10 Reasons That Famous Wrestling Matches Never Happened

Professional wrestling is probably the only sport where dream matches pitting two stars from separate generations against each other are a possibility.

This is because the career of a wrestler tends to be a little longer than that of other sportsmen. Plus, it's not really a meritocracy: you don't earn your spot in the ring with the world's greatest through a series of qualifying matches, but simply by interrupting his promo, uninvited.

Even so, there are a handful of dream matches that never happened (or else, some that did happen, but too late, or only once, or just not enough).

While it's easy to see, in some cases, why they never saw the light of day - John Cena versus Bruno Sammartino, for example, is obviously out of the question due to an age gap that even kayfabe can't bridge - others leave you scratching your head.

Why didn't Austin and Hogan ever square off, one-on-one, for example? And how about The Rock and Shawn Michaels?

To add salt in our wounds, dirt-sheets and shoot interviews mean we're increasingly aware of just how close we came to seeing them, and how petty the reasons we never did.

We should probably be happy, in a way, that we never got to see fifty-something Vince McMahon and forty-something Eric Bischoff take to the ring at WrestleMania XIX.

Certainly, it would have been a fitting way to draw a line under the Monday Night Wars, pitting the evil genius who led the WCW charge against the slightly-more-evil genius who masterminded WWE's late-90s turnaround.

For all his karate stylings, though, Bischoff was never a wrestler. And, besides, he might not have been able to continue as Raw GM had he suffered defeat (which, obviously, he would have).

With the Chairman of the Board determined to compete in Seattle, they went with Vince versus Hogan instead - simply because the Hulkster showed up, last minute, ready to accept another big pay-day.