411’s WWE Evil Episode One Report: ‘Hollywood’ Hulk Hogan

-New series time as this is the first WWE content labeled as a Peacock Original and has John Cena as a producer. They dumped all eight episodes at one time, so we will see how fast I can get through these. Let’s get to it!

-Run Time: 45:51

-Hulk Hogan opens this as he talks about the difference between Hulk Hogan and what he became with Hollywood Hogan.

-Show opening with Kevin Dunn, Vince McMahon, John Cena and a bunch of others listed as Executive Producers. John Cena will also be our narrator.

-Cena chimes in that Hogan was the most diabolical villain in sports-entertainment history. We flashback to the 80s where Hulk Hogan is the larger than life personification of everything you want in a hero.

-MSG: Jan 23, 1984: Hulk Hogan SQUASHES The Iron Sheik to win the WWF Title for the first time. David Shoemaker pops up as a talking head as he talks about Hogan being a hero that was an idolized version of the people that watched.

-Hogan gives credit to himself and even more-so the promotion for helping create Hulk-a-mania. DDP talks about how massive of a star Hogan was in the 80s and that he was everywhere. Jimmy Hart talks about Hogan being on Carson and Leno and Saturday Night Live. Hart apparently told Hogan to wear the red and yellow because it was McDonald’s and they were all over the world. We get Hogan on the cover of SI (big deal at the time), doing movies, doing commercials. HOGAN CARTOON SERIES!

-Oh man, they got AC SLATER FOR THIS THING! Mario Lopez mentions Hulk Hogan came around in his formative years and he loved everything about him. THUNDERLIPS! This is making me so happy because this is my childhood flashing before my eyes. They touch on Hogan being the patriot against people like Volkoff and Sheik.

-We get to the 90s and it’s counter culture with grunge and gangster rap. TUPAC AND DRE: CALIFORNIA LOVE. Man, the great thing with this being Peacock produced is they are getting a lot more footage from things outside WWE. So Hogan started getting booed more and more because fans are growing tired of the red and yellow routine.

-SUBURBAN COMMANDO. Screw, you all that movie ruled! Hogan’s acting career didn’t take off like he hoped, and Hogan admits he was on shaky ground and not making money. Vince thought his run was over and Hogan says he was lucky that WCW had a soundstage near where he was shooting Thunder in Paradise.

-Enter Eric Bischoff with the help of Ric Flair and Hogan was all in on going to WCW. He was still the biggest name in the sport and Bischoff points out Hogan was still a bankable star with advertisers. Hogan says he never thought he would run against Vince, but Bischoff was relentless.

-Bruce Prichard said the WWF’s view was that sure he may help bring WCW up a little as they were a small pond, but it wouldn’t be what happened in the 80s with the WWF. That sounds about right as far as the attitude I expect they would have had. Bischoff says it was a big deal and served it’s purpose, but after a year they audience started wearing thing of the act. They knew Hogan needed to change.

-Bischoff flew down to Hogan’s house and pitched the idea of turning heel. Hogan wasn’t sure as the red and yellow was still generating revenue and it would be a risk for him. Bischoff came up with a plan B because he assumed Hogan was never going to take the risk.

-Now enter Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Still blows my mind we are nearing 26 years since this angle started. Kevin Nash talks about the perception being two of the WWF’s top guys were trying to invade WCW. It was genius! DDP: “Scott Hall and Kevin Nash killed everyone.” BISCHOFF POWERBOMB THROUGH THE GREAT AMERICAN BASH SIGN! Still amazing!

-The third man angle started and now Bischoff needed someone. Page says that everyone wanted that spot because they knew it was fire. He continues that nobody knew who the 3rd guy was because there wasn’t one yet.

-Hogan called Bischoff to fly out to LA to talk things over. Bischoff says Hogan asked him who the third man was and Bischoff didn’t want to tell him, but he had Sting lined up. Hogan pops up and says it couldn’t be Sting and he realized he needed a major change. He started to question if his run was a fluke and if it was all because of Vince’s promotion. Hogan needed this more than anything and wanted to show he could be the greatest bad guy ever.

-Bash at The Beach 1996: HERE WE GO! Hall and Nash come out alone as Bischoff still wasn’t sure if Hogan was on board. Nash says up until 4 PM, Hogan was still having doubts and again, Sting turning was the backup plan. Bischoff’s top priority was keeping it a secret and he hid Hogan in a janitor’s closet and had him go over the promo beginning to end.

-Dusty: “HULK HOGAN IS IN THE BUILDING.” Tony: “YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT HE IS!” Injects all this in my vein! This just makes me so happy! Peter Rosenberg is here as he says it was time for Hogan to come to the rescue. Nash is giddy as he mentions he was in on it and was five minutes away from the photo-op of a life time. That’s what I always wonder is what was going through the mind of Hall and Nash. I mean, they were WWF New Generation guys and yet, here they are in WCW about to run with a heel turned Hulk Hogan. It’s still surreal even 26 years later.

-Hogan brings up Hennan’s, “Whose side is he on line,” and Rosenberg was confused by it as there was no question to him Hogan was here to save WCW. Bischoff says it was hard for him to breath because he was so excited. HOGAN DROPS THE LEG ON SAVAGE AND THE WRESTLING WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER!

-Mean Gene is out and Hogan gives the greatest interview of his life, and it is the definition of a money promo. Trash pelted the ring and it’s still awesome! This is real emotion coming out of the fans and Hogan just fed off it. This is all glorious! “You can call this the New World Order of wrestling, brother.” Scott Hall was just in his glory during Hogan’s promo.

-They talk about the aftermath as they had to call police to escort them out of the building and even news media picked up the story. Apparently, people flooded Turner offices with phone calls as they were pissed their kids had lost their hero. Corey Taylor of Slipknot pops up because why not, and talks about how pissed off people were. People were burning Hogan wrestling buddies out of anger. Kids were crying and grown men were pissed. Hogan was now the most hated man in wrestling. As for me, the moment Hogan showed up I knew he was the third mam because in my mind there was no other reason for him to be there. Perhaps I was naive as a 15 year old but it just made too much sense and when he dropped the leg, I ripped my shirt off and ran around the house because it was the greatest thing I had ever seen at the time.

-Funny thing though is that being a heel was easy for Hogan as he slipped right into the role. Shawn Michaels is here and he talks about the biggest change as far as on camera was Hogan ditching the red and yellow for black and white. Shawn was also a fan of the beard as it added to the fact this was a different Hogan. Hulk laughs as his beard was blonde still and he used Just For Men to dye it shoe polish black. He was trying to look evil like Snidely Whiplash. We even get footage from that cartoon included here. I love this show!

-Booker T says there was no bigger boogeyman that Hollywood Hogan. Jimmy goes over the heel schtick Hogan was using at the time. We see footage of Hogan getting Most Hated Wrestler of The Year from Apter. They talk about how hardcore fans kind of dug the heel turn as there were people that loved seeing this side of Hogan. I was one of them!

-Booker talks about how the fans started to love the nWo and Hogan. Footage from Hogan abusing Muppets from Muppets in Space. Dr Phil is on this thing to provide some insight as to why fans will cheer for the perceived bad guys. Basically they got to be everything we wished we could be and do. Bischoff talks about the audience changing and digging the anti-hero more than the traditional hero.

-Corey Taylor loved seeing things we never saw as they took you backstage or in the parking lot. Booker calls the angle genius and talks about how everyone had the nWo shirt. Rapper, Zombie Juice, mentions his grandmother wouldn’t allow him to wear the nWo shirt in her house and even tore down his Hulk Hogan poster. I got my nWo shirt for CHristmas in 1996 and wore that thing everywhere. I mean, top 3 wrestling shirts of all time has to be Austin 3:16, nWo, and then the yellow Hulk-amania one? Top two are easy as I guess third spot is open for debate.

-Hogan mentions the nWo thing was so cool it let him do things and get more press than he ever could in 1994. They talk about the ratings rising and doing NFL numbers as we see Leno, WCW’s deal with NASCAR, etc. Prichard credits Hogan’s heel turn as the reason WCW jumped ahead of the WWE for 83 weeks in the ratings.

-Foreboding from narrator Cena as he mentions the monster WCW built came back to destroy them. Bischoff goes back to his initial meetings with Hogan and Hogan was not trusting of anyone in the company and he wanted creative control. Of course, Bischoff was going to give it to him to get the deal done. Booker and Jimmy Hart talk about Hogan’s creative control. Hogan mentions a lot of wrestlers were upset by it and their egos got out of control. I mean, I am a massive Hogan fan but even I nearly choked when he mentioned other people’s egos getting out of control.

-Nash mentions Hogan’s creative control was hard for them as he would walk in and hit the famous “brother, that doesn’t work for me.” Nash: “fuck you then. What does work for you? Do you even have an idea?” He continues that they would work around it then.

-Hogan talks about the lunatics running the asylum and things falling apart. He blames the suits in the Turner Offices that didn’t know wrestling putting their two cents in. He says they were sabotaged by the suits who took WCW away from Bischoff.

-That leads to Vince Russo being brought in as the savior as Eric feels Russo convinced those in charge that he was the brains behind The Attitude Era. Sweet! They have Russo here for this so we get both sides of the story. He claims there was a target on his back the minute he walked into WCW. Hogan claims Russo told everyone he was going to fire anyone 1 day over 40 years old. This is fantastic! Bischoff says Russo was able to galvanize the young talent by bad mouthing the older guys. Russo shoots back that Hogan and Flair can’t wrestle forever and you needed to build up the undercard. Back to Bischoff who says Russo’s goal was to end Hulk Hogan’s career. Back to Russo who talks about how paranoid wrestlers are and they will believe anything. Bischoff: “Vince Russo never butted heads with anyone to their face. It was always to their back. Don’t edit that out. I dare you.” This whole back and forth with Hogan, Bischoff, and Russo made this episode and this series for me. Everything gets a thumbs from me!

-Bash at The Beach 2000: Russo says Hogan didn’t like the first script or the second one. Hogan says he didn’t like Russo from day one and they were trying to get the belt off him and onto Jarrett. Russo wrote that Hogan would basically kill everyone in the building but wouldn’t walk out with the title. Jimmy Hart tells us that Hogan wanted to win at the PPV and would drop the title to Jarrett on Nitro the next night. Russo says he went to Jarrett and told him to lay down for Hogan and let him leave with his belt.

-We see the match and Hogan says he told Jarrett not to do it. “Is this your deal Russo? That’s why this company is in the shape it is because of bullshit like this.” Russo comes out later in the show and rips Hogan a new one as he talks about the politics and how he came back for the guys who care about the company. Russo says he had to go meet with the head of TNT and explain what happened. He asked how he left it with Hulk? Lawsuits is where it ended up going. It all ended eight months later with Vince McMahon buying WCW. They talk about the downfall of WCW. Vince says he didn’t feel an ego boost as to him it was business as usual. Yeah, I’m not buying that one.

-The nWo (Hogan, Hall, Nash) are brought into WWE in 2002 and that leads to Hogan/Rock. This thing just keeps getting more and more awesome. Vince told Hogan that things were different and he needed to bring it with The Rock. Hogan shot back that if I bring it you will be begging me to take it back.

-WrestleMania X-8: It’s still awesome and still amazing and I gave it ***** back then and I give the full boat even now. That crowd is still just something amazing to watch and Hogan just stole the show that night as he could still turn it on. Prichard says the crowd told them they loved Hogan and perhaps they were shoving The Rock down their truth. Hogan talks about Rock being booed and how it was weird as he was in the company trying to put WWF out of business and yet they were quick to cheer him like it was 1985. Prichard credits Hogan and Rock for listening to the crowd and making it work. Rock gets the win, but Hogan is the one that ends up winning the WWF Title a month or so later. The talking heads theorize Hogan learned he could have elements of Hollywood, but not be the total chicken heel.

-Hogan says it was so intense that Vince asked him where his red and yellow gear was as they needed it again. That I can buy because Vince is no dummy and he knew they needed to jump on that wave as quick as possible.

-Cena wraps things up as he mentions we all have a little bit of Hollywood Hogan inside of us. Bischoff gets says that the evil Hulk Hogan character at it’s core was that Hogan turned his back on the fans that help make him. It was genuine betrayal, and it was hate that followed and to him it was a thing of beauty.

-Back to Cena as he talks about how amazing it is that Hogan was the most beloved wrestler for one generation and the most hated villain for another. Man has a point! Hogan from a WCW authorized video release from back in the day says in character that he gave wrestling life and how he controls the business like puppets and takes anything he wants financially. I mean, I think it was in character.

-I am going to love this series. This was great and it was nice to see them have access to footage that is outside WWE control and them bring in just random musicians and actors to discuss things. This is right up my alley as I love documentary pieces about wrestling and just enjoy hearing people discuss pro-wrestling. I marked out like crazy over a lot of the footage here, but the real great piece of business was the back and forth between Hogan, Russo, and Bischoff. I want more of that story. I will try to get these done as soon as possible, but wanted to make sure I got this one done on the day the series dropped. Thanks for reading!