9 Levels Of Bret Hart & Hulk Hogan's Heated Rivalry

As much as the other events make up this saga, Hogan never passing the torch to Bret seemed to drive this as much as anything.

When Bret was rising up the card, following the steroid saga that dramatically changed WWE, Hogan was in a sabbatical of sorts. In that time away, Bret certified himself as the leader of a new brand of Pro Wrestling. Following his WWE Championship victory over Ric Flair, Hart went on a Joe Louis like, Bum-Of-The-Month title defense spree (Skinner, Virgil, Papa Shango and a few more) to lead him to Wrestlemania 9, where the carpet was yanked from underneath him. As we covered in the WM IX portion, Hulk Hogan walked away with the championship. 

Conventional wisdom pointed to Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan, the two biggest names in WWE, meeting at either Wrestlemania the following year, or Summerslam 1993, to close the chapter on Hulkamania, and pass the torch to The Hitman. Except that never happened. Whether the alleged midget thing in the included audio above is true, or Vince just wanted to go another direction, this is how Bret Hart felt about it. 

“I think Hogan was too afraid to wrestle me. Afraid of what would happen after the match was over. Even though I can say now, Bret Hart would've given Hulk Hogan the best match of his career. I would've highlighted his already limited wrestling ability. I would've made Hulk Hogan in my own way, like most of the guys I worked with. He was afraid of the momentum changing during the match. With Hogan being 6'7", giving me a couple of front turnbuckles and start to get the sympathy factor, and people feeling sorry for me because I'm the small guy. I can visualize Hogan going "After five minutes, they'll be booing me all through the building, and they'll just be cheering Bret Hart. They always go for the underdog." Just the fear of me being a bigger underdog and leaping over him. I don't think that's what would've happened, but I think that's what HE thought would've happened. So he killed it, and made sure that match never happened.”

Should Hogan have just done the job to save 22 years of ill feelings? Or should Bret just let it go? What do you think?