Jim Ross recently talked about a wide range of topics on his Grilling JR podcast. During it, Ross looked back on the time when Hulk Hogan refused to lose to Brock Lesnar.
On a SmackDown episode, Lesnar destroyed Hulk Hogan en route to his confrontation with The Rock. Hogan was caught in a Bear Hug at the time the referee stopped the match. After the defeat, Hogan disappeared from WWE television, and he wouldn’t show up again until the beginning of 2003, despite earlier plans.
According to Bruce Prichard, there was a plan for Hogan to return to Survivor Series and take against The Beast one more time. Hogan, though, vowed that he would only return if he defeated Lesnar, and the company had different plans.
[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
