10 WrestleMania Main Events The Royal Rumble Almost Promised Us

Though Michaels and the Rock would never lock horns, the same can’t be said of Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. These two have crossed paths on numerous occasions—in WCW, TNA and even in WWE in 2002—but a decade prior at the 1992 Royal Rumble, we were robbed of a WrestleMania meeting between these two icons whilst they were still very much in their prime.

When Flair joined the WWF in late ‘91, you’d have been forgiven for assuming that this would mean we’d finally see him and Hulk Hogan, two of the absolute biggest names in the business, finally meet in one-on-one action. Rather than using the ’92 Rumble to set-up a showdown at ‘Mania though, the match was used to prep Hogan for a programme with Sid Vicious.

Flair meanwhile, won the Rumble and with it the vacant WWF Championship, before going on to face Randy Savage at WrestleMania. When he finally got around to wrestling Hogan, it was over two years down the line and both men were on the books of WCW.

Though there were other factors that prevented Flair vs. Hogan from coming to fruition—namely the speculation that their late-1991 house show run didn’t quite draw as well as expected—the Rumble could be seen as a pivotal moment in confirming the feud had well-and-truly been canned. As such, a legion of fans (of the WWF, at least) were robbed of what could have been one of the biggest WrestleMania main events in history.