A Hulk Hogan criticism thread

[Loss]

Meaning they didn't feel like Flair working his style carrying his opponent like typical Flair/muscle guy matches did.

[Jingus]

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.

Perhaps; but if it was hardway, you coulda fooled me. Certainly looked like Flair intentionally gigged himself to get that blood. And actually, that's the only part of the match which halfway makes sense: if the whole point is that Charles Robinson is secretly in Flair's pocket, then it's natural for him to ignore Flair bleeding. But to do it that early in the match, and then to later ignore Hogan bleeding too, and then to suddenly start counting pinfalls... yeah, there are plenty of good reasons to hate this match.

 

 

And the macro-booking of the overall storyline didn't make any damn sense either. After the firing deal with Bischoff, Flair transitions from feuding with Eric to feuding with the whole newly-reformed NWO. Okay, that makes sense, the Horsemen/NWO rivalry had been an ongoing thing for almost three years now. But it falls apart really quickly after that. Someone will have to remind me exactly how Hennig and Windham became the go-to choice for David Flair's debut opponents at Souled Out. Then Hogan (shoot) whips the living shit out of David after the match, prompting an enraged Ric to chase after Hollywood for the next couple of months. Alright, we're back on track, it's making sense again! And then... David promptly turns heel on his dad at Superbrawl. Uh. What? Okay, they tried to explain it by saying the NWO had brainwashed him via the debuting Torrie Wilson, fine whatever.

 

But then we get to the intended double-turn at Uncensored, and I still have no idea why the hell the crowd was supposed to buy any of it. On one side we've got Hollywood Hogan, the biggest piece of shit in the entire wrestling industry. He's run roughshod over this company for three years, making it into his own personal playground. He'd often go months without defending that title belt, yet could always be counted on to kill twenty minutes on every Nitro bragging about how awesome he was. Recently he got the championship back via the goddamn Fingerpoke, and the big storyline before that was his awful vanity feud against Warrior. And the NWO wasn't even cool anymore, having been outstayed its welcome and looking awfully anemic compared to truly world-class badass tweeners in black like Stone Cold. There's NOTHING redeeming about Hollywood Hogan's character at this point, nothing that any fan in their right mind should ever want to cheer.

 

On the other side: Ric Flair. WCW's standard-bearer since time immemorial. The greatest wrestler in the whole damn world (okay not for a long time now, but still). The leader of the Horsemen, who had transformed over the years from a back of punk renegades into a beloved gold standard of quality workrate. Recently he'd actually done something unusual: given the NWO a serious loss, since he repeatedly kicked the shit out of Bischoff, shaved Eric's head, and even took away the position of WCW President. Then Hogan mindfucked Ric harder than anyone ever had before, turning his own young son against Flair. Ric was primed and ready to do what Sting, Goldberg, and everyone else had failed to do: finally get the belt off Hogan for good and maybe even get rid of the fucking NWO forever.

 

So, why the bloody hell is it supposed to make any sense at all in this scenario to outta-nowhere turn Ric Flair heel and Hollywood Hogan face? The answer is: "of course it doesn't make sense, but... Creative Control, brotha". Hogan's knees were starting to get really bad and he thought his in-ring days might be numbered, so he decided to try and be a hero one more time just to prove he could do it. Never mind if it totally fucking sabotages months of storylines and makes the company look even more pathetic and obsolete compared to their white-hot competition.

[Dooley]

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.

In Bischoff's book it says that Ric had negotiated the retirement match in exchange for a better deal. There was no way he was legit retiring.

[Loss]

The idea was supposed to be that Flair should have lost the match, but Charles Robinson was in his pocket and just overlooked it.

[Mad Dog]

I think that shit was Nash more than Hogan. I mean Hogan did let DDP take him out the next month at Spring Stampede. But the original point, that stuff reeked of the utter garbage that the Nash booking had been doing so I blame it on him.

[khawk20]

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.

As I remember they only had two singles matches at MSG, November and December of 1991. If there was a third bout where they faced each other but it was in a tag match...Hogan/Piper vs. Flair/Sid in March 1992.

[jdw]

Kevin is correct: It was a two bout series, with the "third" being the tag.

 

John

[Mad Dog]

It still amazes me to this day that the WWF had Flair and Hogan and didn't have them face each other in any meaningful sort of way.

[Jingus]

It still amazes me to this day that the WWF had Flair and Hogan and didn't have them face each other in any meaningful sort of way.

It seems like it was more bad timing than anything else. Hogan's big-scary-monster feuds with Taker and Sid were probably already planned by the time Flair showed up, and then Hogan was out on vacation until after Flair had left the company. They flirted with the idea of a Hulk/Ric feud on the house show circuit and in tag matches, but apparently the drawing numbers were rather disappointing for those matchups.

[cm funk]

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.

It didn't work because it was Beefcake, who fucking sucked, and was only over for the few years that practically everybody in the WWF was over by default. It could have been one of the best booked turns of all-time and it still wouldn't have worked because of who was in it, and when and where it was taking place.

 

Plus, it was meant to be Curt Hennig, but in typical WCW fashion they started the angle before they had him under contract and Hennig decided to hold them up for a ton of money.

 

Which leads me to one of biggest Hulk Hogan criticisms....he's had creative control for 20 years and he sucks at booking himself.

 

When he came to TNA the first thing he did was redo the Dave Sullivan angle with Abyss. Let that sink in for a minute. He can do literally anything and he copies an angle that totally flopped the first time he did it 15 years earlier. When he first came to WCW he put himself in the Hogan v. Monster of the month role that was already well past stale in the WWF. He's completely oblivious and books things for an audience that only exists in his mind, and it's beyond pathetic that he booked TNA around himself when he couldn't even wrestle.

[khawk20]

It still amazes me to this day that the WWF had Flair and Hogan and didn't have them face each other in any meaningful sort of way.

It seems like it was more bad timing than anything else. Hogan's big-scary-monster feuds with Taker and Sid were probably already planned by the time Flair showed up, and then Hogan was out on vacation until after Flair had left the company. They flirted with the idea of a Hulk/Ric feud on the house show circuit and in tag matches, but apparently the drawing numbers were rather disappointing for those matchups.

 

The Flair-Hulk matchups were usually over two or three shows in most locations, which qualifies as a WWF "feud" for that time frame, IMO. I don't think the numbers were that bad, either, in terms of attendance. The "bad Timing" Argument I can live with, although part of me has always thought that Vince just didn't want to legitimize Flair's "real world champion" claim any further than they were already doing. maybe in his head putting a Flair-Hogan matchup as a PPV centerpiece (in a "first time meeting" sort of scenario) was going to far in recognizing that someone coming in from another company might have had real success and superstardom outside of the WWF.

 

I mean, I was incredibly stunned that Vince allowed the "Real World Champion" gimmick to debut Flair. I wonder if Vince et al had to be talked into recognizing Flair's past even that much. It was pretty much unheard of from 1984 through then.

 

Just speculation on my part. A Hogan-Flair PPV debut match never happening seems like such an obvious ball-drop that there must have been some sort of stupid underlying reason in place, no matter how convoluted it may have been.

[Mad Dog]

It didn't work because it was Beefcake, who fucking sucked, and was only over for the few years that practically everybody in the WWF was over by default. It could have been one of the best booked turns of all-time and it still wouldn't have worked because of who was in it, and when and where it was taking place.

I really hate to defend Beefcake here. I really do, but you have to break Beefcake's career into two segments. Pre-accident and post-accident. Beefcake post-accident was an absolute waste of space and completely sucked. Pre-accident Beefcake had a good gimmick and some charisma and had moments of being okay in the ring.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm kind of surprised nobody's mentioned cutting Warrior off at the knees by kicking out at 3.1 and hogging the post-match spotlight.

[Frankensteiner]

I wouldn’t say Hogan is a terrible wrestler but I don’t find him very interesting either. There’s nothing that stands out about him as a worker. I don’t think he was a good brawler, his selling was alright but not terribly compelling, and he’s not particularly athletic.

 

He’s been in some matches I liked but it’s hard to imagine anyone in his position and given those opportunities not having some decent matches under their belt.

[JerryvonKramer]

his selling was alright but not terribly compelling

The crowd responses would say otherwise.

[Loss]

Was the crowd reaction BECAUSE of Hogan's selling, though? Because he had garnered so much sympathy that people were rooting for him? Or were they preconditioned to cheer him no matter what? I'm not saying he was bad. I'm just saying I never saw a case of Hogan's selling turning around a dead crowd or raising the heat in the match from where it already would have been. I bring that up not because I'm trying to find a factually correct viewpoint, and I realize these things are subjective. I'm just raising the question.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I always felt babyface Hogan treated selling like we treat a trip to the dentist. We don't want to go to the dentist, but we know it's good for us in the long run so we put on a fake smile and tolerate it. It's just part of life.

 

Hogan would've liked to run over whomever he was in the ring with, but deep down, he knew he had to sell a little bit at certain points of the match. It's just part of wrestling.

 

In other words, I always thought it looked like Hogan was being forced to sell. He never drew people in because fans sympathized with him thanks to his selling. People wanted to see the entrance, the persona, the posing, the big leg drop, slamming a big fat guy, etc, and they knew all of that was coming. The part where Hogan sells for a bit was kind of like an intermission during a play or a commercial break right before a major plot twist in a TV show.

[Loss]

That may be the best post I've ever read on this board. Great!

[S.L.L.]

his selling was alright but not terribly compelling

The crowd responses would say otherwise.

 

Good for the crowd, but I'm pretty sure Frankensteiner was speaking to his own personal feelings on the matter.

 

CFCW's (admittedly very compelling) thoughts on the matter aside, I never had a problem with Hogan's selling during the body of his matches. They fit what he was going for fine for the most part, but I never really found anything especially laudatory about it. He's not Ricky Steamboat. He's not Ricky Morton. He's not Cena or Lawler or Eddie or Rey or Savage or Funk or Dustin or Necro Butcher...not any of those guys. He's better than Triple H. He's a guy who clearly got how to lay out a match effectively for his (very, very large) crowd. But being better than Triple H in just about any respect isn't laudatory. I think he's good at selling during the body of his matches. I don't think it's a stand-out quality for him.

 

I also think his frequently poor long-term selling often undercut a lot of the good he might have done in the first two-thirds of his matches. I think the Hulk-Up isn't necessarily a bad spot. It fit his character, he had the charisma to pull it off effectively on an aesthetic level, and there's certainly no arguing with it's value as a crowd pleaser. But the way so many matches would just end right after that instead of using it to spin into a larger third act always frustrates me. People who have read enough of my stuff know one of my biggest pet peeves is matches that build up a strong first two acts, but end without a third, or with a very truncated third. The Hulk-Up, more often than not in Hogan's salad days, marked the end of the second act, and then was usually the third act by itself, and those matches always left me feeling unfulfilled. And if what was happening up to that point was interesting, it also left me feeling robbed.

 

And that's not just a Hogan problem, I grant you, but an 80's WWF program. When the first attempt at the DVDVR Best of the 80's WWF set came out, an adage sprouted about the use of foreign objects by heels. How in any other territory of the era, the heel using a foreign object was a way to let him take advantage for the next part of the match. It was a turning point in the match. In 80's WWF, it was the end of the match - the heel either won immediately, or he got caught and was DQ'd. In the immortal words of Crow T. Robot, "and the tension is thwarted". And really, I tend to feel 80's WWF was very bad overall about booking the third acts of their matches. But Hogan's matches were by far the highest profile example of that.

[Ricky Jackson]

After watching a lot of stuff from the era recently, I agree with your point on 80s WWF finishes, specifically post-84 WWF. I never noticed this at the time, but so many otherwise great matches were marred by a DQ, countout, time limit, or other crowd deflating means. For example, the end to the Hogan vs Orndorff Toronto match from 86. Clean finishes were so rare back then.

[Sean Liska]

After watching a lot of stuff from the era recently, I agree with your point on 80s WWF finishes, specifically post-84 WWF. I never noticed this at the time, but so many otherwise great matches were marred by a DQ, countout, time limit, or other crowd deflating means. For example, the end to the Hogan vs Orndorff Toronto match from 86. Clean finishes were so rare back then.

That's how things were back then. The NWA was the same. AJPW was brutal. That's why I get annoyed when people complain about RAW not being 2 hours of 15-minute matches with clean finishes like "the old days", when those days never existed.

[S.L.L.]

FWIW, my point was not so much about clean finishes but rather abrupt/truncated finishes. There were no shortage of matches from a lot of promotions domestic and foreign that fed fans a steady diet of matches with screwy finishes, but that still felt like fully realized matches. I can't say that about 80's WWF.

[rainmakerrtv]

FWIW, my point was not so much about clean finishes but rather abrupt/truncated finishes. There were no shortage of matches from a lot of promotions domestic and foreign that fed fans a steady diet of matches with screwy finishes, but that still felt like fully realized matches. I can't say that about 80's WWF.

For a prime example, check out the DVDVR best of the 80s WWF set. Hulk Hogan pounds on Don Muraco for several minutes, Muraco throws the salt, DQ, end of match. Or any WWF matches where the time limit just rings out of nowhere, with no warning and no real place in the flow of the match. It's as though the matches didn't really end, they just stopped happening, if you get my distinction.

[Bob Morris]

I agree with what was said about Hogan getting creative control and doing a poor job of booking himself. Hogan may understand how to work the crowd but he's never understood how to put somebody over without causing himself to lose momentum. He needs pretty tight direction to get him to do a truly good job of putting somebody over -- and more importantly, he's often only willing to do it if he gets his heat back at some point.

 

The only exception that immediately comes to mind is The Rock. I suppose you could add Goldberg, but I've always believed the "fingerpoke of doom" angle did a lot to kill Goldberg's heat and was a way Hogan got heat back without actually having to beat Goldberg in the ring.

[cm funk]

He put Brock Lesnar over huge.....then left the company when it became clear he wasn't going to get his win back, or at least a HUGE PPV payday for a rematch.

 

By and large he was booked really well in 02-03. He was kept strong, but not invincible, and did jobs to Rock, Angle, Undertaker and Lesnar, and had a competitive match with Jericho. They stayed true to the character without going overboard with it. I thought the Mr. America and Zach Gowen stuff was a lot of fun (though I remember it being polarizing on the net) and an example of how the goofy stuff could work with proper oversight. The funny thing is he left shortly after that because he was upset with his creative direction.