What If Stone Cold never retired in 2003?

Austin vs Goldberg at WrestleMania 20

If Austin had been healthy, he would have been wearing black trunks at WM 20, and not jean shorts.

Goldberg debuted on the RAW after WrestleMania 19. The two Monday Night War legends just missed each other by a day. If Austin were still able to wrestle, Goldberg and Austin wouldn’t have clashed as soon as people would have hoped. Goldberg would have gone through The Rock, Chris Jericho, and Triple H like he did in actuality, but the Austin vs Goldberg clash would have been saved for WrestleMania 20.

WM20 was WWE’s biggest show to date. The PPV was scheduled for a gargantuan 5 hours. WWE started promoting the show the second WM19 ended, the tagline of “Where It All Begins…Again” was uttered multiple times on programming. There was no bigger match to have held then the dream match fans had been clamoring for since 1998.

Instead of Brock Lesnar, Goldberg would have been slotted to face Austin. The build-up would have started after Goldberg dropped the World Heavyweight Title to Triple H. Goldberg would have been portrayed as the subtle heel before being turned into a full-blown villain, especially after WWE realized that ‘Da Man’ had no intention of staying for more than his one year contract.

In real life, Austin was in the ring with Lesnar and Goldberg at WrestleMania 20 – as the special guest referee. The actual match was a disaster due to WWE’s poor layout and the fans negative reaction to both Superstars leaving the company. If Austin and Goldberg had clashed, then the rowdy New York crowd would have responded just as WWE had hoped. New York would have been 100% behind ‘Stone Cold’. Austin surely would have had his hand raised against his former WCW counterpart.