[1991-05-19-WWF-Wrestling Challenge] Barber Shop: Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The fireball angle had such a great immediate follow-up, but Hogan is right back to cutting his artificial promos where he doesn't sound like he means a word he says. This isn't bad, but Hogan basically had one dimension, which made him annoying sometimes. Beefcake accuses Slaughter of wanting to spray agent orange on Hulkamaniacs, and I think Hogan may have accidentally called Beefcake "Barbara" instead of "Barber".

[shoe]

Hogan has always been a mixed bag between love and hate. I don't particularly care for him here.

[PeteF3]

All that about Hulk, but man, is it hard to avoid artifice and gimmickry in this setting. It all applies to Beefcake as well. And while I've said how WCW missed the boat on proper sets for their talk segments, it's hard to envision a money promo in a faux barber shop environment. War metaphors are one thing but I'm even less comfortable with Hogan talking about "horrors of war" and casualties, especially when he's following it up with cult rhetoric about his Hulkamaniacs taking up his battles for him and making barber shop rhymes in regard to Slaughter. This was lousy.

[Kevin Ridge]

Beefcake questioning whether Slaughter would use Agent Orange on the Hulkamaniacs was ridiculous. Not a good interview on the whole.

[soup23]

dammit Hulk you were on such a good role post mania. This was my least favorite stuff of him since the Mania pre promo and this really feels like him living in the past and bringing up stuff that has died down tremendously. So far I am unimpressed with the barber shop format.

[garretta]

Hogan and Beefcake definitely bring out the worst in each other promowise, but I actually thought that the "shave and a haircut" stuff was better than all the crap about the horrors of war and the Hulkamaniacs being lined up to fight for Hogan in case he got hurt.

 

Beefcake talking about Slaughter spraying Agent Orange on the Hulkamaniacs just might have been the worst thing said in a promo since the Iraqi sympathizer angle started. If the line was fed to him, he should have refused to say it. If he came up with it on his own, he should have been ashamed of himself. it's just one more reason why no one cared about The Barber Shop except for the show where the Rockers broke up.

 

I can actually understand Hogan bringing back the war metaphors; he and Sarge were going around the horn with their Desert Storm matches, which even more than Mania VII were supposed to be seen as proxy battles between the United States and Iraq. If you look at it in that light, promos like this make all the sense in the world. Of course, you have to be willing to think like Vince in order to look at it that way, and few people were at this point.

 

Anyone who expects a money promo to be cut during a WWF interview segment that doesn't take place on a ramp with Mean Gene is kidding themselves. You've got a fake mortuary and a fake barber shop, and what's worse, they look fake. The WWF doesn't even try to convince people that these are anything more than cheap interview sets. I've said it a hundred times, and I'll say it a hundred more: They should have brought back Piper's Pit for Superstars and let Gene do interviews for Challenge from the stage.