The Magnificent Seven: The 7 Worst Hulk Hogan Moments

Hulk Hogan is one of the greatest professional wrestling stars in history. I was a child of the eighties and got hooked on wrestling at a time when the business was all but synonymous with The Hulkster, and I will always have a sentimental attachment to the guy. For whatever limitations he had as an in-ring technician, he had a unique ability to connect with fans and emerge as an unparalleled icon in the wrestling business. All the more remarkable, in the late 1990s he managed to reinvent himself as a heel and become a key figure in the next boom period in wrestling history.

Hogan has had a rough go of it in recent times. From the revelation of his questionable history of politicking in wrestling, to his sex tape, to using racist epithets on tape, he certainly doesn’t have his nose clean. The issues all but ruined his brand. The dust has settled a bit, and I’m actually among those fans who does hope WWE bring him back into the fold as a legend. I don’t have any interest in seeing him wrestle again at this stage, but I’d be all for him making the occasional appearance, delivering a promo here and there, maybe throwing some punches in a run-in.

I say all of this to give fuller context and explain, for those who will write off this column as Hogan hate, that I do have a soft spot to the guy and I’m not just here to slam him. For as much as he had great moments and has heck of a legend surrounding his wrestling career, he also had some very bad moments. This column focuses not on the real life person or his backstage dealings, nor on his acting or reality TV work, but rather on what Hulk Hogan the wrestler has done in a wrestling context. Some of the poor moments were Hogan’s fault, or he at least had some responsibility in how poorly they came across. Others were beyond his control. In constructing the countdown, I focused on how badly the moment came off at the time as well as the ramifications of the incident in question. As always, my personal opinion factors in heavily.

#7. The Doomsday Cage Match, WCW Uncensored 1996

WCW had a lot of bad main event matches, but I’d argue few are more difficult to comprehend than this mess. The match featured Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, months before the nWo shifted the WCW landscape, running a gauntlet against members of The Dungeon of Doom and The Four Horsemen, collectively known as The Alliance to End Hulkamania.

The fundamental problem with a match like this was that there were no real rules and no suggestion that anyone but the outnumbered faces would go over. Hogan and Savage aimlessly brawled with a series of heels, arbitrarily working their way down the cages as more heels joined the party. The Booty Man joined the fray to give our heroes frying pans to survive the final stretch.

This “match” went twenty-five minutes, before Savage pinned Ric Flair—one of the original gauntlet opponents. I guess that’s all that needed to happen to end the match.

I have a soft spot for matches with imposing structures and matches with relatively convoluted rules. Still, this one was way beyond me.

#6. Calling The Six-Sided Ring a Playpen, TNA Genesis 2010

When Hulk Hogan came to TNA, there was some buzz about the prospect of excitement and advancement for the number two company in the US. Might this injection of star power and wrestling know-how help advance the company to be legitimately competitive with WWE?

No.

Hogan and Eric Bischoff were introduced as both on screen and backstage power brokers. One of their early, most significant moves came at the Genesis PPV. Gone was TNA’s signature six-sided ring, replaced by a more traditional squared circle. When Hogan introduced the new presentation, he was met by boos, and promptly dismissed the old ring as a playpen, in so doing largely dismissing TNA’s previous history as small time child’s play.

We can debate all day long whether going from six sides to four was the right move for TNA, but in minimizing what TNA had been up to that point, Hogan slapped the old school TNA product and its fans in the face. Many a critic has suggested TNA was doing just fine as a number two alternative to WWE and it was thinking like this that nearly pushed TNA to extinction, overreaching their limits, giving up what was best and most unique about their product, in favor of conforming to the WWE style and trying to compete at a level the company wasn’t ready for.

#5. Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan, Starrcade 1997

WCW had captured lighting in a bottle in 1997. After over a year out of action, Sting was wildly over in his Crow gimmick, and Hollywood Hogan was the white hot heel fans were legitimately chomping at the bit to see get beaten. After over a year of build, and after never really having a proper match or feud before, Sting vs. Hogan was set up as a dream match that was nearly without peer.

To be fair, given the talents and age of both of these men, this match was probably never going to be an al-time classic. It could, however, have been a crowd pleasing romp for Sting as he decimated the top heel to give fans a feel-good moment. Instead, it was a slog of a match during which Hogan dominated most of the action. Then there was the convoluted, botched finish. Purportedly, Nick Patrick was supposed to award Hogan the win via a fast-count pin, only he forgot or was instructed not to actually give the fast count so Sting legitimately lost. New arrival Bret Hart came out to right the phantom injustice in an incoherent mess of a finish to a match that is on the shortlist for most disappointing PPV bouts of all time.

#4. Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett, and Vince Russo Work Themselves Into A Shoot, Bash at the Beach 2000

At Bash at the Beach 2000, Vince Russo attempted to pull off one of the most ambitious worked shoot moments in mainstream wrestling. The gist was that Jeff Jarrett chose to lie down in the ring to let Hulk Hogan pin him in the dramatic representation of what would have happened had Hogan refused to job to Jarrett. In the aftermath, Hogan ostensibly walked out on WCW, and then Vince Russo delivered a tirade about how we’d never see Hogan in WCW again.

The whole incident was more confusing than exciting in its immediate context, and all the more humorous for it allegedly turning into a shoot of sorts when Russo made comments Hogan claims to have not agreed to and failed to follow up about bringing Hogan back to the company. Thus, the worked shoot led to real life legal action. All of this for an utterly unentertaining segment. The only good that came out of all of this was getting Hogan out of the title picture, only to insert Booker T later in the night.

#3. The Fingerpoke of Doom, WCW Nitro 1999

WCW was on fire almost in spit of itself as 1998 turned over into 1999. Goldberg was over. The nWo Wolfpac was over. Scott Hall seemed cleaned up and Hulk Hogan was back after a brief absence. While the whole nWo story was arguably played, and you can make a real case that Goldberg’s streak shouldn’t have ended at the hands of Kevin Nash at Starrcade, the fans were still watching.

In reality, WCW’s business was still fine for a while after The Fingerpoke of Doom, but the moment is both a creative nadir and a symbolic representation of everything wrong with the company. Hogan disposed of Nash with a single poke as the two revealed themselves to be in cahoots and the two nWo factions reunited to rekindle the tired story of nWo domination.

Everything bad about this moment was made worse by the fact that this was the very same night WWE did something fresh and entertaining in Mick Foley’s first world title win. As if to underscore just how tone deaf WCW was, they spoiled Foley’s title win on air and wound up guiding a large contingent of fans to change the channel to Raw to see it. While Hogan as the top heel was wearing thin and WCW didn’t seem to know how to do anything else, WWE was moving forward.

#2. The Ultimate Warrior vs. Hollywood Hogan, WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

In 1990, The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan tapped into their collective star power, and had Pat Patterson work with them backstage to construct an unforgettable match to main event WrestleMania 6.

Eight and a half years later, Hogan wanted his receipt.

Hogan had put over Warrior at WrestleMania 6 and never got his win back. While I’m sure there was more to WCW bringing in Warrior in 1998, it would be easy enough to believe there wasn’t the feud between the two was largely incoherent, full of Warrior deliving rambling promos and mystically disappearing and reappearing while Hogan acted terrified. A terrible program gave way to this even worse blow off match—a boring, poorly worked monstrosity that culminated in Hogan blowing the climactic spot in which he was supposed to throw a fireball at Warrior. He couldn’t get the flash paper to light, only to wind up burning himself. WCW improvised a finish in which Hogan cheated to still win the rematch no one really wanted to see.

#1. Hulk Hogan vs. Yokozuna, WWE WrestleMania 9

The careful reader may observe this is the only WWE pick on this list. That’s not necessarily to say WWE is better than WCW or TNA, but the company did seem to understand how to use Hogan and how to get the best out of him.

Unfortunately, WrestleMania 9 was not one of those times.

The year was 1993 and against all odds, Bret Hart got over as the WWF Champion and the face of the company. Come WrestleMania, though, Hulk Hogan returned to the fold. One thing led to another and Hart not only dropped the title to Yokozuna in the main event of the show, but then stood by as Hogan took an impromptu challenge from Yokozuna and his manager Mr. Fuji to steal the title for himself.
It’s understandable that the WWF would take some time to find its footing in the aftermath of Hulkamania, which ran wild from 1984 to 1992. This moment showed the company at its most lost, though, with Hogan winning the title largely to the behest of hardcore fans who’d stuck with the product and were sad to see Hart get pushed out of the main event picture so abruptly. Hogan’s reign to follow would only make matters worse as he was largely absentee as champion before dropping the title back to Yokozuna in a lousy match at the first King of the Ring PPV.

Which moments would you add to the list? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.