8 Times Wrestlers Refused To Work With Each Other
4. Hulk Hogan & Bret Hart
Bret Hart or Hulk Hogan. Just who to possibly believe?
For years, Hogan told anybody willing to believe him that he had nothing to do with what occurred (or, more accurately, didn't) between himself and Bret Hart following an enormously controversial WWE Championship switch at WrestleMania IX. Meanwhile, Hart released what many believe to be the best wrestling autobiography ever, in which he documents every stage of his career in fastidious detail thanks to diaries and recordings he kept at the time. Included within his accounts are a host of whispered chats and mixed messages from Hogan and Vince McMahon about politics and pushes and all the usual wrestler nonsense, while Hart struggles to find the truth or anybody to tell it. Sure enough, he loses the belt and never gets another shot at it as long as Hogan's in the company, which itself remains fractious and uncertain until he finally bails in October.
It felt as though the babyface dream match could be the exact solution to WWE's problems, even in a time where that wasn't the typical outcome. There's supposedly "tug-of-war" shots of the two with the classic Winged Eagle title between them, but nobody other than the men themselves can claim to have laid eyes on it. The above magazine cover from May 1993 resulted in a Mandela Effect of sorts, where people recalled a face-off rather than a simple arrangement of opposing photographs, but that's as far as it went. Hogan wanted Yokozuna for the rematch, laid down for him in it, and didn't work a televised spot for the company again for another nine years. On the very same evening, Hart entered a best-in-class performance in three separate matches en route to winning the King Of The Ring. The contrast in effort and quality was profound, dictating where audience tastes were heading even in increasingly lean financial times.