During the latest edition of his “Grilling JR” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross commented on why WWE never featured a match between Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan, why he believes Austin didn’t want it, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On WWE never doing a Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan match and his opinion on why Austin didn’t want it: “I never had great confidence that match would ever happen – for them to have a long enough program and storyline for them to crescendo it and peak it at a pay-per-view. We were not in that mode at that point in time [in 2002]. If you’re gonna rebuild a legend like Hogan, you don’t want to relaunch him simply with a plan in mind to beat him. You know you’re gonna beat him sooner or later, but everyone loses at some point in time. It’s imperative for the storytelling. Steve never thought – or at least that’s my opinion because Steve did not tell me this – that he had a lot of chemistry with Hogan in the ring. The one thing about Austin is he sensed who he could have the better matches with. He had a feel for it. If it was somebody he didn’t feel could perform up to the standards, he would lobby to not participate in that particular storyline, and that’s smart. He wanted the fans to get what they expected. There are some talents, including Hulk, that I don’t think Steve felt like he could have the matches he wanted to have. It’s not a knock on Hogan. It’s just their styles are different and they clashed a little bit.”
On the reaction to Hogan’s match with The Undertaker at Judgment Day 2002: “We talked earlier about styles and the Austin/Hogan thing. Austin didn’t have the match with Hogan because he didn’t want to have the match The Undertaker did. Hogan was battered, beat up, and had multiple back surgeries. When people say ‘what are the really important things to learn in pro wrestling training,’ well, you’ve gotta learn to take a great flatback bump because about 98 percent of the stuff you see, ends with a flatback bump. I’ll say this, the match was not an artistic success, but it wasn’t because those guys didn’t work their asses off. You’ve got a guy that has a bad back and isn’t a spring chicken, and he worked his ass off. Taker tried to do all he could to make the match a success, but it didn’t just get the job done. That’s sad to say when you talk about two legit legends like Taker and Hulk.”
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(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
