I think one of the biggest examples that started it all for me was when the then WWF finally managed to sign the Nature Boy Ric Flair and even somehow got him to bring the WCW World Championship belt with him. Now this would seem like an obvious no-brainer for even the most casual wrestling fan to predict, a huge title for title championship match between the WCW Champion Ric Flair and the WWF Champion Hulk Hogan. Obviously, since this match was taking place in the WWF it would have made sense for Hulk Hogan to win and I think since they weren’t going to be allowed to keep using the WCW Championship in the WWF the most iconic thing they could have done was have Hulk Hogan smash the belt after winning it. Of course, they would have needed to get some quick pictures of Hulk Hogan with that belt for the sake of history but then it should have been destroyed. Down the road at the next PPV I would have had Ric Flair challenge Hulk Hogan to a rematch and this time Flair would have won the WWF Championship like he did at the Royal Rumble. This would have made the score 1-1 which would mean they would have to settle it once and for all with one final match, and this would have taken place at Wrestlemania 8 in the main event and Hulk Hogan would have won back his WWF Championship proving he was the better champion and the WWF was the better company. Instead, we got Ric Flair vs Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice. The reason for this we were told was that Flair and Hogan did not want to work together, neither would put over the other etc. however, a short time later when Hulk Hogan signed with WCW the first match he had there was against Ric Flair for the WCW Championship and Ric Flair put over Hulk Hogan clean in the middle of the ring, so it didn’t seem like either of them had a hard time working together then. So what is the real reason we never got that match in the WWF?
Years later when Hulk Hogan finally returned to the WWF after Vince bought WCW he returned as his heel character Hollywood Hulk Hogan of the NWO. This time the dream match all wrestling fans wanted to see at Wrestlemania 18 was Hollywood Hogan vs Stone Cold Steve Austin, ideally in the main event for the WWF Championship. Instead, we got Hulk Hogan vs The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Scott Hall with Kevin Nash, and the WWF Championship match was Triple H vs Chris Jericho in the main event. Imagine if instead of Chris Jericho being the one that unified the WWF and WCW Championships it was Stone Cold Steve Austin that defeated The Rock in the finals like we all expected. Then Stone Cold could have gone on to defend the new unified Undisputed Championship in the main event of Wrestlemania 18 against the returning Hollywood Hulk Hogan. That is the dream match we all wanted to see. Personally, I was there live at that event and I can say for a fact that no wrestler was more over and got a louder response from that crowd than Hogan. So much so that at the very next PPV he was turned babyface and won the title from the new champion Triple H. So it would not have been a stretch to have Hollywood Hogan defeat Stone Cold for that belt in the main event of Wrestlemania. To protect Stone Cold you could have easily had Scott Hall and Kevin Nash interfere and cost Stone Cold the match. By the next PPV when they had their obvious rematch, then you could have had the NWO turn on Hogan and cost him the match and the title, setting him up for his obvious babyface run. I think this would have all worked more organically and given the fans exactly what they wanted. However, what we are told is that Stone Cold didn’t want to have this match, he turned down the idea. Yet at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony years later Stone Cold was still teasing a match with Hogan, implying he wanted that match. They might have wrestled different styles, but a dream match like that needed to happen one way or another. I think the WWF owed it to the fans to find a way to make that happen.
The third and final example I want to discuss would be the trainwreck that happened when the now WWE finally managed to sign Sting. Why did it take them so long? Why did Sting waste all those years wrestling in TNA when he was still much closer to his prime? I can’t imagine that TNA was able to offer him more money than the WWE could afford, so did the WWE lowball him for years? Did they not really want to sign him? Or was it what else they promised him, what kind of matches and storylines they were promising him? In TNA Sting was a main event star winning championships, did the WWE not promise him the same level of push? Well when the WWE finally signed him they had a chance to show the world what they always could have done with Sting and what we got was the saddest disappointment I think wrestling fans could have ever expected. First off, the ultimate Sting dream match that fans had been waiting years for should have been Sting vs The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. After that, other dream matches like Sting vs Stone Cold Steve Austin, or The Rock, maybe even John Cena. I don’t think anyone dreamed of a match between Sting and Triple H, but sadly that is what we got. The only silver lining I thought would come from this was that if Sting faced the Undertake at Wrestlemania he would need to lose to keep the streak going, but by facing Triple H he would be able to win the match for sure, so this must have been to protect Sting… wrong, Triple H actually won the match, how pathetic was that? When it was all over, what did they do with Sting? Did he get to win the WWE Championship? What about the Intercontinental Championship? Did he win the Royal Rumble? None of the above. Did he face other legends at his level? No, he faced a reckless young wrestler named Seth Rollins that injured Sting with a sloppy dangerous move, a turnbuckle powerbomb. We were told at the time this sad heartbreaking match was the end of Sting’s career. However, once his contract with the WWE was over he went on to wrestle again in AEW where he found more success than he did in the WWE, proving that Sting was successful everywhere else, before and after, except the WWE.
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