The WCW Dream Match Nobody Remembers

Bret Hart vs. Hulk Hogan was one of those fantasy matchups in the ’90s that had wrestling fans salivating. Both men were top faces of their eras and both had opposing styles. The match would have been a guaranteed moneymaker for any promotion that would book it.

For some reason though, both WWF and WCW were shy about making the match. WCW did eventually book it, however, though you can be forgiven for forgetting that it ever happened.

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Bret Hart Vs. Hulk Hogan Was The Most Forgettable Dream Match

WCW booked Hogan vs. Hart on Nitro September 28, 1998, but gave the match none of the importance that it deserved.

Hogan vs Hart was just a throwaway match on a random Nitro. The match itself was less than 10 minutes long, with perhaps the most interesting part coming from Hogan managing to match Bret Hart in chain wrestling, if only for a short time. As Hogan started working over Bret’s injured knee, Sting and the rest of the nWo Wolfpac ran down, caused interference, and ended the match.

Bret Hart spoke about the match in his autobiography, Hitman, ridiculing the plan for the match. “I was baffled when Eric wasted Hart versus Hogan on a free match at Nitro, throwing away a guaranteed moneymaker that the fans had been waiting years for. The plan, in my view, was insane. He wanted me to turn babyface during an in-ring interview, challenge Hogan, then get injured and have Sting take my place. When Sting twisted Hogan into his scorpion death lock, I would limp back out and double-cross Sting by DDTing him headfirst into the mat, turning heel again. To turn me heel at this point was so stupid, it felt like sabotage.”

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Could Hart Vs. Hogan Have Happened At Summerslam 93?

Apparently, in 1993, there was a plan for the match to happen for the WWF Championship at Summerslam. A promotional photo shoot was even done for the match. Hulk Hogan would explain in a since-deleted blog post, “I was leaning more towards Bret… so much in fact we did some photo-shoots for a possible feud and even doing a tug of war with the belt looked awesome while seeing the pictures afterwards. However, Bret was a Babyface (good guy) and so was I. The only time a Babyface vs Babyface happened on a grand level thus far was at WM6 which caused a split crowd and even though it was awesome, it kept the crowd divided afterwards.

Not wanting to put a damper on Bret’s rise to the top, it was decided that Yoko would beat the Hitman at WrestleMania 9 and prove himself to be unstoppable and have me come out to win beat Yoko on a whim and take the title from him to become the Champ for the last time and enjoy my final Run; which happened. In this process, it did put Bret on the back burner, but allowed Yokozuna to gain even more heat with the crowd … This not only eventually gave Bret Hart center stage as the main guy, but a great Heel to work with and no one had to share the spotlight with Hulkamania anymore.”

Hogan suggests it was the face vs. face thing that kept the match from happening, and not wanting to dampen Hart’s rise to the top. Bret Hart however offered a different explanation to ESPN, suggesting Hogan was scared that Hart would embarrass him in the ring.

"I think Hulk Hogan knew that someone like me could embarrass him on the ring, or really take the edge off him from a fan perspective because he was so limited as a wrestler, and being so much bigger than me, like 6’8″, wrestling a guy that was six foot, he was always gonna be the overdog, I was always gonna be the underdog against Hulk Hogan, and that would have been too big a thing, it would have been, Hulk Hogan could never make another wrestler, and especially another wrestler that might end up being bigger than him. He couldn’t bear the thought of wrestling me and making me so he completely buried the knife in me and made sure that he never worked with me."

It seems there is plenty of animosity between Hart and Hogan, and maybe that animosity could have been used to build up a proper match on PPV, a match that would have been a success for any company that made it. Unfortunately, the potential was wasted on a random Nitro match that nobody remembers.