In an interview with Fighting Spirit Magazine, Hulk Hogan sheds light on original plans for his match with The Rock at Wrestlemania X-8 in 2002.
“Out of respect, I go down there (to Miami), and there’s me and The Rock and his dad Rocky Johnson, and Pat Patterson,” said Hogan. “The Rock starts telling me that we’re gonna lock up, and do this and do that, then start getting some heat on me, and so on. So he talked through the whole match, and I was listening. I respect him, and it kinda made sense, but I’d never done that before. Then they go, ‘Okay, let’s have the match here.’ I said, ‘Whoa! You’re talking about me taking bumps in this ring, with no people? I’ll get hurt, and if I fall wrong one time, then my career is over.’ I’ve got to have the energy of the crowd, so that when I go down, I go down to the mat hard. So instead, we just walked through the match.”
