Jim Ross: Steve Austin "Didn't Sound Overwhelmingly Enthusiastic" About Wrestling At WWE WrestleMania 38

Steve Austin confirmed yesterday that he will be at WrestleMania 38 in Dallas to confront Kevin Owens.

KO challenged Stone Cold on this past Monday's episode of Raw, after weeks of running down Austin's home state of Texas. During his response, Austin was careful not to refer to their confrontation as a match, while WWE.com have the segment billed as The Texas Rattlesnake confronting Owens on 'The KO Show'.

On this week's episode of Grilling JR, Austin's longtime friend Jim Ross revealed that he had recently spoken to Austin about his participation at the Showcase of the Immortals.

According to Ross, Austin wasn't too enamoured with the idea of wrestling on the event since he is protective of his legacy and selective about what he does and doesn't do.

"It looks like Austin is not going to do anything at WrestleMania as far as wrestling in the ring. 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. 

"People have to understand that Steve is a perfectionist. Even though he stays in great shape and he looks wonderful, especially for a guy his age, he looks great. He can do a photoshoot and it looks like that can be Steve from any era, but that's the athlete in him. He likes to train, eat right, and all those things.

"If he was going to wrestle at WrestleMania, and this is just me talking, I would suggest that it should have been decided six months ago, not only to build a story to that crescendo in Dallas at WrestleMania, but to give him time to train better and have more peace of mind. You know he's going to handpick his opponent.

"Why wouldn't you let him handpick his opponent? If you're the promoter, all you do is you want him on the card so he will sell tickets or pay-per-views. I don't have a lot of optimism for it. I don't want to be a negative Nelly, but he's not going to do it unless he thinks he can pull it off as something perfect, and I don't know that he can do that even in my mind or his mind with only a few weeks to prepare for it.

"It all can change by the time people hear this. It could be the biggest announcement of the day, the trending news of the day, I have no idea, but I know him, and he doesn't like surprises. He likes to prepare, and if anything, over prepare because he always wants to give the fans their money's worth. He's got a legacy that he's built around the Stone Cold brand that he's not going to purposely, or by his own hand, make himself look bad, and I don't blame him".

H/T WrestlingNews.co