Ask 411 Wrestling: Did Hulk Hogan Appear On WWE Raw In 1993?

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Through Hel Stryer and brimstone . . . it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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When A Different Ryan comes to heaven, we’ll tag up again:

Monday Night Raw debuted in January of 1993, however, I don’t remember Hulk Hogan, who was still in the company (and its World Champ from March to June) ever appearing on an episode (until he returned in 2002). Am I misremembering? If not, then why wouldn’t WWE put its top guy on their new show?

You’re misremembering. When Monday Night Raw debuted, we were on the road to Wrestlemania IX, which featured Money Inc. facing Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake in tag team action. Parts of the build to that match occurred on Raw, with Hogan present. The Hulkster’s Raw debut was on February 22, 1993, where he did an in-ring promo with Beefcake and Jimmy Hart. He was also on the March 8 episode to help build the match, though this was a pre-tape rather than being in front of the fans.

Admittedly, though Hogan was on Raw in 1993, he certainly wasn’t on Raw a lot. That’s pretty consistent with his WWF television schedule as a whole, though. You didn’t want Hulk Hogan to wrestle or do lengthy appearances on free TV. You wanted to save those for shows people had to pay for, whether that was a ticket to a live event or a pay per view broadcast.

Jonfw2 from just outside of Winnipeg is ranking and planking:

Based on the caliber of the women competing for and holding it, is the WWE Women’s Intercontinental championship the most important title currently held in American women’s wrestling?

We’re at a time when the biggest stars in women’s wrestling are competing for it, so, yes, it is unquestionably the most important championship going today.

I’m not sure if you were looking for some great, deep analysis here, but there’s none to be had. It just is what it is.

Mike!! (and, yes, he put the exclamation points there) has a question:

Who was the worst wrestler that the promotion wanted the fans to cheer for? Not the worst WRESTLER, but the worst face, as in how the hell is ANYONE gonna cheer for that guy? My answer is Alex Wright. That stupid ass dance that he did, how the hell was anyone gonna cheer for him, or buy his merch? Imagine any man wearing an Alex Wright t-shirt?

Erik Watts is my answer. I understand that the question wasn’t focused purely on in-ring talent, but Watts was SO not ready for prime time that, even in an era where kayfabe was still hanging on, fans saw through what was being presented to them by the promotion and knew the only reason he was in his position was because of who his father was.

Also, I’m going to defend Alex Wright a bit. You say a man wouldn’t wear an Alex Wright shirt. That is one hundred percent accurate. However, Alex Wright wasn’t there for men. Alex Wright was there to be a sex symbol for heterosexual women. You have to keep in mind that WCW had its roots in Jim Crockett Promotions, the territory that made money hand over fist selling Rock n’ Roll Express posters not to male fans but to female fans. They knew that there was profit in creating a sex symbol for the female fanbase.

Granted, that didn’t exactly click with Wright they way it did with the RnR’s or other noteworthy examples of this genre of wrestler, but I can’t fault them for trying. It was a decent idea on paper.

Jorge from Puerto Rico is bringing the TNT:

We’ve heard of a lot of best wrestlers to never win the world title, but I think Savio Vega never won any championship in WWF/E. Is he the best wrestler to never win any championship in WWE and the one with the longest run?

Savio did kinda, sort win a title in the WWF once, for whatever that is worth. On the April 15, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw, he challenged Goldust for the Intercontinental Championship. Referee Earl Hebner was inadvertently bumped by Vega, at which point referee Tim White came out to tend to Hebner. With Hebner still out and White’s attention diverted, Marlena slipped the Intercontinental Title belt to Goldust but, before he could use it, Savio intercepted the foreign object and smacked the champion with it. He then made the cover and Hebner counted to three, with Howard Finkel declaring Savio Vega as your winner and NEW Intercontinental Champion.

However, Tim White saw Vega use the weapon, and he declared Goldust the winner. WWF President Gorilla Monsoon then hit the ring, and he declared the championship vacant. So, Savio Vega did pin the champion and was announced as the new titleholder, but historic records do not consider him a former champ.

In any event, that wasn’t the question.

I don’t think Savio Vega is the best wrestler to never hold any title in the WWF/WWE, nor is his run particularly long compared to others who never had any title.

This is not an exhaustive list but, offhand, wrestlers who were better than Vega and never held a WWF/E title would include Jake Roberts, Dusty Rhodes, Dory Funk Jr., Paul Orndorff, and the Junkyard Dog.

You could also add Jim Duggan and Harley Race to that list depending on how you feel about being “King” and whether that is a championship in the traditional sense.

Bryan is comparing apples and oranges:

In your opinion what was a better Mania match, Savage vs Steamboat or Savage vs Warrior? I ask because to say Savage vs Warrior is to literally say the Ultimate Warrior, had a better match with the same opponent as Rick Steamboat. Doesn’t that sound absurd in retrospect?

I have never once heard a human being argue that Savage/Warrior was a better wrestling match than Savage/Steamboat, even though Savage/Warrior was very good in its own right.

Big Al knows there will be one empty seat when we wrestle at Wembley:

Most people agree that the greatest Summerslam match was British Bulldog vs Bret Hart in 1992. My question is, why was it ended with something as simple as a sunset flip instead of a power move or finishing move? Twelve year old me felt like it was a total let down after watching such am amazing match.

I actually didn’t consider it to be a letdown at all. I think it helped establish the story that these were two evenly matched opponents who were going at it tooth and nail with neither one of them developing an advantage significant enough to allow for a major move to be hit. In order to get past the Hitman, Bulldog had to sneak past him with a move that caught the Excellence of Execution off guard.

Plus – and I know this probably puts me in the minority in 2026 – I actually think wrestling becomes more boring the more we create the expectation that a match HAS to end with a finisher. Things are more thrilling and there are more storytelling possibilities opened up when matches can end at almost any time with almost any move.

But, then again, I also don’t like twenty minutes of commercials and entrances in between my wrestling matches, so I’m among the last of a dying breed here . . .

Tyler from Winnipeg has never been downloaded on America Online:

Was Sunny the first “internet star” in wrestling history?

When I hear the phrase “internet star,” I think of a wrestling personality whose popularity originated with so-called smart fans on the internet, which then sometimes bleeds over into becoming popular among the mainstream of wrestling fans.

That’s not what happened to Sunny. She didn’t get popular because of internet chatter. She got popular on WWF television, and then that created great demand for her pictures on the internet. She’s a TV star who took her popularity to the ‘net, not the other way around.

Thomas is not canon:

The other day I was randomly thinking about house shows and further more title changes at them. I know it rarely happens but has happened on a rare occasion. I was just wondering if you could give a brief history of title changes that occurred on WWE house shows and the fallout of said title change. Did the person that won the title or titles in case of tag title changes go on to have a long reign or did they immediately lose it back to the original title holder?

First off, don’t even think I’m going to touch the Hardcore or 24/7 Championships on this one. Let’s just say they both had more than their fair share of house show title changes given the gimmicks involved.

Some of the promotion’s earliest championships only ever changed hands on house shows because televised wrestling, though it existed, was just not that important. When Vince McMahon Sr.’s Capitol Wrestling Corporation was part of the NWA, Capitol recognized a version of the NWA United States Television Title from 1957 to 1962 which, somewhat ironically given its name, was only ever lost on house shows. The same is true of the WWWF United States Championship active from 1960 to 1976, the the northeastern version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the WWF International Heavyweight Championship, the WWF International Tag Team Championship, the WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship, and the WWF Canadian Championship.

Most of the title changes for the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship active between 1958 and 1967 were on house shows, though a handful of them did air on local television in Washington, D.C.

The first nine changes of the original WWWF/WWF/WWE Championship occurred on house shows, with the first non-house show title change occurring on February 5, 1988. Similarly, the first nine times the Intercontinental Championship changed hands, it was on house shows, which takes us through February 8, 1986. The original WWWF/WWF/WWE Tag Team Championship did change hands more frequently on television than the other two titles, but most of its title changes were on house shows until 1984.

(Regarding the above, I should note that I am still considering a card to be a “house show” even if it aired on a television station associated with the venue. For example, Madison Square Garden shows aired on the MSG Network regularly, but I’m calling them house shows because that was the intent of the product more so than being a TV show.)

Once we get into the WWF’s pay per view era, the WWF Championship has changed hands on a house show once and only once. It was on November 26, 1994, when Diesel steamrolled Bob Backlund for the belt and held it for nearly one year afterwards. (Wikipedia lists Bret Hart’s first title reign in 1992 has having begun on a house show, but that’s wrong. It was a TV taping, even though Hart’s match was taped for Coliseum Video and not TV proper. Do better, Wikipedia.)

The first time the IC Title changed hands on a house show during the PPV era of the WWF was on January 17, 1992 in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the Mountie defeated Bret Hart. The Mountie wound up being a transitional champion, losing the belt two days later to Roddy Piper at the Royal Rumble to set up the Piper/Hart match at Wrestlemania VIII.

Shawn Michaels also won the Intercontinental Championship at a house show on June 6, 1993 in Albany, New York. He held the title until September, when he was suspended for violating the company’s policy against use of performance enhancing drugs.

Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett traded the IC belt on house shows in 1995. First, Ramon defeated Jarrett in a ladder match on May 19 in Montreal. Two days later, Jarrett won the title back in Trois-Rivieres, a city that I had never heard of before writing this article. Jarrett would drop the title in July to Shawn Michaels.

Fast forward four years, and Edge wins his first Intercontinental Championship on a house show in Toronto on July 24, 1999. He defeated Jeff Jarrett and then lost the belt back to Jarrett the very next night on the Fully Loaded pay per view in Buffalo, New York.

Switching to the original WWF/WWE Tag Team Titles, the U.S. Express of Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo won them on a January 21, 1985 house show, beating Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, then losing the belts at the first Wrestlemania.

Another house show tag title change occurred on August 24, 1985 in Philadelphia, when the Dream Team of Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine wrested the belts away from Windham and Rotundo. They held the titles until Wrestlemania II the following year with a loss to the British Bulldogs.

Ted DiBiase and IRS – collectively known as Money Inc. – won their first WWF Tag Team Titles on a house show in Denver, Colorado on February 7, 1992 over the Legion of Doom. They held them until July with a loss to the Natural Disasters.

Money Inc.’s third title reign also started at a house show, this one on June 16, 1993 in Rockford, Illinois against the Steiner Brothers. Three days later, the Steiners won the belts back at another house show in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1994, we get three successive Tag Title changes at house shows, starting with the Quebecers beating the 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty on January 17, 1994 in New York. Men on a Mission then beat the Quebecers in London, England on March 29, 1994 with the Quebecers getting them back on March 31 in Sheffield, England. For years it was reported that MOM beating the Quebecers was a botched finish as Mabel fell on a Quebecer and didn’t get up quickly enough, though the wrestlers involved have disclaimed that in shoot interviews in more recent years.

Later the same year, Diesel and Shawn Michaels also won the tag belts at a house show in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 28, going over the Headshrinkers. They held the belts for roughly three months before they became one of the many, many titles that Shawn Michaels vacated rather than dropping in the ring.

Henry and Phinneas Godwinn won their first WWF Tag Team Titles in New York City at a house show on May 19, 1996, defeating the Bodydonnas. A week later, they dropped those titles to the Smoking Gunns as part of an angle in which Sunny was hopping between teams she managed in such a way that she actually managed three consecutive sets of Tag Team Champions.

We didn’t have another house show tag title change until after the Attitude Era had come and gone. The date is January 16, 2005, and La Resistance of Sylvan Grenier and Rob Conway won the titles in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The recognized champions were Eugene and William Regal, though, due to injury, Eugene was replaced by Jonathan Coachman in this particular match.

In 2007, WWE did a rare tour of South Africa, and the promotion decided to give the fans something special with some title changes. Paul London and Brian Kendrick won the WWE Tag Team Titles from Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch on September 5 in Cape Town, and then on September 7 in Johannesburg, Cade and Murdoch became champions once more.

Mike the Miz and Johnny Nitro became WWE Tag Team Champions for the first time on a December 13, 2008 house show in Hamilton, Ontario. The kept the titles until the next year’s Wrestlemania, where Carlito and Primo Colon got the belts.

The original version of the WWF/WWE Women’s Title – the one the company bought off of the Fabulous Moolah – changed hands at house shows in 1986 with Velvet McIntyre beating Moolah for the belt on July 3 in Brisbane, Australia and Moolah winning it back on July 9 in Sydney, presumably to give a little something special to the under-served Australian crowd.

Sensational Sherri also became Women’s Champ at a house show, pinning Moolah on July 24, 1987 in Houston, Texas. She would be champion for over a year, losing it to Rockin’ Robin in October 1988.

Moving forward almost a decade, Mickie James won the Women’s Title on April 24, 2007 at a house show in Paris, France, which was reportedly the result of a botched finish in a triple threat match between James, Champion Melina, and second challenger Victoria. Victoria failed to get her shoulder up as James pinned her, leading to the unplanned title change. There was then an immediate rematch with Melina, who won her belt back on the same show.

Speaking of women, the original version of the WWF Women’s Tag Team Titles also had a house show title change. The Galmour Girls of Judy Martin and Leilani Kai beat Desiree Peterson and Velvet McIntyre at a house show on August 1, 1985 in Cairo, Egypt.

The version of the World Tag Team Championship that was established in 2002 and continues to exist to this day on the Raw brand changed hands on a house show exactly once in its history. It occurred in Oakland, California on January 15, 2012 when Primo and Epico Colon went over Air Boom, the team of Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne (Matt Sydal). The Colons had a decent-length reign, losing the belts to Kingston and his new partner R-Truth on Raw on April 30 of the same year.

The NXT Championship also has exactly one house show title change in its history, with Samoa Joe ending Finn Balor’s reign on April 21, 2016 in Lowell, Massachusetts. This was followed by Joe dropping the belt to Shinsuke Nakamura in August.

The WWE Cruiserweight Title, which was adopted from WCW, change hands once on an international house show. Italian American wrestler Nunzio grabbed the belt on November 15, 2005 in Rome, beating Juventud Guerrera but then losing the title right back to Juventud one week later at a Smackdown taping in Sheffield, England.

The WWE United States Championship from the Twenty-First Century was exchanged on a house show in New York City on July 7, 2017 when AJ Styles took the belt off of Kevin Owens. Owens took it back at the next pay per view, Battleground, on July 23.

Andrade Almas also won the U.S. Title on a house show, with that taking place on the day after Christmas, also in New York, in 2019. He managed to hold the belt for almost six months before losing it to Apollo Crews.

And that’s it. Those are your WWE house show title changes.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.