The Victims of Hulkamania

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Newsgroups: alt.pro-wrestling.wwf

The Victims of Hulkamania
Greetings!

-I’ve started to ask myself this question while surfing around the Internet
recently: Where have all the Hogan-hater’s gone? One of the #1 priorities of
the Internet wrestling community in the past was to bash the yellow llama-man
that is currently masquerading around in the WWF as much and as often as
possible. Now that Hogan’s attitude towards the business has seemingly
changed, the bashing has decreased and Hogan is now a “tolerable” wrestler.
I don’t approve of this.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that we have a Hulk Hogan with a complete
change in attitude. He’s being pleasant backstage; he’s jobbing to younger
wrestlers (and doing his best to make them look good despite his VERY limited
selling abilities) every other week and generally being a good sportsman about
it. This is a refreshing change of pace from the backstabbing, politically
cancerous bastard Hogan that we’ve grown accustomed to over the last few
years. I feel, however, that this is too little too late for the man with the
leather skin. My objective with this column is to give you a little
retrospective. I want to point out all of the men that Hogan has stepped-on and
left behind throughout his entire career. Here goes nothing….

“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE
-Where has the Macho Man been? Why don’t we hear from him any more? Randy
Savage, throughout his entire career (even in his last days in WCW when he
really, really sucked) was 20x the wrestler that Hulk Hogan ever was on his
best day. When Randy Savage first entered the WWF in the 1980’s, he was an
absolute monster. He was outworking everyone in the entire promotion and in
fact had to tone down some of his style, as he was exposing the entire WWF
roster for being lazy steroid freaks or fat guys, which are what a lot of them
were. When Savage first won the WWF title at Wrestlemania 4, his popularity
absolutely skyrocketed and he arguably became more popular than Hogan. The
whole storyline between Hogan and Savage leading up to Wrestlemania 5 had
subtle undertones of Hogan being jealous of Savage’s success. Hogan should
have been the one to turn heel to lead up to that PPV, but Hogan realized that
Savage was growing more popular, so instead Savage was given the duty to turn
heel and jobbed to Hogan cleanly (in one of Hogan’s best matches EVER). Hulk
Hogan was given another year on the top while Savage had to flounder around the
midcard for the next 20 years or so in meaningless feuds with guys like Dusty
Rhodes.

Randy Savage regained success as World champion again to be certain. But Hogan
was never far behind. When Savage won the World title in a great ****1/4
classic against Ric Flair at Wrestlemania 8, Hogan wrestled in a terrible main
event that wasn’t for a title two matches higher on the card. There were two
different instances in WCW, one in 1998 after the Spring Stampede PPV and one
in 1999 after the Bash at the Beach PPV, where Savage won the title on those
PPV’s and jobbed it to Hogan on Nitro the very next night. These two men
worked together in the wrestling business for close to 20 years and had many
different clashes over that period of time. Randy Savage did multiple jobs for
Hogan in big matches and many times for world titles. Savage was always a
better wrestler than Hogan and almost always tried to make Hogan look great in
the ring. Know how many jobs Hogan did to Savage over the years? Zero. Where is
Randy Savage now? Who knows?

STING

-This guy was WCW’s Hulk Hogan for years; only he was a really good wrestler.
A lot was going on in WCW in 1994 that involved turning the company around and
getting the fans more interested in it (I’ll get into this in greater detail
later on). Sting was always an upper-midcarder/main-eventer and was always
REALLY over with WCW audiences. Then Hulk Hogan was signed and Sting never
fully recovered. WCW gave Hogan the ball to run with and gave him basically
complete political pull backstage as well. Sting floundered around the midcard
for a couple years after this (sound familiar?) where he was involved in feuds
with such luminaries as Avalanche (John Tenta/Earthquake), Meng and Steven
Regal. He also had a really long run as tag champion with Lex Luger. When Sting
finally was retooled in 1997 after the huge N.W.O angle shook things up in WCW,
Sting had to sit out for an entire year. He was the most popular wrestler in
WCW for all of 1997, but he never wrestled one match. He was the mysterious
Crow figure who hid in the rafters and sought nothing but a match and revenge
against the evil, despised man that was Hulk Hogan. It was a great angle for
the most part (although Sting should never have sat out for the entire year),
and it was supposed to have the greatest blow-off match in history. It was the
match that every wrestling fan wanted to see. Then Hogan ****ed it all up.

You see, instead of Sting beating the crap out of Hogan and heroically winning
the WCW title, Hogan bitched about jobbing cleanly to Sting and the finished
was changed to a terrible screwjob involving Hogan beating Sting cleanly, a
botched fast count and a changed decision by Bret Hart (who had to ref a ****ty
match earlier in the evening and thus still had power as a ref). Sting won the
world title in extremely screwy fashion, was stripped of it a couple weeks
later, then the won it back from Hogan in another very screwy match a couple
months later after most of the heat for the feud was gone. All of this stemmed
from Hogan having political power over the booking squad behind the scenes and
refusing to ever make himself look bad in any way. Sting was no longer a very
good wrestler at this point due to injuries and laziness and never fully
recovered in the ring. He was never given much of a run as the #1 guy in WCW
after that, as Hogan kept ending up with the world title over and over again.
Sting did go out in glory, as he and Ric Flair had the final match on the final
edition of WCW Nitro, but his career was never the same after Hulk Hogan
entered WCW and he’s now retired from the business altogether.

“THE NATURE BOY” RIC FLAIR
-A man who got absolutely butchered by Hulk Hogan on several different
occasions throughout his illustrious career. When Ric Flair wrestled for the
WWF in 1991/1992 and was given a strong run as WWF champion, the WWF wanted to
build to a dream match between Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan at their biggest PPV:
Wrestlemania 8. Hogan didn’t want to work with Ric Flair and suddenly decided
that he wanted to “retire” (which lasted about a year), so Flair ended up
jobbing the world title to Randy Savage on the undercard of the show while
Hogan had a ****ty match with Sid Vicious in the main event. The dream match
between Flair and Hogan never happened in the WWF.
Fast forward to 1994 in WCW. Flair is booking the promotion and things are
generally going quite well. Flair is the number one babyface world champion on
the country and very, very popular. He was grooming a guy named Steve Austin to
be the next big thing in WCW by booking Steve Austin in a series of matches
with Ricky Steamboat for the WCW US title. The tag team situation was read hot,
Sting was still a strong main-event contender, Vader was kicking all kinds of
ass and things were looking bright for the promotion. Then WCW signed Hulk
Hogan and flushed the entire operation down the toilet. Hogan was immediately
promised the world title, so Ric Flair (who had been built up for months as the
number one babyface in the company) did a quick, hastily-booked and badly
executed heel turn and went on to job the title to Hogan at Bash at the Beach
1994, in a match where Hogan made Flair look like a complete jobber the entire
time. They had a rematch later on that year at Halloween Havoc inside of a
steel cage, where both men put their careers on the line. Hogan destroyed
Flair, made him look like a jobber and ended up “retiring” Ric Flair. When
Ric Flair decided he’d start showing up on WCW television again, he once
dressed as a woman, bought a seat at ringside, then was beaten up by Hogan in
order for Hogan to win a strap match that Flair wasn’t even involved in. True
story. After Hulk Hogan was signed into WCW, much of the midcard talent
(emphasis on talent here) that Ric Flair had been pushing such as Steve Austin
and Cactus Jack were dumped from the promotion and a new wave of “talent”
was brought in, specifically Hogan’s friends such as Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The
Honky Tonk Man, Ed Leslie and John Tenta.

Ric Flair did make it back to the main event of WCW on several more occasions.
He had a nice feud over the world title with Randy Savage in 1995 (one WCW PPV
featured a great steel cage match between Savage and Flair for the world title
early in the card, and Hogan wrestling the Giant in a ****ty match in the main
event, sound familiar?). But later on in WCW, he had a long falling out with
the company that stemmed from contract disagreements with Eric Bischoff. When
Flair finally returned (as the most over guy in the company) he had to wrestle
matches with Eric Bischoff and tag team with his son David before he got
another run at the world title (Hogan pretty much had a deadlock on the world
title for most of that time). The only match in which Flair beat Hogan for the
world title was in 1999 and it ended in incredibly screwy fashion. Flair jobbed
the belt to undeserving champion Diamond Dallas Page a month later. Ric Flair,
one of the greatest wrestlers in history, was made out to look like a complete
joke by Hulk Hogan for the greater portion of his WCW career.

BILLY KIDMAN
-For those of you who don’t remember, the same Billy Kidman who is now
tearing up the cruiserweight scene in the WWE was once given a shot (if you
could call it that) at main event glory in WCW. It was mid-2000 and WCW brought
in Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo to team up and try to completely revitalize
the WCW product. The two brought out hundreds of different angles, but one in
particular involved Billy Kidman stepping up to the plate and challenging Hulk
Hogan. You see, Kidman had some legitimate gripes about Hogan behind the scenes
in WCW and Hogan Bischoff and Russo thought it would make for an interesting
feud. When the feud first started, it was seen as a way to get the young and
very talented Kidman over with a main-eventer and allow Hogan to finally start
working with the younger wrestlers. Hogan didn’t exactly want to be
cooperative.

The first time that Hogan responded to Kidman’s challenge was at the 2000
Spring Stampede PPV. Kidman was having a pretty good match with Vampiro (in a
tournament for the WCW US title) when the ref got knocked out and Hogan came
out and pounded on Kidman for about five minutes. After those five minutes,
(which is a long-ass time for outside interference) Vampiro ended up pinning
Kidman. The stage was set for a PPV match between Kidman and Hogan at
Slamboree. It was the chance for Kidman to step up to the main event and get
some payback (Kidman was playing heel, Hogan was playing face) and put on a
respectable match with Hogan. So what happened? Hogan tossed Kidman around the
ring for about ten minutes, making him look like a complete jobber and then
power-bombing him through a table after winning the match. They decided that
the feud should continue for another month, so Kidman and Hogan fought one more
time at the Great American Bash PPV that year. The stipulation: If Hogan wins
he gets a WCW world title shot, if Kidman wins he gets NOTHING! Pretty sweet
deal for Kidman, huh? Just about everybody and his brother knew Hogan was
winning that match, and sure enough, Hogan squashed Kidman like a jobber and
Billy Kidman’s brush with the main event completely ended. Nobody gained
anything from the feud and Kidman went right back to competing as a
cruiserweight. The best part? Hogan was quoted to say sometime during his feud
with Kidman: “That kid couldn’t draw a flea market.”

BILL GOLDBERG
-This is a more indirect trampling on Hogan’s part. Bill Goldberg was
arguably the most popular wrestler in the history of WCW. He wasn’t that
great in the ring, but he was different and exciting. WCW knew that Goldberg
needed to be their world champion, so they actually got Hulk Hogan (who I
don’t think had ever jobbed cleanly to anyone in WCW since he entered the
promotion) to job the world title to Goldberg cleanly in the spring of 1998. As
was always the case with Hulk Hogan, there was a catch to him jobbing: he
wanted to win the world title back cleanly shortly thereafter. It didn’t
quite happen like that, but it was close enough.

Bill Golderg held the WCW world title all through the summer of 1998, but Hulk
Hogan demanded the main event slot, so Bill Goldberg defended the world title
on the undercards of PPV’s while Hogan main event the shows in tag matches
with such buy-rate grabbing athletes as Dennis Rodman, Eric Bischoff and Jay
Leno. Starrcade, which was WCW’s biggest show of the year rolled around, and
Bill Goldberg (still the most popular guy in WCW) were scheduled to defend his
world title against a Kevin Nash, a very good friend of Hogan. Nash, who was
not over at all, won the world title from Goldberg after Scott Hall interfered.
A couple of weeks later, the famous “fingerpoke of doom” incident occurred
and Hulk Hogan was once again world champion. Goldberg floundered around in
midcard feuds with the likes of Scott Hall, Bam Bam Bigelow and even Rick
Steiner. He didn’t get back into the world title hunt until late 1999 and by
that time much of his heat had died. Hogan and Kevin Nash ran rampant over the
main event for most of this time and did everything they possibly could to bury
the guy that they knew was more over than they were.

CHRIS BENOIT, EDDY GUERRERO, DEAN MALENKO AND STEVEN REGAL: There four guys
were supposed to form a bad-ass, anti-horsemen group called the Apocalypse who
would feud with the Horsemen (and no doubt put on several ****+ matches in the
process) and generally kick ass. An angle was actually shot to form the group
after a match between Benoit and Malenko at Spring Stampede 1997, but Hulk
Hogan quickly vetoed the entire thing and it was never heard from again. The
wrestling audience was robbed of a great feud.

BRET HART: The WWF wanted Hogan to job the title to Bret Hart at Summerslam
1993 and leave the promotion gracefully. Hogan refused, stating that Bret Hart
wasn’t over enough, so we had to sit through another freaking year of
Yokozuna as world champion while Bret feuded with Jerry Lawler. All because
Hogan wouldn’t job to the better man. Later on in WCW, Bret Hart had a
kick-ass feud with Ric Flair at the beginning of 1998 and the PPV where those
two wrestled in the main event drew a HUGE buyrate that Hogan had not been
drawing on previous PPV’s. So what happens? Bret Hart is buried for another
year while Hogan immediately thrusts himself back into the main event. Bret
doesn’t earn the WCW world title until the end of 1999, and even then he only
holds it about a month.


-You see what I’m saying here? Everyone who considers Hogan to be
“tolerable” right now needs to take a long look back at everything he did,
and all the people he stepped on, on the way to where he is right now. That’s
all I have to say about that.

Any praise, questions, complaints grievances, requests or other should be
e-mailed to me. I appreciate any kind of feedback you send me. Until next
time…..

[tvje]

One of the biggest disgraces in WCW history is Ric Flair not appearing at all on the Starrcade 1994 PPV.

Ric Flair made Starrcade, you can not have a Starrcade (when Flair is with the company, so I am not counting 1991 and 1992 Starrcades) without him.