9 Reasons Steve Austin Was Better In WWE Than Hulk Hogan
4. He Didn't Overstay His Welcome
Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, George Foreman and Hulk Hogan. What do they all have in common? They were all the best in their respective professions at one point in time, and none of them could stay retired.
Even before his initial "retirement" from professional wrestling to focus on his "television career" (sorry folks, but those sarcastic parentheses are absolutely necessary), Hogan had begun to wear out his welcome in the WWE. He'd beaten just about every big guy on the roster (multiple times) and guys like The Ultimate Warrior were starting to slice into his popularity in a major way.
He left the company briefly in 1992 in the midst of the steroid scandal, only to come back and literally steal Yokozuna and Bret Hart's main event moment at WrestleMania. After getting another unnecessary title reign, he left the WWE. A year later, he showed up on WCW's doorsteps and managed to reinvent himself as a heel.
In 2002, he returned to WWE, basically just long enough to win another WWE Championship, and came and went as he pleased over the next five years, leaving intermittently to flirt with the idea of joining TNA and have one-off matches in New Japan and Memphis. He'd join TNA proper in 2009 and couldn't stay away from the ring.
Say what you will about the way Stone Cold left the company, but at least he had the common decency to pretty much stay gone and move on to other ventures.