The Mount Rushmore of Warrior vs. Hogan WrestleCrap in WCW

Warrior vs “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan in the wonder world of World Championship Wrestling!

My beautiful people, how are ya’ll?

I’d intended this one to come out on Halloween, but as you can see, those plans did not come to fruition. So now ya’ll gotta deal with being scared in November. And I gotta say, in terms of WrestleCrap, this is my all-time favorite. To me, it’s equal in entertainment when compared to an actual great feud, like Jericho vs Michaels back in 2008, or Shawn vs ‘Taker in 2010.

What’s something ya’ll would like to see up here? Someone make a suggestion, and then ya’ll up vote it if you like it. Democracy!

Why It’s On The Mountain: Well, other than the obvious, it’s here because it is just pure-WCW when things go wrong, and just pure Warrior. The crowd pops like crazy when Warrior shows up, and that makes perfect sense. We hadn’t seen Warrior in years, and we’d never seen him in WCW. So, to have him come out, at the height of the Monday Night Wars, was a major ordeal. Because lemme tell you this, if there’s one things wrestling fans love more than anything, it’s nostalgia, and this was no exception.
However, once he comes out and starts talking, things go wrong, fast. He took 20 minutes to literally say this “You were good, now you’re bad, and I have to beat you up for that. Even though beating you means nothing. Remember when I beat you before? That was the time that I beat you. When I beat you. Remember? When I beat you?”.

Warrior Debuts – Monday Nitro – August 17th, 1998
Hulkster comes out with Bischoff & The Disciple, and begins talking about how he’s gonna get his strap back, and take care of all the trash at War Games. He then starts talking about who he’s defeated, all the wrestlers, al l the wars, and of course, all the warriors. Naturally this brings out the one and only, Warrior. We then pan to the entrance way, and Warrior has the WEAKEST pyro going on. It literally looks like 2 road flares, and then they finally pop. We pan back to Hogan, and props for his response, as he’s legit slack-jawed, and it’s shaking. The crowd is loving it. Honestly, this should have been Warrior’s deal, coming in for a single shot, and leaving the company there after.
Warrior takes quite a while to start talking, and once he does, you wish he didn’t. He starts rambling about their attempt at a knockoff, IE The Renegade. He then legit takes 5 minutes to say “We fought 8 years ago, and I beat you.” and he finds about 367 ways to reference the word “ultimate”. He then actually has a clever line when he looks at the Disciple and says “This must be your barber”. After that, he just praddles on, and doesn’t really say much. It’s literally just rambling. He uses all these $5 words to say “You’re a bad guy, and I need to beat you”. He even calls Hogan “self-indulgent” as he’s in the middle of a 20 minute promo that was suppose to be about 8-10. The highlight being when he says “beating you has no meaning anymore, everyone already has”. OK, so, you’re here to defeat him, even though it means nothing. He then says next week he’s gonna start a big revolution, and honest to God says “Same Warrior time, same Warrior place, same Warrior channel” before there’s white static on the monitors as smoke fills the ring, and a Warrior-logo Batsignal shines in the arena. Holy shit. How on Earth did anyone involved with this not immediately pop the cyanide capsule they keep in a false tooth? We were suppose to take this guy serious, and he has his own Batsignal.
This was really bad. It came off as super boring, with Warrior doing nothing to make me interested in what they’re doing, other than the novelty of him being back. A BATSIGNAL!

Why It’s On The Mountain: How could this not be on the mountain? It’s one of the Top 5 most ridiculous moments in WCW history, so naturally it’s gonna be all over this.

”I know how the game is played!” – Monday Nitro – October 5th, 1998
Hogan and Bischoff are looking for the Disciple, who is now with Warrior, and probably working on a new gimmick that crosses an astronaut with Blade from the game Bad Dudes, and I seriously doubt he’s a bad enough dude to rescue the President. They head to the back of the building in pursuit, where they see him duck into Hogan’s dressing room, apparently. Once in there, he’s no where to be found. However, Hogan does find someone, and that someone is Warrior, and that place? The mirror. He whips his head back, then returns to the mirror, where he starts to ramble “OK, Warrior, I got the number, I know how the game is played”. Meanwhile, Bischoff, at his side, screams “Hollywood! Look at what?!”, except the Warrior is in fact there, the announcers see it and speak about it. So, while attempting to make Hollywood look crazy, Bischoff looks crazy. Or, this is how he found out he was legally blind. I dunno. Eventually Warrior is no longer in the mirror, yet Hogan still sees it. Hogan still screams at it. I just….I can’t wrap my mind around how no one picked up on Bischoff not being able to see it. Even then, they needed to not have the Warrior appear in the mirror at all if this is what they’re going to do, because it doesn’t make Hogan look crazy when we can see it, it just reaffirms Hogan’s eye-sight capabilities, which we know are supernatural since he was able to spot The Wall a top the motel that was 3 states away.

Why It’s On The Mountain: Because it’s once again, WCW at it’s most ridiculous. We’ve got the War Games match, which everyone loves. However, they decide to change the rules, so that people can win whenever, even though no one wins until everyone is in there. We get Hogan & Warrior, who are in the match all of like 3 minutes, in one of the stupidest displays in the history of pro-wrestling. Beyond that, despite the match having arguably the most talent in one match than any other ever, not a damn thing happened. I mean, this would be so hard to screw up, and in those terms, they hit a massive home run.

Sting, Lex Luger, Kevin Nash vs Roddy Piper, DDP, Warrior vs Bret Hart, Stevie Ray, Hulk Hogan – War Games – Fall Brawl 1998
The match starts with DDP & Bret. They say Bret was an nWo Hollywood member, yet you’ll never find him in an nWo shirt. He always wore a Hogan shirt. He never wore a traditional nWo shirt. DDP & Bret have a pretty decent first 5 minutes, with Bret working over DDP most of the time, and DDP getting a few flurries of offense. Next up is Stevie Ray. Good Lord. Stevie Ray is the type of wrestler who should never be a singles. He worked great in Harlem Heat, and would be fine as a heavy to someone. They work over DDP until Sting arrives and the crowd loses their shit. People can rag on the Wolfpac, but as someone who lived it live, they were massively over, and it breathed new life into the nWo. Hell, it brought Sting back from the grave after they completely destroyed him after Starrcade 1997. Piper shows up next, and just starts slugging it out with everyone, since it’s every man for themselves, apparently. So why even have teams?! Sexy Flexy Lexy is up next, and the crowd once again loses their collective shit. I thought this was Lex’s best look.
Apparently you can win this match before everyone shows up, as pin attempts and counts are being made. You know, at one point I heard Nash say he was pretty damn close to being as over as Goldberg was during the time he broke the streak. When he comes out here, I believe it. Because Nash comes out, and legit gets like a 20 second long pop, and Nash ran to the ring, so it wasn’t just an entrance pop. Almost immediately afterward, Hogan shows up with a slap-jack, and knocks everyone out. Now, they could pin anyone and win, I guess, but no one does a thing. Hogan then decides he wants to pin Nash, so they go over, and clearly have to move his body because he’s on Warrior’s trap door. Hogan just keeps dropping legs on Nash, and NO ONE TRIES TO PIN. Naturally, the ring fills with smoke, and once it’s gone, the Warrior appears. Hogan beats him down, but the smoke fills the ring, and he’s gone. But now he’s back, coming from the entrance way. Warrior whoops on Hogan & Stevie Ray, and when Stevie starts to return fire with some forearms, Bobby says “I don’t know if even the Warrior can withstand that”. The dude can freaking teleport, but can’t handle some forearms from a jobber?
Hogan then locks Warrior in the cage, who is now stuck. EVEN THOUGH 60 FREAKING SECONDS BEFORE HAND HE WAS ABLE TO TELEPORT IN AND OUT! He stomps around, and decides to kick his way out of the cage, and brawls with Hogan in the asile before cops pull them apart. Jesus. Every single wrestler must have just been sick seeing this. Warrior was brought in for a massive contract, and in a months time, all we’ve seen him do in a wrestling capacity is throw some punches. That’s it. It’s so insulting. After all that, DDP snaps off a Diamond Cutter on Stevie Ray and wins the match. I’ve often heard about how this is one of the worst main events in history, and while it was really bad, wasn’t nearly that bad. When something is as terrible as Nailz vs Virgil from SummerSlam 1992, then we can talk.
DDP wins with the Diamond Cutter at 18:32 | **

Why It’s On The Mountain: I’m not even gonna insult ya’ll with why this is on here…
Hulk Hogan vs Warrior – Halloween Havoc 1998
Hogan’s music starts as the Jimi Hendrix tune, Voodoo Child [Chille? Chillie?], but then a quarter of the way through it, it just stops and goes into the original nWo music. More Warrior head-games I’m sure. I’m also sure he was behind Regal’s musical rib during that match in Europe. As he makes his way to the ring, we get a recap from last week’s Nitro where Hogan hits his nephew with a chair, and Tony tells us it’s something that’s as vicious as anything we’ve seen in pro-wrestling. It’s true, when I first saw the act I wondered how WCW was allowed to air Terry Funk vs Mick Foley – King of the Deathmatch.
It’s Warrior Time, baby! Wow, he’s breathing like he ran to the arena. Wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.
WCW: Warrior, we’ve arranged a car to take you to the arena.
Warrior: A car? What is a car, more than a vessel to take you to places, where’s I, I am the same! Hop on my back and I’ll piggy-back you to the arena!
At this point he rushes off to the sound of him going “wooooosh”.
They talk about how great their respective builds are, and how that makes them two of the greatest of all time. Sure.
Warrior starts the match with a punch. They circle, collar and elbow tie up leads to Hogan kneeing the Warrior in the mid-section, then dropping about twenty fore-arms to the back. Twists the arm 3 times. Then Warrior twists the arm and Hogan sells it like Warrior ripped his arm off and beat him in an arm-wrestling contest with it. After this Hogan drops out of the ring, and walks around to calm down. Back in. Warrior wants a test of strength. So after he begs him for a test of strength, they collar and elbow. To the corner, Hogan rocks a bunch of forearms, a bunch of clumsy mish-mash and Hogan gets a choke or something like it, then drops the boots a couple of times.
He grabs Warrior’s arm and bends it up above the turnbuckle, then drags him out for a test of strength. Stomps the mid-section of the Warrior a couple more times. They’re basically intentionally recreating their famous test-of-strength from WM6. Warrior mounts the comeback, Hogan kicks him and sends him back to his knees. Hogan laughs like a villain. Warrior back up. Arm twist again. Warrior reverses it. Hogan whips him, then Hogan runs the ropes with a criss-cross. Hogan stops and body-slams him. Warrior gets right back up from this bomb-shell and does the same. Then sends him outside with a clumsy clothesline and Hogan acts like death is at his door. Warrior follows. Face smash to the guard-rail. Hogan rakes the eyes. Smashes Warrior’s face on the rail. Warrior smashes Hogan’s face on the rail. Warrior then smashes Hogan’s face on the turnbuckle pole.
Back in. Warrior goes for a clothesline, Hogan ducks it, comes back with one of his own, Warrior drops, Hogan hits the ref. Then drops a knee on him, whoops. Hogan slugs Warrior, and ties him up in the ropes. Pulls him out and calls for some help. Here comes the Giant. Hogan holds Warrior, Giant comes in, rocks the boot, hits Hogan. Warrior follows with a clothesline and out goes Giant. He hits the rest of the nWo, and they scoured. Goes for a pin, but there isn’t a ref. He goes to wake him up, only to get a Hogan forearm to the back for his efforts. Then he puts Warrior’s arm over his head, as if to back-suplex him, but then just sits there for like, 2 seconds. As if both dudes were so winded from this crap that they couldn’t even execute the most simplest of moves. But that couldn’t be. Hogan rocks the impossible-plex and goes for the pin. Warrior manages to kick-out. Hogan then drives the knees into Warrior’s back. He picks him up, and kinda punches him, then chokes him. Backs off. Hogan takes the belt off and starts to whip Warrior. Who flails around the ring like he’s being electrocuted and accidentally kicks the ref. It’s damn funny to see.
He chokes Warrior. The ref pulls him off. Hogan fish-hooks him. Back in the middle, a body slam. Hogan misses an elbow. Goes for it again, Warrior rolls out of the way, Hogan gets back up only to find the Warrior isn’t the Warrior anymore! But a log of sheer rolling destruction. The Log comes at Hogan at a break-neck speed, and instead of stepping to the left, or the right, the Log takes out Hogan’s feet. Sorta. Hogan stumbles. Tony saves the day by calling it a rolling block. Flair and Steamboat get the itch. Back up. Warrior clubs Hogan, sending him to the ground. Tries the splash, misses it. Hogan picks him back up, they trade blows, and Hogan stumbles and falls. Warrior takes off Hogan’s belt, and it’s odd-looking. He whips Hogan. Warrior makes a fist out of the belt and slugs Hogan. Back up, Hogan pulls out a baggie with like a hundred things in it. He throws paper at the Warrior, who deflects it, thank God. The flash paper then lights up in Hogan’s hand. Warrior slugs Hogan, then goes to the corner to investigate. He stomps out Hogan’s little scheme and takes him back to the middle of the ring. At this point, you can audibly hear Warrior say to Hogan “you’re fucking it up”. Yup. That botched fireball really did it.
Warrior goes up, hits Hogan with a double ax-handle, but only gets one fist. Tries it again, but just ends up patting Hogan on the head. Hogan low-blows Warrior, hits a weak clothesline, and rocks the leg-drop. Here comes Horace. With no stitches. Hogan misses the second leg-drop. Warrior hulks-up. Hogan can’t stop it. Three clotheslines and Hogan’s down. Bischoff comes over and gets the ref in a head-lock. Horace is slower than all-hell and Bischoff holds the ref for about 10 times longer than expected. Horace is ready to give Hogan the receipt. But instead hits Warrior with the WEAKEST…I repeat….the WEAKEST chair shot to the center of Warrior’s back. I mean, the center of his back. Tony screams that Warrior got blasted in the back of the head. Might as well have, because Warrior sells it like he got blasted with a shot-gun. We get the 1….we get the 2….we get the 3. My goodness. Well, at least the ridiculousness is over…..oh no wait. They douse Warrior in lighter-fluid, and attempt to murder him in the middle of the ring. No such luck. Office heads come in and muck the plan up.
Hogan pins Warrior after a chair-shot at 12:45 | DUD for technical, ***** for entertainment