10 WWE Dream Matches That Should Have Happened

Here is a list of WWE dream matches that never ended happened but should have. These are matches that we wish had happened at Wrestlemania but for some reason, they never ended up taking place. Some were even very close to coming to fruition.

10) CM Punk vs “Stone Cold” Steve Austin

Several years ago, CM Punk and Steve Austin had a few run-ins on WWE Television, teasing the hell out of a potential match between them. This match kicks off our list of Wrestlemania dream matches that never came to fruition.

Their run-ins include an interview for the WWE ‘13 video game. Austin and Punk were jarring back and forth about what would happen if they stepped inside the ring together. Austin proclaimed that the match would end with Punk’s WWE Title changing hands to Stone Cold. For a little while, it looked like this dream match actually had a shot at happening. They sold it that well.

There were a ton of rumors and speculation that this match was planned to take place at one point but it never came to fruition. We can assume that it had to do with Austin’s health and the injuries that forced him to retire. Or, Austin and Punk were just having fun and trying to sell the video game.

On his appearance on the Ross Report podcast, Austin spoke about this dream match:

“I think me and CM Punk would have sold a lot of tickets together. And again, he gets it, I get it. It would be one entertaining program … He’s smart. His psychology is great. He’s easy in the ring, meaning his physicality, everything looks good, nothing hurts. Again, I would think me and him would be right on the same page psychologically and we’d be able to weave a hell of a tale.

And also, depending on how you played this, whether he’s heel and I’m baby, he’s baby and I’m heel or it’s just two guys out there, you see both guys whether it’s him on the dark side, he’s got a tremendous mean streak, as does Stone Cold. On the fire side, he had tremendous fire, as did Stone Cold, so both guys are bringing everything to the table that you need. And also great storytellers and talkers, so all of the elements would be there”

It is a shame that this match never actually happened. Imagine these two going back and forth on the mic? It would have been incredible.

9) Randy Savage vs Shawn Michaels

‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage is one of the most popular wrestlers of the 1980s and 1990s. He has put on several great matches in his career, including one against Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania III. Shawn Michaels is also considered the greatest of all time by many wrestlers and fans. Unfortunately, Michaels and the Macho Man never faced off at Wrestlemania.

According to Lanny Poffo on the Xpac 1,2,360 show, Macho Man actually pitched a Wrestlemania match against Shawn to Vince McMahon. Poffo says that it was around the time when Savage was doing commentary for the WWF (1991-1994). Here is what he said:

“So he thought that he could possibly start a little something with Shawn Michaels, and then have a two-year program, then have the showdown at WrestleMania. His intention was to have a Hair vs. Career match, where Shawn Michaels would shave his head or Randy would give up his career and go to the announcing booth. Randy would drop the match, go back to the announcing booth, but he wanted to end his career with a better match than he had with [Ricky] Steamboat”

Both Savage and Michaels had a connection with Sensational Sherri, opening up an easy storyline to be written around that.

I would have loved to have seen Randy Savage vs Shawn Michaels and I have no doubts that it would have been incredible.

8) Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair

The original plan for Wrestlemania VIII was Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, but things never panned out. It remains as one of the WWE dream matches that fans ask about the most.

After Flair won the vacant title at the 1992 Royal Rumble PPV, it looked like he would defend the belt against Hulk Hogan, who the title was originally stripped from. The match was announced by WWF President Jack Tunney in a mock press conference and looked to be set for Wrestlemania VIII.

Hogan and Flair wrestled one another at several house shows leading up to the event. The plans for Wrestlemania VIII were changed at the last minute. Hulk Hogan defeated Sid Justice and Flair lost his WWF title to Randy Savage at the event.

Why did the plans change? Hogan says that Vince McMahon simply changed his mind.

Flair says that the match was never promised to him:

“I don’t know that was ever booked and that was never promised. That’s an illusion that people have. When I got there, [McMahon] said that’s a possibility. But at the same time, I know Hulk wanted to go out and do the show Thunder in Paradise and they weren’t getting along and I guess they decided to go another way. To make sure, in case he left early, they put us in arenas all over the country several times. Some people said it was a cash flow problem. I’ve never heard an explanation, but it was never promised to me”

It is a shame as this would have been an awesome Wrestlemania match. The two have faced each other on numerous occasions but Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan never happened on the Grandest stage of them all.

7) AJ Styles vs Shawn Michaels

A match that is high on many fans’ lists is AJ Styles vs Shawn Michaels. Since AJ Styles came over to WWE, fans have been asking for this match but it has still never happened.

In an interview with TalkSport, Styles revealed that Michaels turned him down when he asked to face him:

“I asked Shawn [about a match] and he said ‘No.’ Well, That’s on Shawn, guys. I can’t do anything about that, I would love to opportunity to do that match, But I get where he’s coming from too. It’s one of those things where, if you say you’re gonna retire — Now, granted, he had a match after his retirement, one match — but I understand not really wanting to do it. When I retire, I want to [stay] retired too.”

Styles vs Michaels is definitely a match that is worthy of the Wrestlemania stage. It is a shame that we will never see it unless Shawn changes his mind down the road.

6) “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs Goldberg

At the height of the Monday Night Wars, both WWE and WCW had some incredibly popular stars. The most popular in the WWF was a beer-drinking redneck named “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. In WCW, one of the most popular stars was a man named Goldberg, who went on an incredible undefeated streak for over a year.

Both guys looked similar: black trunks and a bald head. As a result, many fans wanted to see them wrestle against one another.

Unfortunately, this match never came to be. When WWE bought WCW back in 2001, Goldberg was one of several stars that sat out and collected the money from their guaranteed contracts.

Goldberg did eventually come over to WWE in 2003. By this time, Steve Austin was retired from wrestling due to a neck injury.

Goldberg spoke with Back Sports Page about the travesty of him and Austin never meeting inside the ring:

“Steve is the best at what he does and has such a passion for it. He is an Icon and to be around him for such a short capacity that I was, I learned a lot from the guy and I looked up to him. The fact that we never got to collide in the ring was a travesty if you ask me. With his neck surgery and stuff like that I certainly wouldn’t want the guy to get hurt. It’s a shame we never met in the ring but I learned a lot from him in a short amount of time”

We did see these two in the same ring together at Wrestlemania XX. Austin was the special guest referee in Goldberg’s match against Brock Lesnar. After Goldberg picked up the win, he and Austin celebrated with a beer. In typical Austin fashion, the scene ended with Goldberg receiving a stunner.

That is the closest that fans will ever get to see those legends wrestle at Wrestlemania.

5) Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk

This is a unique match on this list because we have seen this match inside of a WWE ring a number of times, just not on the grand stage of Wrestlemania.

CM Punk and Daniel Bryan feuded in the summer of 2012. They wrestled for the WWE Championship at the Over the Limit PPV. They also wrestled at Money In The Bank a few months later. Both were fantastic matches.

A few years later, Daniel Bryan skyrocketed in popularity, including his huge victory at Wrestlemania 30. By Wrestlemania 30, CM Punk was on his way out of WWE because of his well-documented problems with the company.

During an appearance at the Wizard World convention in 2015, Bryan spoke about his desire to face Punk in a match at Wrestlemania:

“It makes me sad, in the sense that I always had this idea in my head that at some point Punk and I would wrestle each other at Wrestlemania. But I didn’t know if it would ever happen. It was this idea that I had in my head. It would be our generation’s version of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels”

Both guys were incredibly popular and deserved to main event a Wrestlemania together. Too bad it never came to fruition as I think they both would have torn the roof off the building.

4) Hulk Hogan vs “Stone Cold” Steve Austin

There is no question that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan are two of the biggest stars in professional wrestling history. Both guys are absolute icons and considered 2 of the greatest to ever lace up a pair of boots.

You would have to think that two of the biggest stars in history would make for a BIG money match. A PPV event headlined by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs Hulk Hogan would likely sell a TON of tickets. Yet, these two never squared off at Wrestlemania. Heck, they never even faced off against each other in a PPV match.

There have been many rumors over the years about why this match didn’t happen. Some say too big of egos on both sides. Others say Austin didn’t want to work with Hogan due to his age:

On an episode of the Ross Report podcast, Steve Austin was asked if he regrets never facing Hulk:

“No I don’t have any regrets. Obviously on paper it’s ‘Stone Cold’ vs. Hulk Hogan, so that would draw money. But as far as the execution of the match, I just don’t think it would have been what I would have wanted it to be, or what people would have wanted it to be. So, I don’t have any regrets about it whatsoever”

When the Rock took on Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania X8, the crowd was ELECTRIC. If you watch that match on mute, you likely would say it was a poor wrestling match. With the volume turned up, the match was incredible because of how into it the crowd was. I think this would have been the case for Hogan vs Austin. It might not have been a good wrestling match but the crowd would have been ELECTRIC.

Certainly a missed opportunity by WWE that they couldn’t put that match together.

3) Shawn Michaels vs Eddie Guerrero

The saddest part about thinking of a Shawn Michaels vs Eddie Guerrero match at Wrestlemania is that this was actually planned to happen at one point.

The story goes that these two were penciled in to face off at Wrestlemania 22. Eddie Guerrero passed away several months before the event, forcing WWE to change their plans.

Court Bauer shared the story on an episode of The Court Bauer & John Pollock Show. Bauer used to work as a WWE writer and explains what the plan was:

“I believe it was Bruce Prichard who pitched putting Eddie Guerrero at WrestleMania against Shawn Michaels and doing the parallels of their careers. Being the heart throb in Mexico and this mercurial figure south of the border, and the American version being HBK. They had never really worked, and you would’ve had such a great dynamic between the two with heel Eddie versus Shawn.

That’d be your ‘tear the house down,’ high quality match at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago. Vince was like, ‘God damn, that’s really appealing. We could parallel their careers. What kind of footage of Eddie do we have outside of WCW? We could really do some impressive packages “

Instead, Michaels went on to face Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania 22.

Absolutely heartbreaking to think about. This match would have been incredible and they would have torn the house down at Wrestlemania 22. It likely would have been two incredibly talented wrestlers in the ring together, putting on a Wrestlemania masterpiece.

2) Sting vs The Undertaker

When asking wrestling fans about Wrestlemania dream matches that never came to be, the Undertaker vs Sting is usually on the top of many fans’ lists.

Both guys have been called the pillars of their respective companies, with Sting being the backbone of WCW for so many years and the Undertaker doing the same for WWE.

Sting has been VERY vocal about his desire to face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. It was believed that this match was set to take place at Wrestlemania 32, but Sting was injured in his match against Seth Rollins and forced to retire.

In an interview with WWE.com after he was announced for the WWE Hall of Fame, Sting was asked if he wanted one more match before retiring for good:

“It’s an easy one to answer: Yes. If I had my way, yes, of course. I would have loved to have done one more WrestleMania and I would have called it quits at that point. The Undertaker match — that’s what I wanted to do”

He continued:

“Yes, it was in my mind, of course, but everyone knew that I definitely wanted to have that one match. And, of course, WrestleMania would have been the place to do it. But, I got hurt and the rest is history”

Even at both of their ages, the match would have been incredible. Two icons of professional wrestling competing in a match that has been fantasized about for so long. The crowd would have been electric and it would have been an awesome moment.

1) Shawn Michaels vs The Rock

One of the biggest matches that never happened at Wrestlemania (or ever) was Shawn Michaels vs the Rock. Two of the biggest stars in WWE history, both active around the same time, but never faced off. What gives?

The rumor goes that Michaels was disrespectful to the Rock’s Grandmother back in the day when the Rockers worked for Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling (The Rock’s Grandma was the promoter). Bret Hart in his book, states that Triple H and Michaels were jealous of the Rock when he came into WWE and tried to sabotage his push. These are all rumors but I think that The Rock’s responses in the below interviews are telling enough for us to assume there was some animosity at one point.

The Rock was asked in a 1999 interview with Wade Keller of PWTorch about his feelings of Shawn Michaels:

“He was not helpful to me. I never sought his help. I really have nothing to say about Shawn”

If he ever wanted to face Michaels:

“No, I have no desire to work with Shawn. None whatsoever”

Later, in a 2005 interview with WWE.com, The Rock was asked about if he would like to face Michaels:

“I was never ever interested in working with him, to be honest with you. I’ve known him for a long time. He came in and worked for my family in Hawaii when I was like 13 — him and Marty Jannetty. It was just one of those things. He was always one of those guys that I said “Hey” to and he said “Hey” — it’s no big deal”

The two have reportedly made up since. Reading between the lines here though it definitely seems like there were some issues between both sides. It is a shame too, the Rock vs Shawn Michaels would have been an incredible match. Both guys were extremely popular and are in the conversation for the greatest of all time.

Thank you for reading our list of WWE dream matches that never happened. What would be your number one selection?

On a related note, here is how we rank the 10 best Wrestlemania matches of all time.