8 Times Wrestlers Refused To Work With Each Other
The Stone Cold truth behind why several major WWE & AEW matches never came together
When reviewing the best/worst politicians in wrestling history, Stone Cold Steve Austin isn't typically one of the performers associated with getting in the way of pushes, cutting the legs off his colleagues or linking arms with promoters in order to stay on top.
And yet.
Whilst Austin perhaps wasn't exactly a locker room pariah like some of his contemporaries, he made the most of his influence the more he gained. One only needs to recall the summer of 1999 to see him at his increasingly paranoid worst atop the card. Presumably nervous about the potential loss of his top spot to The Rock ahead of a long injury layoff he'd been delaying for as long as possible, he categorically determines that incumbent heel challenger Triple H is simply not The Guy, and treats him as such during their programme. Physically, he gets the better of him in most brawls, and a poor SummerSlam match trudges to a limp conclusion when Austin loses to third wheel Mankind so he can put 'The Game' over the next night on Raw.
And yet.
Triple H didn't really have it all until 2000, no thanks to 'The Rattlesnake' of course. But Austin had exceptional instincts when it came to the Stone Cold character in particular, and that alone had pulled the wagon enough to justify his stroke.
And yet.
Can anybody be right all the time though? There's no better place to start in analysing that than with the biggest one that got away...
8. Stone Cold Steve Austin & Hulk Hogan
Ahead of Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash returning to WWE in 2002, management canvassed talent on how welcome the original New World Order members would be in the dressing room. The result of the straw poll was overwhelmingly negative, with plenty of wrestlers basing their takes on real life memories of working with the men and others powered by those exact stories passed down over the years. The wounds of a omni-botched Invasion storyline were still wide open too - the bloom was finally off the Attitude Era rose by then, and the inclusion of the WCW wrestlers post-buyout was held responsible by plenty of those less willing to accept that the glory days were over.
That the three were coming back after the story had wrapped was pointed too. Unbothered by being part of The Alliance and doing tags with Chavo Guerrero or whatever WWE were peddling, the trio smartly waited until their extremely healthy Time Warner deals had expired before returning to the only game in town, and having been starved of stars of their magnitude all year, fans were deliriously happy to have them. Hogan in particular.
It was clear from the earliest moments that, even clad in his nWo colours, Hogan was destined for babyface status again sooner rather than later. Did Stone Cold Steve Austin spot this first? The Guy Vs The Previous Guy was offered to 'The Rattlesnake' for WrestleMania X8 and he declined, very probably mindful that Hulk's cocktail of audience connection and ego might put him in an untenable spot on 'The Grandest Stage'. The Rock got the match instead (and everything on that front worked out for the best, even if it did go exactly as Stone Cold predicted), but that turned out to be the last time they got even close to getting the contest in the ring. Austin was gone by June, back for one more round with The Rock at WrestleMania XIX, then done for good.