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A positive Hulk Hogan thread...


Mad Dog

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To me, everything about Hogan can be summed up by his latest face turn in TNA not too long ago. He was battered and bloody in the corner while the rest of the heels are beating up Sting, who's yelling for Hulk to help him. Hogan's regaining his senses and realizes the situation, and looks to the crowd for guidance on what he should do. The crowd wants him to be the Hulk they remember so badly and start going nuts, and after a few moments of indecision he finally makes the save. The crowd loses it like it's 1984 all over again, and for a few seconds it seemed like he was the old Hulk instead of just Old Hulk. I think Bryan and Vinny said it best when reviewing the show when they said "there's no one better at being Hulk Hogan still to this day than Hulk Hogan". When he puts his mind to it, he can work a crowd better than anyone wrestling has ever seen. That's why I still enjoy the WM Rock-Hogan match to this day. Yeah it's not a technical masterpiece, but it's two of the best ever at crowd manipulation putting on an absolute clinic.

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That Hogan v. Sting match was perversely entertaining and far better than it had any right being.

 

Another one of my favorite "this is classic Hogan" moments was when he made the save for Eugene at Mania. Here you have a guy who is supposedly mentally retarded being ridiculed and attacked by guys who are effectively being presented as Sami Al-Arian terrorist sympathizers if not outright terrorists at that point and Hogan just sort of saunters to the ring soaking in the adulation in the process. It sounds like I'm shitting on him, but I'm really not as it was pretty much exactly what you would expect and even want out of a Hulk appearance.

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My favorite moment along those lines is from his Summerslam 2006 match against Randy Orton. At the beginning of the match, he won a collar-elbow tie-up, and the crowd absolutely lost their shit. That he was able to get that kind of reaction in his fifties against someone who wasn't particularly over at that point shows that the things that make Hogan Hogan are pretty much timeless.

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I think the Vader match is an abortion that killed Vader.

The Superbrawl V match>?? Vader looked as much like a monster as he ever did. He beat Hogan from pillar to post and Hulk responded in kind.

 

The Uncensored match was bad as was the Cage match, was but Superbrawl V was one of the best either guy ever had.

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You'd think Hogan was Pero Aguayo the way people are going on about him as a worker.

 

Something positive... when I was a kid my dad had a private client who was the splitting image of Hogan (minus the 24 inch pythons.) He even got a t-shirt made that said: "No, I'm not him." Anyway, my parents were forever talking about how much he looked like Hogan and finally I got the chance to see him when he dropped something off at our door one night. My dog always went nuts when someone came to the front door and usually peed everywhere. So, he knocks at the door and I creep out of my bedroom to get a peak at him, and sure enough he's a dead ringer for the Hulkster. I'll never forget the time the Hulkster was in my hallway and my dog peed on his leg.

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My favorite moment along those lines is from his Summerslam 2006 match against Randy Orton. At the beginning of the match, he won a collar-elbow tie-up, and the crowd absolutely lost their shit. That he was able to get that kind of reaction in his fifties against someone who wasn't particularly over at that point shows that the things that make Hogan Hogan are pretty much timeless.

He was easily the most over guy at the TNA show I went to in Lodon a week or so back.

 

He has that charisma and "X Factor" that you just can't teach. Maybe a handful of workers every generation have it. You can count them on two hands from the 1980s till now.

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Hogan's matches were very, very well put together between 89 and 91. Each big match seems to have a build to it and a story behind it, and that story plays out in the match. I think the two Taker matches are especially interesting in how one builds into the next. I'm sure I hated them in 91 and I hated them even more in 2001 (where are all the moves?!), but in 2011, I found them really interesting and very smart.

 

I also love his first heel performance against the Giant. It's one thing to work too small against Piper. It's another against the Giant and you can just tell how much Hogan is loving the stooging.

 

I actually kind of hate Hogan's goofy hammerlock take down chain wrestling thing he did whenever he felt like he had to prove that he could wrestle. It was like he was trying to appease people who would never get it anyway (and I was sure as hell one of them for most of my life).

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I went back and watched a good deal of mid-late 80s Hogan for the Smarkschoice poll a few years back and came out of that really digging a lot of it. The Savage matches around the horn were all at least "fun," and there were a few I thought were pretty awesome.

 

I generally like Hulk quite a bit at this point. The Inoki match on the New Japan set was one of my absolute favourites on that.

 

Something positive... when I was a kid my dad had a private client who was the splitting image of Hogan (minus the 24 inch pythons.) He even got a t-shirt made that said: "No, I'm not him." Anyway, my parents were forever talking about how much he looked like Hogan and finally I got the chance to see him when he dropped something off at our door one night. My dog always went nuts when someone came to the front door and usually peed everywhere. So, he knocks at the door and I creep out of my bedroom to get a peak at him, and sure enough he's a dead ringer for the Hulkster. I'll never forget the time the Hulkster was in my hallway and my dog peed on his leg.

This is fucking awesome.

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Just mentioning a few positive things I have to say about Hogan that haven't been mentioned yet :

 

The Paul Orndorff heel turn/feud had a very cool and interesting storyline.

 

Hulk Hgan put in a lot of work for charity and PR and by all accounts was great with meeting kids for Make A Wish, in stark contrast to what I hear about Ultimate Warrior.

 

Any Hulk Hogan character in the better wrestling video games (particularly Fire Pro) is a whole lot of fun to play. I was never a Hulk booster, but loved whalloping people with Axe Bombers and dropping the Big Leg on them.

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I liked that feud as something to keep the fans from scratching their heads wondering why he wasn't the champ at this point. And for a big guy, Tenta could cut a good promo that made you believe he would send you to the hospital or worse. It wasn't anything original as they'd done the David/Goliath thing with Bundy and Andre before, but this was the first time they'd taken him out of action because of the program, and that raised the stakes higher for that SummerSlam match. It's what I honestly wish they would have done with Cena during the Nexus angle where he was "fired". Keep him away for several months and build up to the big fight at WM.

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He's not given enough credit for his selling and the fact that 90% of his matches are heel control segments.

I think 90% is a significant exaggeration. Here are two Hogan matches walked through back-to-back:

 

05/18/87 & 06/14/87 Hogan vs Race

 

Hogan is giving to Harley and sells for him, but he also gets plenty of his own licks in. The Hogan Match Formats almost always have some early Hogan Ass Kicking segment, either right off the bat when he's kicking the heel's ass, or coming shortly in as payback for the heel cheap shotting to an early advantage.

 

Totally agree on the general theme that Hogan is a willing seller for heel to set up for the Big Comeback.

 

John

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One of Hogan's finest moments:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvEjjIWMlco

One of the greatest things ever in pro wrestling. :)

 

Though perhaps his finest moment was his promo on Raw after Sting beat him at Super Brawl, basically send Hall after Sting for the World Title because he (Hogan) had more important things to do. Just when folks thought that WCW was moving off into a post-Hogan era with Sting on top, Terry reminded everyone who The King was. One of the greatest Evil Speaches of Evil ever. :)

 

John

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"ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE AT UNCENSORED, AND HELL BROUGHT WITH HIM A BASEBALL BAT!"

 

God bless Dusty Rhodes, and what a great angle.

 

Was the show running long with how quick Tony cut away as Sting and Hogan finished? I remember thinking it was strange that they had Sting and Luger hug after the show went off the air instead of making it a big moment on the PPV or Nitro.

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He's not given enough credit for his selling and the fact that 90% of his matches are heel control segments.

I think 90% is a significant exaggeration. Here are two Hogan matches walked through back-to-back:

 

05/18/87 & 06/14/87 Hogan vs Race

 

Hogan is giving to Harley and sells for him, but he also gets plenty of his own licks in. The Hogan Match Formats almost always have some early Hogan Ass Kicking segment, either right off the bat when he's kicking the heel's ass, or coming shortly in as payback for the heel cheap shotting to an early advantage.

 

Totally agree on the general theme that Hogan is a willing seller for heel to set up for the Big Comeback.

 

John

 

Yeah 90% is probably too much, but Hogan's matches (apart from vs. Flair) pretty doggedly follow the universal formula of face shine, heel control, hope spot (usually out of a submission), heel control, face comeback.

 

And more often than not the heel control segment was extended in his matches.

 

The other thing that was extended was the post-match posedown.

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