From the moment that Brock Lesnar arrived on Monday Night Raw on March 18th 2002, it was clear that not only did WWE have huge plans for him, but he was more than capable of pulling them off. Lesnar was a force of nature, and quickly blasted through much of the Raw roster on the way to winning the King of the Ring tournament. A victory which guaranteed him a shot at the WWE Undisputed Championship at SummerSlam.
At the summer spectacular Lesnar defeated The Rock – Dwayne Johnson – to become the youngest World Champion in history. On his way to his showdown with The Great One, Lesnar demolished Hulk Hogan on an episode of SmackDown. The end of the match came via referee’s stoppage with Hogan trapped in a Bear Hug. Over the course of his entire career Hogan had rarely been defeated so decisively and so brutally.
Hogan disappeared from WWE television after the loss and wouldn’t return until early 2003, although there were plans for him to return earlier.
“Blessing In Disguise” Brock Lesnar And Hulk Hogan Only Wrestled Once
Bruce Prichard recently revealed that there was a pitch for Hogan to return at Survivor Series and face The Beast one more time. Brock Lesnar was coming off the back of a feud with The Undertaker, which ended with him pinning the legend at No Mercy inside Hell In A Cell. However, Hogan said that he would only come back if he was going to beat Lesnar, and the company had very different ideas.
Speaking on his Grilling JR podcast, legendary announcer Jim Ross, who was WWE’s Head of Talent Relations at the time, scoffed at the idea that Hogan needed to win. He added that it may have been a “blessing in disguise” that the proposed second match never happened.
[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.”
At Survivor Series 2002 Brock Lesnar was defeated by The Big Show after Paul Heyman aligned himself with his rival.
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