Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross who is currently working as a color commentator in the All Elite Wrestling recently looked back at the match between Hulk Hogan and Brock Lesnar that took place in an episode of Smackdown in 2002. He revealed that Hogan was refusing to lose to Lesnar.
Brock Lesnar was introduced as the next big thing in WWE back in 2002. He defeated almost all the big names of the Attitude Era and even some of the biggest names from the previous Era as well. It is highly doubtful that any wrestler ever received such a huge push upon debut in WWE.
Jim Ross Remembers Hulk Hogan Not Wanting To Lose To Brock Lesnar
After Hulk Hogan dropped with the WWE championship to the Undertaker at the Judgement Day pay per view event of the same year, he faced Brock Lesnar in an episode of WWE SmackDown. Lesnar not only defeated Hogan this match but completely destroyed him. It was a huge push for Lesnar in that time, but it was also quite strange how Hogan accepted to take that beat down since he had a terrible reputation of not putting over other wrestlers.
This victory gave Lesnar huge push and he went on to beat the Rock at the SummerSlam pay per view event of the mentioned year to win his first WWE Championship. In the following months she defeated the likes of The Undertaker, The Big Show and Kurt Angle. All of them were World Champions during the Attitude Era of WWE.
It is reported that he was also scheduled to beat Stone Cold Steve Austin during this monster push, but Austin not only refused to job but he walked out of WWE after getting to know about this booking decision. Later Austin clarified that he was ready to put over Lesnar but not in an episode of a weekly televised show. He wanted a full fledged storyline and it would have taken at least a pay per view event for him to put over Lesnar.
Jim Ross who is currently working as a color commentator in the All Elite Wrestling recently spoke on his Grilling JR podcast where he looked back at the match between Hulk Hogan and Brock Lesnar that took place in an episode of Smackdown in 2002. He revealed that Hogan was refusing to lose to Lesnar. He said;
“[On Hogan vs Lesnar never happening again cause Hogan refused to lose twice] “Really? You’re f*cking Hulk Hogan. You’re over, you’ll be over for eternity and beyond. And in three or four days a normal dude is going to forget, really it’s not gonna become a big issue whatsoever about who won and who lost, especially who lost. You embellish the winner and all that good stuff.
“I don’t know, I never had a good feeling about that pairing, and it might have been a blessing in disguise that the match didn’t happen.”
H/T to Inside The Ropes for the transcription