Hulk Hogan still angling for a WWE match with Steve Austin or John Cena

Hulk Hogan can't help but court controversy whenever he speaks to the media, whether it be intentional or unintentional. For example, this weekend whilst promoting SummerSlam he's already upset the widow of The Ultimate Warrior, Dana, by bigging up his backstage reconciliation with Warrior at WrestleMania 30 in a sit down interview with Grantland, despite failing to reach out to his family after he died.

That was clearly an unintended consequence of his shameless self promotion. He'd rather the headlines be on his quest to have one more match in WWE and on his favoured opponents for that historic moment, Steve Austin and John Cena.

Responding to Austin's opinion that he was a bigger legend that the Hulkster in a Q&A session with Yahoo Sports, Hogan dissed Stone Cold by implying that he was delusional:

"I think that’s in his own mind. My career was twice as long as his. I’ve been a main eventer since 1978 when we sold out Shea Stadium. I just totally disagree with him. I know he had a good run when he was in the Attitude Era. I don’t know how long the Attitude Era was — four years, eight years — I don’t know how long it was. That’s where we totally disagree. Maybe he and I should lock up and figure this thing out. That would be a nice match."

I'm sure Hogan genuinely believes he's the bigger star, but the stern put down was more about working his own angle to try and drum up interest for a match between the two, which he didn't even make any attempt at hiding. I think he's barking up the wrong tree there, as Austin seems to have no interest of coming out of retirement and if he did decide to come back for one final match of his own, then it would be against someone he could have a respectable match with.

By the way, Hulk Hogan didn't sell out Shea Stadium in 1978. He did wrestle Andre The Giant at Shea Stadium for the WWF in 1980 in front of a non-sellout 36,295 fans, but the match that drew the crowd was Bruno Sammartino facing Larry Zbyszko in a steel cage. The angle where a frustrated Zbyszko turned on his mentor Bruno by hitting him with a chair and leaving him in a pool of his own blood during what had been a clean, scientific match together is still one of the greatest in wrestling history.

If Austin's not interested, then Hogan is hoping John Cena is, whose name he also threw out as someone he'd like to face:

"Well, things have straightened out really well for me after nine back surgeries. Doctor would say in four months you will feel OK or six months you will feel OK … well that’s not true. After these back surgeries, it takes your body awhile to regroup, especially when you’re 60 years young. It’s not like you’re 21. So, the back is cool. If I had to wrestle anyone right now on the current roster, it would be John Cena. That would be a dream match for me."

Hogan also seemed to hint that he wasn't happy about John Cena stealing his patented red and yellow colours for a new T-shirt design.

It wouldn't be a Hulk Hogan interview if there wasn't one tall story that leaves you shaking your head. This time it was Hogan claiming that Vince McMahon likes springing surprises on him on live TV like having Stone Cold and The Rock interrupting his WrestleMania 30 promo:

"They do things at WWE sometimes because I’m what they call a “veteran.” Vince [McMahon] trusts me and he doesn’t let me in on all the secrets like at WrestleMania XXX when I’m out in the ring and here comes The Rock and Stone Cold [Steve Austin]. It could have been an explosive situation. I didn’t know what these two were up to, but Vince thought that was really, really funny."

Hogan also suggested that he begged Sting to come to the WWF in the '80s and '90s, which seems really unlikely as their paths wouldn't have crossed until the Hulkster joined WCW in 1994, when the subject of Sting wrestling in WWE inevitably came up.

What say you, Cagesiders? Would you like to see Stone Cold open up a can of whoop ass on the Hulkster? Would you prefer showering John Cena in boos as he faces The Immortal Hulk Hogan? Or should those dream matches only be seen in WWE 2K15?