Even though he’s 66 years-old and has undergone a laundry list of surgeries over the years, Hulk Hogan was reportedly supposed to play a role in this year’s WrestleMania 36. According to WrestlingNews.co‘s Paul Davis, WWE was planning on having Hogan appear in and win the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal back when the show was supposed to take place at Raymond James Stadium. Hogan was already set to be in Tampa since a) it’s where he lives and b) he was supposed to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame alongside Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman as the NWO faction.
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“The idea was he wouldn’t take any bumps,” a source told Davis. “We would work it so he would only have to eliminate one or two guys at the end and then he would get his big celebration at the end with his music. It would have been perfect because he lives in the Tampa area.”
Vince McMahon was reportedly supportive of the idea, but the plans apparently fell through when the two sides couldn’t agree on financial terms. It wouldn’t have mattered either way, as WrestleMania was pushed from Raymond James Stadium to the WWE Performance Center in Tampa and WWE had to scrap the battle royal from the card due to social distancing rules.
Hogan hasn’t wrestled a match since January 2012, but as crazy as the idea sounds he was publicly pushing for it in interviews months before WrestleMania.
“I talked to Vince [McMahon], and I said I really don’t know if I could live with myself knowing my last match was with TNA [Total Nonstop Action Wrestling],” Hogan told the Los Angeles Times back in October. “If I can get fixed, I pray I can have one more match. I told Vince, ‘When I get through this back surgery, I’m going to get in the best shape of my life and we’re going to talk about me having one last retirement match.’”
At the time he said he wanted the match to be against Vince McMahon, who is 74.
“I’d love for it to be against Vince,” Hogan said. “I had such a great time with him in the ring at WrestleMania 19. I had no idea what to expect from him, but he’s a great bad guy. His timing is great. I loved wrestling him, but everything he does hurts. When you’re in the ring with someone and they’re hurting you, you kind of pinch them on the wrist, and the whole match I was doing that to Vince. I was like, ‘Vince, take it easy!’ Everything he does hurts, but I’d like to get in the ring with him one more time for my last match. That would be perfect.”
Would you have liked to see Hogan step back inside a WWE ring at WrestleMania? Let us know down in the comments!
