Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan has gone down as one of the greatest “What If?” matches in WWE history. The pair only ever wrestled once when they were both in the WWE in the early 2000s via a tag team match involving The Rock, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall on the Monday Night Raw before WrestleMania X8. Austin would go on to wrestle Scott Hall at that event, while Rock took on Hogan in a clash of icons. Both sides have talked about why the match never came to fruition and Jim Ross provided his perspective on the situation during the latest Grilling JR podcast. He explained that Austin was cautious about working with Hogan after seeing how “The Hulkster” worked with The Undertaker at Judgement Day in May 2002.
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“Austin didn’t have the match with Hogan because he didn’t want to have the match the Undertaker did,” Ross said (h/t Wrestling Inc.). “Hogan was battered, beat up, multiple back surgeries. It’s funny when people say ‘What’s the really important things to learn in pro wrestling training?’ Well, you’ve got to learn to take a great flatback bump because about 98% of the stuff you see ends with a flatback bump. So being able to execute a flatback bump, which sounds very simple, and it is, but a lot of guys spend no time on it, they’d rather spend more time on Tope Suicidas and s— like that than how to sell or how to take a flatback.”
Austin admitted on The Steve Austin Show back in 2019 that he regretted never having the Hogan match. He said at the time, “I was in such a different headspace when that window of opportunity presented itself. Sometimes I kick myself in the ass over it. I was so frazzled towards the end and was just in a bad space. It never happened. And it should have happened. I think if we could have just got in a room, you and I, and just talked. [When you came to WCW], I remember, I’m up-and-coming and here comes the biggest attraction in the history of the business to WCW and I’m thinking, ‘Great, here comes the top attraction and now I’m another notch down the ladder.’
“I always had this grudge against you because you were the guy,” he continued. “How am I going to overtake [you] when I can’t even get past midcard status? It was a competitive grudge. [When you came back to WWE], if we had ever got into a room, we probably could have done business together. That’s one of the biggest regrets off my career outside of not showing up against Brock [Lesnar]. I would have loved to work a program with you.”
