Bruce Prichard on Why Austin vs. Hogan Never Happened

That would have been big. Back in 2002, The Rock and Hulk Hogan wrestled at “Wrestlemania XVIII” in one of the biggest dream matches of all time. I say one of because there was another pairing on the roster that would have made for an even bigger dream match: Hogan vs. Steve Austin. For one reason or another, the only time these two were ever actually in a match together was on a “Monday Night Raw” in a tag match. Over fifteen years later though, we have a big more insight on why the match never happened.

On his “Something to Wrestle With” podcast, Bruce Prichard elaborated on why the match never took place. Prichard, who worked backstage for the WWF at the time, basically said that Austin vs. Hogan was to happen eventually but the idea was to do the weaker (yet still huge) Rock vs. Hogan match first. Here are his full comments (transcription courtesy of 411mania.com):

“Well I can tell you from my vantage point and my discussions were, where are we going to go because the match was Austin and Hulk or Rock and Hulk. I think everyone agreed that Austin and Hulk were the bigger match that we had to get to, so the feeling was, why to give to them first, let’s build it some more. Rock and Hogan were interchangeable in their careers. Originally it was planned for Rock and Hulk and then eventually get to Austin and Hulk at some point, whether that be at the next WrestleMania or not. There may have been discussions where one wasn’t going to put the other over, but that was just gesturing and positioning.”

As huge of a match as it would have been, I’m actually glad it didn’t happen in a way. Neither guy was anywhere near their peak and it would have been a bit disappointing to see them embarrass themselves in a match like this. Rock vs. Hogan was a borderline miracle and I don’t know if Austin, who was on his last legs at that point, could have come close to doing the same.

Which match did you want to see more? Could Hogan and Austin have outdone Rock vs. Hogan? Let us know in the comments below.