WWE: Steve Austin on Him Being at 30-35% Capacity After Total Knee Replacement Surgery, Dakota Kai Says She Misses Wrestling But Clarifies She Is Not Hurt for Her Current WWE Abscense, More News

Steve Austin Comments on Him Being at 30-35% Capacity After Total Knee Replacement Surgery & If There Were Talks for Him to Do More at WrestleMania 41

As noted before, WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin was involved in an incident at WWE’s WrestleMania 41 Night 2 event earlier this month in Las Vegas, Nevada. This incident revolved around Austin crashing his ATV into a barricade at ringside and caused a fan to get hurt after she fell backwards.

A recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show featured Austin as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Austin’s thoughts about his recovery status from his total knee replacement surgery and if there were any talks with WWE for him to do more at this past April’s WrestleMania 41 event.

“I was just happy to be there. I had a knee replacement about four months ago. For a total knee replacement to heal up 100%, you’re looking at about a year. That was on December 4th. I don’t squat anymore, I’m doing some Hindu squats along with my workouts, but I haven’t even tried to run yet. I don’t even know if I can run, not that I run a lot to the ring. I would imagine about I’m 30-35% of capacity. I did what I could. Just to be involved in the show, go out there and announce the attendance, that’s what I did. That’s about all I could do. Earlier in the year, not really discussions, just brief, ‘Hey, if you want to be there, maybe we can figure you in.’ I said, ‘I’m getting my knee replaced. We’ll see what happens when that time comes.’ Time came and I can’t do much.”

Austin also confirmed that Logan Paul had offered him a deal for $1 million to dress up as the Prime Bottle for WrestleMania 41. Paul’s comments were made during a recent episode of his Impaulsive podcast show.

“If he said that, I’m not gonna call him a liar. I just kinda thought that was personal business. Since it’s out there, yeah, I turned it down. I’m in the beer business. I don’t know anything about his product. I don’t know about the ingredients in it, if it’s good, if it’s bad, or whatever. It wasn’t my thing. Yeah, I turned it down because I wasn’t into it. It’s no disrespect to him or his product.

It’s not my gimmick. He’s doing really well. He’s hustling and going and getting it, more power to him. It wasn’t a great fit for Steve Austin.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2

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Dakota Kai Says She Misses Wrestling But Clarifies She Is Not Hurt for Her Current WWE Abscense

Dakota Kai has been absent from WWE since the March 17th episode of WWE RAW. Besides not wrestling since that show, Kai also has been absent from fellow Damage CTRL member IYO SKY’s side in recent weeks as well.

Kai recently provided an update on Twitter stating that she misses wrestling and being in front of fans.

I miss wrestling and I miss you guys 🤍

— 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖗𝖑 🎮 (@ImKingKota) April 29, 2025

In a follow-up tweet, Kai clarified that she is currently not hurt for the reason for her current abscense from WWE television.

Not hurt btw! 🫡

— 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖗𝖑 🎮 (@ImKingKota) April 29, 2025

It is currently not known when Kai will be making her return to WWE television.

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WWE News & Notes

Wednesday’s NBA Playoffs Game 5 between Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers in Los Angeles, California featured Shane McMahon and Charlotte Flair among those in attendance.

Wednesday’s WWE Speed show on Twitter featured El Grande Americano defeating Alex Shelley in the Finals of WWE’s newest #1 Contender’s tournament for the WWE Men’s Speed Championship. El Grande will be facing off against Dragon Lee for the Men’s Speed Championship on next week’s show on May 7th.

Roman Reigns has been absent from WWE since the April 21st RAW After Mania show in Las Vegas, Nevada following Bron Breakker and Seth Rollins laying him out with attacks. WrestleVotes Radio reported that their sources stated that the current expectation is that Reigns will be returning to WWE television around early June.

WWE recently released a new advertisement for this month’s Backlash 2025 event in St. Louis, Missouri promoting the Randy Orton vs. John Cena match for the Undisputed WWE Championship as being “One. Last. Time.” match between the two.

Montez Ford recently announced on Instagram that he will be inducted into the Boys & Girls Club of America’s Alumni Hall of Fame as a member of this year’s class of inductees.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on their YouTube channel. This new video was a WCW World Heavyweight Championship No DQ Four-way match of Diamond Dallas Page vs. Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash vs. Sting (c) from the April 26, 1999 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released two new videos to their WWE Vault channel on their YouTube channel. The first new video was a “The story of the rebirth of Hulkamania (2002).” The second new video was a WWE Intercontinental Championship Table match of Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show (c) from WWE Extreme Rules 2012.

WWE also recently released one new video to their NXT Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full January 1, 2025 episode of WWE NXT.

In a recent interview with Forbes, WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan gave his thoughts about how he felt “disconnected” from John Cena’s heel turn storyline when WWE didn’t follow up on The Rock appearing at this past March’s Elimination Chamber 2025 event. Hogan stated “At the end of the day, when he turned heel—like the [nWo] storyline, like Eric [Bischoff] said—we set it up, we set up, we set up, then we delivered. And then not only did we deliver, we rolled out with me, Hall and Nash. And that story kept snowballing and snowballing, and we kept getting more evil and evil. And so for me, watching that story with John Cena, when The Rock did the throat thing, cut his throat, and John Cena turned heel, I expected more of the same. And then John Cena came out and there was no Rock, and I just got disconnected at that point, ’cause I was expecting the characters to keep rolling out like we did. So I know everybody’s got movies and obligations and stuff, but it didn’t feel like that big tidal wave coming at you. Like when the nWo took over, man, I even hate to say the word, we just cleaned house and beat everybody’s ass, and we just killed it. All the babyfaces were crying and complaining, and it got really ugly. We were so powerful with that trio.“

In a recent interview with Undisputed, legendary wrestling manager and WWE Hall of Famer Jimmy Hart gave his thoughts about his belief that Paul Heyman is the greatest wrestling manager of all time. Hart stated “It’s Paul Heyman. He’s my favorite, and he’s been doing this at such a high level for so long. What he’s doing now is the best stuff in wrestling. He’s putting food on the table for a lot of people in WWE. Paul Heyman, he’s magic. He makes every part of what he’s doing so meaningful. That’s what I tried to do, too–if they were going to paint me yellow, then I brought the paint. Paul is the same way–you have to watch to see what he’s going to do next. He’s a genius.“