Stone Cold Steve Austin walked out of WWE in 2002 when he was booked to lose a match against Brock Lesnar on RAW. His frustrations with the company had been growing for some time, and being asked to do the job for The Beast on just another episode of the Monday night show was the straw that broke the camel's back.
He'd eventually return to the company, but not as a wrestler. That robbed fans of many dream matches, including bouts with CM Punk and WCW icon Bill Goldberg (who had a brief run with WWE in the late 2000s, leading to feuds with The Rock, Triple H, and Brock Lesnar).
Talking to Chris Van Vliet, Austin was asked exactly how close we came to seeing him share the ring with the Best in the World.
"It was teased at one time, we were promoting a video game, and I think I just had an ACL, PCL [surgery]," the Texas Rattlesnake recalled. "Maybe it was teased, but it just never happened, just like me and Hogan never [happened]. Many things never happened. There’s so much good sh*t that did happen. Not everything can happen."
As for Goldberg, Austin said, "I don’t know. I think we pitched it when he first came in, but he wasn’t at the level that he needed to be. He had just come into WWF, and he needed to get going or get over first. He was certainly over from his WCW days. I think a little bit of time had elapsed, but I watched him down there in Atlanta.
"We were all on the road at the time, and that was during the Monday Night Wars," the WWE Hall of Famer continued. "If you set your DVR to record back in the day, you kind of knew what was going on. I watched Dallas Page kind of go down a parallel path as me too as far as this timeline of getting over."
"But yeah, you know, Goldberg just needed to put some time in WWF before we could go, and then it just never happened. Bill is a good friend of mine."
It's always fun to think about what could have been, and in Austin's case, many potentially amazing matches ultimately failed to materialise. That does nothing to tarnish his amazing legacy, of course, and rumours continue to swirl about him potentially having one final WrestleMania match in 2027.
Austin last competed at WrestleMania 38 in an impromptu "No Holds Barred" match with Kevin Owens. Recently, he discussed turning down WWE's offer to appear in the WrestleMania 40 main event alongside Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns.
You can hear more from Austin in the player below.