Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are perhaps the two biggest, most accomplished and influential names in the history of professional wrestling - and no superstars brought crowds to their feet the way these two legends did in the '80s and early '90s.
However, many WWE fans to this stay still question why The Hulkster and Nature Boy never squared off at a WrestleMania match. On paper, it should have been a no-brainer for WWE to run the match. These were the two biggest money draws in all of wrestling, and you wouldn't have found one fan who didn't care to see them face off.
Well, we finally have an answer. Flair and Hogan were interviewed by Chris Van Vliet WSVN-TV at their "Legends of the Ring" event in Hollywood, Florida. Hogan went into great detail as to why he and Nature Boy never went head-to-head on the Grandest Stage of Them All.
"We don't know. We were on fire. We did some house shows in Chicago, Milwaukee, three or four shows in a row we set all kinds of records all over and we were pushing real hard towards that WrestleMania time and for me I have a personal opinion, the chemistry was so powerful...with Ric and I heading into WrestleMania it kind of took over everything.
If we would have wrestled at WrestleMania, we would have taken so much of the focus because there would have been the rematch and the cage match, the title would have dropped and hopefully I would have won it back and back and forth.
I think that Vince knew that this was such a powerful turbulence between the two of us he could conquer and divide and make it work even better and pretty much that's what he did. He sent me off in one direction and him in another and we drew money in both directions."
Now that makes plenty of more sense.
The WWF was loaded with major stars like Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Sgt. Slaughter and The British Bulldog in the early '90s, plus up-and-coming stars like Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker. But at the end of the day, Flair and Hogan did wonderful things for the WWF by going in opposite directions.
When both legends left WWE in the mid-90s and joined WCW, we got to see Hogan vs. Flair a handful of times - including in the main event at Bash at the Beach 1994. Flair even feuded with Hogan's villainous New World Order stable multiple times - one of WCW's most successful storylines in the '90s.
Hogan and Flair certainly would have put up one of the best WrestleMania matches of all-time, but it wasn't meant to be. But at least we still got to see these two legends face off many times outside of 'Mania, whereas many other dream WWE matches never actually happened.