[1997-12-22-WCW-Nitro] Hulk Hogan, Sting and Bret Hart

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Hogan and Bischoff are out one more time. A crew member comes into the ring with yet another gift and Bischoff has no idea what this one is. The limo shows up with Bret in it and there's a Hogan head inside the box. Hogan's acting is HORRIBLE here, but this is a corny angle anyway. The Sting stands on top of the entrance ramp and hang glides into the ring. Cocaine booking again.

[Kevin Ridge]

Though it’s NWO Nitro the WCW guys are back in the booth. They rip off the ending to the movie Seven as Hogan freaks out with the gift in a box. Then they rip of Shawn Michaels entrance from WrestleMania 12. Bret must have loved it just standing there watching that. The push for Hogan/Sting in December was poor with so little of Sting being around.

[soup23]

This went one angle too far as the head in the box was a little too much for me and they should have just had Sting hang glide into the ring. Bret also feels very out of place standing in the middle of these two but I guess they knew what role he would play Sunday.

[El-P]

Bret has no business being there. This angle is corny mid 90's Undertaker bullshit, which doesn't fit the nWo vs WCW angle at all to me. They really fucked it up big time after months of great angles. Starrcade was doomed.

[Robert S]

So this was the go-home segment for the biggest PPV in WCW history. The Clash segment a couple of month before this was also corny as well but would have been a much better last segment before Starrcade. The whole Sting vs. Hogan program probably peeked too early.

And yes: Hogan's acting is so horrible here that I have no idea at first if was glad to got a mannequin head of himself as a gift, or shocked.

[Dooley]

Though it’s NWO Nitro the WCW guys are back in the booth. They rip off the ending to the movie Seven as Hogan freaks out with the gift in a box.

 

And if they were going to go in that direction, they'd be much better served to go all-out with Bisch opening the box and Hogan doing the Brad Pitt "what's in the box?" wail.

[PeteF3]

They're already half-assing the execution of this takeover by having Bischoff duck out after a few segments and bringing back Tenay. God knows Mike is ten times the announcer but if you're going to commit to an NWO show, COMMIT. The fake head is eye-rolling and Hogan's acting even moreso, and even Sting ziplining into the ring doesn't look that dramatic.

 

They really should have gone with Hogan-Sting at Halloween Havoc--in hindsight, Bret falling into their lap the next month would have been absolute perfect timing to set up a title vs. title match for Starrcade (in an alternate fantasyland where Hogan or Nash or someone doesn't get themselves into that spot instead).