By Richard Gray on April 21, 2004 at 2:18 PM EST

Thanks to the Torch Newsletter for this big story:

Steve Austin, his lawyers, and WWE had been negotiating for the past several weeks until things came to a halt last week when Austin wanted the rights to the 'Stone Cold' name for outside WWE projects. Austin also wanted to be able to pick and choose which projects he did and not share royalties from outside projects with WWE. Steve hired a very tough attorney that was willing to fight and chose to play hardball with WWE and Vince McMahon. The two sides could not reach angreement after several heated meetings.

Over the past year, Austin and Goldberg have had several discussions about how they could capitalize on the potential dream match between the two megastars. Although there is notably less interest in the match in the U.S. today than there would have been five years ago when each man was headlining his respective company in wrestling's most prosperous era of all time, they have both discussed the possibility of promoting the first match themselves, without WWE taking the majority of the revenues. Because of the lack of a deal between Austin and WWE, Austin might be forced to grow out his hair and avoid wearing ring gear that resembled his "Stone Cold" character that WWE owns the rights to.

Although it's not considered likely, NWA:TNA has an absolutely monumental opportunity in front of them. The possibility exists that TNA could try to put themselves on the map by working with Austin and Goldberg on their PPV venture, providing an undercard of matches for the potentially copromoted show. Most likely, Austin vs. Goldberg will take place in Japan at a big dome show and perhaps be marketed in the U.S. on a tape-delay basis. However, this would certainly solidify TNA as a big contender to the monopolistic WWE.

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