A Hulk Hogan criticism thread

[Loss]

Yeah, the leg shaking off of bodyslams. And the neverending poses. And that all of his matches as Hollywood Hogan were terrible and overbooked to shit. And that I'm surprised his back is in such bad shape considering he didn't take very many bumps in his career, compared to Flair, who bumped a ton and moves around much better these days. And we've talked about how in the 80s, he acted like a privileged heel instead of a babyface, and how from 1994-1996, he was incredibly nauseating and had the astroturf fan support. What else?

[Matt D]

I hate the Butcher angle at Starccade 94, so much. I've mentioned this before, but it's an angle that should have been workable. The betrayal from a guy who hadn't been heel in 8 years or whatever, who had only a year before main evented Mania as Hogan's partner.

 

I get that Hogan was paranoid in 94, but if you're going to let ANYONE get heat on you, you figure it'd be the guy who carries your bags and who you trust with your life.

 

The masked man attacks Hogan for months. The payoff comes when Hogan legdrops him and unmasks him. And it's Beefcake. But he's already legdropped him and unmasked him. The bad guy's basically gotten his comeuppance. We're at the end of the Scooby Doo Episode here. It's over. Where's the heat? It drives me nuts because it would have been simple as anything for him to legdrop the masked guy, pull it off, have it be Arn, and then the second one come in, put Hogan out with the sleeper, unmask himself, and have it be Beefcake. Or fifty other scenarios. It's just maddening to me for some reason.

 

I'm always going to think he's a bully as a face too, though I don't think Savage actually had a point in 89.

[Dylan Waco]

Could and did often ruin perfectly good matches with an egregious no sell. I don't mind the Hulk Up in principle as I think fired up babyface comebacks are important parts of wrestling. But the way he would come back from something like Savage's elbow or Vader's powerbomb was just dogshit.

[JerryvonKramer]

My least favourite Hogan match is vs. Flair in 94 when he GIVES RIC NOTHING and essentially treats what should have been one of the biggest matches of all time as a jobber match.

 

It's the only match I can think of where Hogan is on offence 90%+ of the time. Made Flair look like a chump in his own backyard.

 

Didn't like that at all.

[Loss]

My least favourite Hogan match is vs. Flair in 94 when he GIVES RIC NOTHING and essentially treats what should have been one of the biggest matches of all time as a jobber match.

 

It's the only match I can think of where Hogan is on offence 90%+ of the time. Made Flair look like a chump in his own backyard.

 

Didn't like that at all.

Yes. There is a lot of nauseating stuff about the Havoc match, even though it's a terrific match. Flair losing a retirement match and then not even getting a sendoff was pretty bad too.

[JerryvonKramer]

They booked Hogan from feud to feud to feud at that time, every PPV was a feud transition rather than a blow off.

 

But yeah, the contrast between Flair beating Vader and that Havoc match couldn't be greater. One of the few matches to make me legit angry.

[Cox]

My least favourite Hogan match is vs. Flair in 94 when he GIVES RIC NOTHING and essentially treats what should have been one of the biggest matches of all time as a jobber match.

 

It's the only match I can think of where Hogan is on offence 90%+ of the time. Made Flair look like a chump in his own backyard.

 

Didn't like that at all.

Yes. There is a lot of nauseating stuff about the Havoc match, even though it's a terrific match. Flair losing a retirement match and then not even getting a sendoff was pretty bad too.

 

In retrospect, I wonder if that was a sign that nobody expected Flair to stay retired, but they didn't want to make Flair just a midcard guy with Flair on top, so they called it a retirement and just brought him back in '95 when he could mean something again.

[Loss]

What's interesting is that according to the WONs at the time, Flair didn't want to be a guy who kept coming back after retirements (BIGGEST LOL OF ALL TIME!) and intended for that to be his last match.

[Cox]

Yeah, but knowing how much of a con man Ric turned out to be, that was probably a huge work to get Meltzer (and by extension, the sheet reading fans that adored Flair) to buy into the retirement.

[JerryvonKramer]

Does anyone have any info from the WONs at the time as to WHY that match was worked the way it was? I mean whose idea was it to make it a glorified sqaush?

[Death From Above]

Wrestlemania IX really sucked a lot. I remember when I first saw it a few years ago, you get that Hogan/Beefcake vs. Money Inc. match and Hogan does pretty much nothing in the match, playing Robert Gibson to Beefcake's Ricky Morton (okay, that felt dirty to even type), just spends the whole match standing around on the apron. But I knew he was going to face Yokozuna later so I thought "ok that makes sense, he has another match to go". Then he just comes out and squashes Yokozuna in like 5 seconds. So no, he was just being lazy.

 

Starrcade 1997 was about as damaging as any PPV main event could be to a company, in the end. Especially when you look at what they did for follow up too. To me, it's more interesting than the Montreal screwjob, which has been turned inside out far more. I think it's also quite possible that Hogan fucking Sting cost WCW a lot more money than Vince fucking Bret ever did, considering that the WWF/E did just fine afterwards.

 

Everything in WCW from 1998 on other than putting over Goldberg was generally pretty bad. (I don't think we can say it's his fault they gave it away on TV.) Halloween Havoc 1999 and it's associated build is just about as bad as it can possibly get.

 

I can't think of a single good Hogan/Flair match. He might be Flair's all time worst big time opponent. Flair had a better match with Vince McMahon than any of his matches with Hogan.

[Ricky Jackson]

Hogan from 91-96 is easily my all-time least favorite main event babyface, and I haven't even seen some of his worst offenses (eg. Uncensored 96). Hogan played a huge part in my biggest letdown as a fan, the debacle of Wrestlemania 9. It took years until I was able to allow myself to enjoy a Hogan performance after that crappy show.

[The Thread Killer]

...I can't think of a single good Hogan/Flair match. He might be Flair's all time worst big time opponent. Flair had a better match with Vince McMahon than any of his matches with Hogan...

As I recall, the Main Event at Uncensored 1999, a Steel Cage match was quite good. If I remember correctly (and I might not be, since it was over 12 years ago and I haven't seen it since the night I saw it live) the match was a double turn, with Flair turning heel, Hogan turning face, and Flair going over. I recall being shocked at how much I enjoyed that match because I agree with DBA...Flair/Hogan matches usually disappointed, which they shouldn't have. I always chalked it up to Hogan being jealous of Flair's GOAT rep and not wanting him to look good - but anyhow - I remember Uncensored 99 being the exception to the Hogan/Flair "bad match" rule and being pretty good.

 

If I am wrong or if others have seen it and disagree, feel free to chime in.

[Loss]

I really do like the '94 trilogy -- Bash at the Beach, Clash and Havoc, with each match being better than the last -- but they are Hogan matches, not Flair matches. I can understand not liking them, because Flair is just really filling a role.

[Gregor]

If I am wrong or if others have seen it and disagree, feel free to chime in.

I've never seen it, but I think that it was a first blood match in which Flair bleeds and wins via pinfall.

[Matt D]

I want to talk about Hogan's MSG matches with Flair in 91-early 92. But I'd probably have to rewatch them. From what I remember the first two were pretty bad with only the third one really turning it up and giving us what we'd expect.

[El-P]

If I am wrong or if others have seen it and disagree, feel free to chime in.

I've never seen it, but I think that it was a first blood match in which Flair bleeds and wins via pinfall.

 

It is. Outside of that, it was indeed a pretty good match from what I remember, and mostly famous for being the last big numbers PPV WCW ever did.

[Loss]

Actually, SuperBrawl the month before was the big number. Then, they started teasing a Flair heel turn and Hogan face turn, which killed the drawing power both of them had left in WCW, as fans preferred the opposite. They tried Hogan vs Flair many times on PPV after that, but it never drew again.

 

By early 1999, the company was already on a downswing and they still produced that monster buyrate. Flair's promos in the lead-up were outstanding and what we never got to see from him in Hogan feuds before -- talk that real wrestling fans knew the difference between the two, and not to train for a big media appearance, but rather for the fight of his life. He then said while Hogan was the bigger celebrity, Flair was the better wrestler and he would tie him in knots. Hogan vs Flair with similar build during WCW's height might have set a record.

[Jingus]

Everything in WCW from 1998 on other than putting over Goldberg was generally pretty bad. (I don't think we can say it's his fault they gave it away on TV.)

Sure we can say that. It was Hogan's idea to do the match in the first place. And supposedly he only agreed to do it if Bischoff promised that Hogan would be the guy who finally ended Goldberg's streak later. (Funny how Hogan took a vacation as soon as Nash became the head booker...)

 

If I am wrong or if others have seen it and disagree, feel free to chime in.

I've never seen it, but I think that it was a first blood match in which Flair bleeds and wins via pinfall.

 

It is. Outside of that, it was indeed a pretty good match from what I remember, and mostly famous for being the last big numbers PPV WCW ever did.

 

It was good by the standards of a Hogan match in '99, but that was pretty much it. The absolutely nonsensical booking killed the whole thing dead. The double turn came out of nowhere, with practically zero setup. And why even bother announcing it as a first blood match if it's going to end in a pinfall? Actually, the tradition of Hogan/Flair finishes involving ridiculous pinfalls in the main event of Uncensored, considering how Hulk somehow pinned Ric to beat Vader in a strap match in '95, not to mention the whole Tower Of Doom fiasco.

[Dylan Waco]

Flair v. Hogan from Uncensored 99 was very similar to Hogan v. Sting from TNA last year in that it shouldn't have worked, logically there were obvious problems and I can see why people would hate it, but they were both thoroughly enjoyable matches to me.

[Jingus]

I might've liked it better if they hadn't done such a similar match just one month beforehand. Take out the bullshit stipulations and stupid double-turn, and you've got the Superbrawl '99 match.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I give most of the credit for Superbrawl IX's buyrate to Hogan and Flair, but I think it was helped by the Goldberg-Bigelow match they had been building for months, back when Goldberg still had drawing power.

[Death From Above]

I thought the Uncensored match was basically changed on the fly. Flair starts bleeding inside of the first 2 minutes if I remember right, and they just pitched the stip and worked a cage match? Maybe it was just weird booking but that would be *really* weird.

 

It wasn't awful but if you look at Flair's other major opponents, he has better matches against pretty much all of them than he does with Hogan.

[JerryvonKramer]

I really do like the '94 trilogy -- Bash at the Beach, Clash and Havoc, with each match being better than the last -- but they are Hogan matches, not Flair matches. I can understand not liking them, because Flair is just really filling a role.

How do you say they are Hogan matches? He worked 90% of his matches selling, making the heel shine in his control segment. Flair worked most of those matches from underneath, so how were they Hogan matches?

[JerryvonKramer]

[double post]