19 wasn’t a success given the stars on show.
The Rock vs Austin was a big fight but there also was the final of Kurt Angle vs Brock Lesnar. Triple H, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Ric Flair all put on great shows, but it just didn’t click:
“For whatever reason, that card did not have the magic that it should have had.
“It was hard to top Rock vs Hogan, the year before, that was a sleeper match that became historic.”
Lesnar vs Angle is still one of the great main events in the history of WrestleMania, but maybe closing with Austin would have worked.
However, the Texas Rattlesnake suffered from a lot of dehydration the night before and it was a bit of a miracle he was ready to perform the next day.
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