5 Dream Matches The WWE Missed Out On

WrestleMania is the time of the year where all of our wrestling dreams are supposed to come true. WWE pulls out all the stops to bring back their biggest stars in the hopes of blowing out the “Show of Shows.” But sometimes in the WWE, fantasy warfare does not “get real.”

After The Undertaker showed up last night on Monday’s RAW to stake his claim on the WWE’s yard (I guess), this year’s card is nearly all set. Unfortunately, not all of the matches that will take place in Orlando are the ones fans were originally dreaming of. Many in the WWE Universe who were hoping to finally see John Cena face off against Undertaker on the Grand Stage were disappointed to see Roman Reigns get the shot at what could possibly be the Deadman’s final go while Cena will be in a mixed tag match with his special lady friend, Nikki Bella.

Vince McMahon reportedly made the decision to go with Reigns over Cena as he wanted the torch to be passed to a younger superstar who was on the rise as opposed to Cena who has less to benefit from a win over Taker. While this makes perfect sense from a long term booking point of view, it’s taking a very important “dream match” away from us.

This won’t be the first time we’ve missed out on an Undertaker dream match, either. Considering Taker has basically only worked WrestleMania for the past 5 years, his dance card has filled up rather quickly while other bigger named opponents were involved in other storylines.

But The Phenom isn’t the only superstar who has been left out of a WrestleMania dream match. Whether it be bad timing or an unfortunate injury, many of the WWE’s biggest superstars never crossed paths inside the ring.

Click through the slides to see the five biggest dream matches the WWE missed out on.

5. Eddie Guerrero vs Shawn Michaels

Eddie and Shawn shared the WWE together for many years, but the two never crossed paths due to different storylines and different brands. Shawn has since admitted that he refused to go to Smackdown due to it conflicting with his bible study classes.

Sadly, Eddie’s untimely death kept the match from ever happening. On The Court Bauer & John Pollock Show, Bauer shared his thoughts on the passing of Eddie Guerrero in 2005 when he was still with the WWE and plans the company had for the following year’s WrestleMania 22 event from Chicago.

“It was 24 hours before he passed away, I believe. 24 hours, 48 hours, something like that. We had a call with Vince at home, and we were talking about the preliminary plans for WrestleMania. I know there’s this romanticized story about how Eddie was going to get the title, and that was the plan that he was going to get it that night or at Survivor Series. That wasn’t the plan. I think Stephanie said that, or alluded to it on the air, and that was not the plan. The plan was that he would lose, and I think they were going to return in December. We had talked about a fascinating idea; I’m not the biggest Bruce Pritchard fan, but to his credit, I believe it was Bruce Prichard who pitched putting Eddie Guerrero at WrestleMania against Shawn Michaels and doing the parallels of their careers. Being the heartthrob in Mexico and this mercurial figure south of the border, and the American version being HBK. They had never really worked, and you would’ve had such a great dynamic between the two with heel Eddie versus Shawn. That’d be your ‘tear the house down,’ high quality match at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago. Vince was like, ‘God damn, that’s really appealing. We could parallel their careers. What kind of footage of Eddie do we have outside of WCW? We could really do some impressive packages.’”

4. Shawn Michaels vs The Rock

Insert HBK and anyone’s name and you pretty much get a dream match. Sadly we never got to see Mr. Wrestlemania face off against The Great One.

Apparently personal issues between HBK and The Rock kept the two from ever facing off on the big stage. Bret Hart wrote in his 2007 autobiography, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling, that Michaels and Triple H disliked Rock “intensely.” Both resented him because he was talented and Hart, a political foe, had taken a shine to him. Many believe they were out to sabotage Rock so that Hunter would ascend to the top before him, since they were both viewed as the future of the company at the time.

This is all speculation, of course, but by 1999, Rock had ascended to the top of WWE. Meanwhile, a back injury had forced Michaels to retire and he was relegated to sporadic appearances. 

Rock didn’t emerge as a top tier main event star who would even be a candidate to face Michaels until shortly before Michaels suffered his back injury and took an extended hiatus starting in 1998. Upon HBK’s return, he spent the majority of his time in more personal feuds with Triple H, Chris Jericho, Ric Flair and The Undertaker. 

Sadly we’ll never know just how Electrifying of a match this could have been. 

3. Hulk Hogan vs Steve Austin

Hulk Hogan vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin would have featured the two men who were at the top of WWE during the company’s two biggest, and most successful eras. Sadly it never happened. When Hogan and the nWo came into the WWE in 2002, Hogan was paired off with The Rock while Austin faced Scott Hall at WrestleMania 18. One year later, Stone Cold was on his final match with The Rock and Hogan was finished wrestling for the WWE.

Austin appeared on Jim Ross’s podcast, The Ross Report, and Ross asked Austin if he regrets never wrestling Hogan, and while Austin said that the match itself would be a huge deal, he said that he thought a match between himself and “The Hulkster” wouldn’t be all that good, which is why he chose to not get in the ring with him when he had the opportunity to.

“No I don’t have any regrets (about not wrestling Hulk Hogan). Obviously on paper it’s ‘Stone Cold’ vs. Hulk Hogan, so that would draw money. But as far as the execution of the match, I just don’t think it would have been what I would have wanted it to be, or what people would have wanted it to be. So I don’t have any regrets about it whatsoever.”

2. CM Punk vs Steve Austin

Stone Cold Steve Austin interacted with CM Punk on a 2011 episode of Raw. One was a legend and the other was a few weeks away from dropping a pipe bomb and becoming the most talked-about name in the company. It seemed like the beginning of an amazing feud joining two of the greatest stars in WWE history.

Opposed to the Goldberg and Brock Lesnar program that has played out over the last year, this was one instance where fantasy warfare did not get real. Austin and Punk were promoting the release of WWE 2K13 and the addition of the Attitude Era stars into the game and many hoped the tense exchange would lead to an actual WrestleMania match between the two. Sadly, the match never materialized; a regret which Austin told Jim Ross about on his podcast. 

 “I think me and CM Punk would have sold a lot of tickets together. And again, he gets it, I get it. It would be one entertaining program … He’s smart. His psychology is great. He’s easy in the ring, meaning his physicality, everything looks good, nothing hurts. Again, I would think me and him would be right on the same page psychologically and we’d be able to weave a hell of a tale. And also, depending on how you played this, whether he’s heel and I’m baby, he’s baby and I’m heel or it’s just two guys out there, you see both guys whether it’s him on the dark side, he’s got a tremendous mean streak, as does Stone Cold. On the fire side, he had tremendous fire, as did Stone Cold, so both guys are bringing everything to the table that you need. And also great storytellers and talkers, so all of the elements would be there.”

1. Sting vs The Undertaker

Make no mistake about it, the biggest dream match that never happened should have happened. 

For years, wrestling fans had been dying to see a match between Sting and The Undertaker, and when Sting finally arrived in WWE at the tail end of 2014, it finally looked like we were going to get a match between the two legends. But, ultimately, Vince McMahon decided to book Sting against Triple H, and not against The Undertaker.

Instead of the two greatest supernatural characters in wrestling finally squaring off, Sting’s one WrestleMania moment ended with a convoluted loss to The Game that really did no one any favors. That same year, Taker faced off against Bray Wyatt and got back on the WrestleMania winning track. It’s possible WWE thought they could get to Sting and Taker at last year’s WrestleMania 22, the unfortunate neck injury that Sting suffered during his match with Seth Rollins put an end to his in-ring career.

The WWE isn’t the only one to blame here. Sting was well past his prime by the time he finally made the jump. Had he not spent a decade in TNA, his dream match with The Deadman would have likely happened. 

Sting still regrets not facing Taker on the Grandest Stage Of Them All.