In the two-episode finale of ESPN's The Last Dance docu-series, a portion of time was spent uncovering star power forward Dennis Rodman's curious absence from Chicago Bulls in the middle of the 1998 NBA Finals, and who returned before Game 4 in order to wrestle with Hulk Hogan.

After that series against the Utah Jazz, which netted the Bulls their sixth championship in the span of eight years, Rodman again toiled with star forward Karl Malone. And their battle also happened to extend to in the ring.

One wrestling executive from now-defunct World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Eric Bischoff, tried to get Rodman and Malone to heat up tensions on the basketball court to hype up their matchup in the ring (via Luke Norris in Sportscasting).

“I got ahold of Dennis through his manager at the time, Dwight Manley. I said ‘Look, nothing during the game. I don’t want to be accused of screwing up a game, be it playoffs. But if there’s any chance when you guys are kind of in-between, or if you’re off the court you know near the court there’s cameras running, if you guys could like push and shove each other a little bit, you know kind of raise the heat, raise the temperature just a bit. I wouldn’t be disappointed if something like that were to happen. I’m not telling you to do it!’

“I’m just telling you if something were to happen like that, I’d be pretty happy about it.”

Rodman pulled down 14 rebounds in nearly 30 minutes in Game 4, a decisive, four-point victory for the Bulls, which put them up 3-1 in the Finals over Malone and the Jazz.

Perhaps inadvertently, Rodman and Malone did get tangled up in that series, although it was more a slapstick comedy routine. It saw the two power forwards folded up into another knocking each other on the floor multiple times in one stretch.