Why Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan Never Happened

During the latest episode of his Something to Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard spoke about bringing the nWo into WWE in 2002 and the decision to have Hulk Hogan fight The Rock instead of Steve Austin. Here are highlights:

On the idea to bring in the nWo:

“It was probably Fall, 2001. There was not a lot of interest as discussed with bringing any of those guys in with the WCW purchase because their contracts were too high. They had too much left on them, and the talents wanted the money from their contracts. So, it was easier for them to sit out and collect their checks rather than go to work. On top of that, their contracts had limited dates in them, that we were not interested in honoring. If we were going to get guys, we wanted them to work, and not sit out and get paid. Fall in 2001 was the next time conversations started to happen.”

On Scott Hall returning to WWE:

“There was a concern with Scott Hall because you think the guy is going to come in as a second chance and will tell you that he is going to straighten up, be on a straight narrow, and do whatever he needs to do and then go get messed up, people are going to ask questions. People are going to ask whether or not this is part of the effort he will show to be part of the team? Vince tried alleviating that as much as he could. We tried to get Scott with whatever Outpatient program that we could, to try and help him along. There were some guys, but I don’t know if there was a big stand that we demand we not use the guys. There may be murmuring among the boys that will say, “F these guys,” but I know there were concerns by Austin to work with Scott Hall at WrestleMania.”

credit: 411mania