Time for the original Rock: Don Muraco.

Muraco got started back in 1970 but we’ll pick him up in Florida at some point in 1970.

Don Muraco vs. Barry Windham

Dig that rocking beard on Muraco! He hammers Barry down to start and knees him to the mat. Windham is sent out to the floor and into a wooden barricade as this is total domination so far. Back in and the beating continues with Muraco hammering away at the head. Muraco’s Asiatic Spike hold is good for the win.

We’ll head to the WWF now and jump ahead a few years. Muraco would challenge for the Intercontinental Title on January 22, 1983.

Intercontinental Title: Pedro Morales vs. Don Muraco

This is from MSG in January of 83. Morales had taken the title from Muraco over a year ago. See, back then title reigns were VERY different. The title was introduced in 1979 and Ricky Steamboat was the 11th reign in 1987. In 8 years, the title changed hands 10 times. Think about that. Of the first ten reigns, the shortest was five months. Today, that would be a long reign. Back then it was by far the shortest. Three of the first ten lasted over a year. Think about that for a minute and now compare it to today.

As for this match, Muraco jumps the champ in the corner but Morales fights back quickly. Morales rips half of the shirt off Muraco and the challenger is in trouble. Corner sunset flip gets two for Morales. Muraco has a sleeve of his shirt still hanging off his arm. Pedro knocks him to the floor and this is all Morales so far. Muraco does a Flair Flop off the apron to the floor.

Pedro goes up top but doesn’t dive onto him as Don hides under the floor. That was pretty smart. Muraco tries to hide as Morales stalks him. Boot to the back of the head and it’s all Pedro. Gorilla criticizes him for not going for the kill, which is pretty good analysis. And there’s a low blow by Muraco and both guys are down. Still using the t-shirt, Muraco chokes Pedro with it in the corner, only to get low blowed as well.

Ok NOW the t-shirt is finally gone. A running knee in the corner misses for Morales though and he might have blown it out. There’s a lot of blowing in this match. Muraco moves in on it with a leg snap out of the corner. Clipped to a spinning toe hold being countered by Pedro. Morales, ever the genius, tries a backbreaker (despite sending Muraco’s shoulder into the post on the counter) and reinjures his knee. Boston Crab (Pedro’s finisher) is quickly broken by the ropes. Pedro tries a slam but the knee buckles and Muraco falls on top for the pin and the second title change in two matches on this tape.

Rating: C-. Not great or anything but again it’s really cool to see these rarities as you always hear about how these legends held titles but you never see how they won them. Pedro was far better in the 70s than 80s as he was washed up at this point, but he could still put people over, which is what he did here. Decent stuff, although a lot of stalling hurt it.

Off to the most famous match of Muraco’s career. From MSG on October 17, 1983.

Intercontinental Title: Don Muraco vs. Jimmy Snuka

This is in a cage. Sound familiar? You can only win by escape, making this a REAL cage match. A quick slugout is won by Snuka but Muraco pops back up. Snuka chops away as the beating begins. Don tries for the door but Snuka will have none of that. Muraco manages to slingshot him into the cage and Jimmy is busted early. Snuka gets a knee up and climbs the cage, only to come back down and pound away on Muraco some more.

Don manages a slam and goes for the door but Jimmy makes a save, only to take a low blow. Snuka pops up and chops Don’s head open, followed by a middle rope headbutt. He stands Muraco up, and in a semi-famous ending, hits a flying headbutt which knocks Muraco into the door, knocking it open so that the unconscious Muraco can fall out to keep the title.

Rating: D+. The match was intense while it lasted, but the whole thing only runs about seven minutes. There’s nothing of note here at all other than the ending which is pretty creative. I don’t remember a shorter cage match off the top of my head, which is something I think a lot of people forget. I think people think this was a big and epic brawl but it’s really Snuka killing him and then the ending with a run time of 6:46. That’s not much.

Post match Jimmy snaps and throws Muraco back inside. He suplexes Muraco down and goes to the corner. He climbs to the top rope but then goes a step further to the top of the cage, and in the most famous scene in wrestling until Hogan vs. Andre, jumps off the top of the cage with the Superfly Splash, completely crushing Muraco. That still looks great today, and some credit needs to go to Muraco. He was starting to sit up when Jimmy hits him, but after the Splash Muraco is DEAD.

Mick Foley, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and Bubba Ray Dudley were in attendance that night and all have said this was what made them want to be a wrestler. I can easily see how that would be the case, as there was nothing like this beforehand. Snuka was flying through the air and crushed Muraco, which still looks incredible today. It’s stuff like that which you can only see in wrestling, which is what makes it great.

For some reason on the replays they keep stopping it right before the splash hits.

From MSG on January 23, 1984.

Intercontinental Title: Don Muraco vs. Tito Santana

Tito is challenging and Muraco has Albano with him. Feeling out process to start with Albano wondering around the ring for no apparent reason other than he’s Lou Albano. Tito finally takes over with a headlock before firing off some of those right hands that Jesse would say have guacamole on them. When the headlock stops working, Tito just rams Muraco’s head into the mat. Why over complicate things?

Back to the headlock as Tito cranks away. A big knee drop to Muraco’s head gets two and it’s back to the headlock. Don comes out of the hold with a backbreaker but is immediately slammed right back down into the headlock. This is getting rather repetitive as we’re over eleven minutes into this match and about nine of them have been spent in a headlock. They changes things up slightly by having Tito on his feet where Muraco can break the hold with a kind of Russian legsweep.

Muraco rams Santana’s head into the buckle to take over and adds in a powerslam for two. I’m pretty sure Muraco’s finisher at this point was a tombstone but I’m not sure. The fans cheer for Tito and he starts to Hulk Up a bit. Santana punches Muraco down and stomps away before having to take Albano out. The forearm misses Don though and both guys are down. Muraco goes up top and they slug it out….for a double DQ? Dang this is an old school match. Even Gorilla sounds confused by that.

Rating: D. I LOVE Tito Santana, but man alive this was boring. It’s a sixteen minute match and nearly thirteen minutes of that are spent in a headlock. That isn’t an exaggeration either. I checked to see if I had forgotten something but there’s nothing else there. Tito would win the title from Muraco about three weeks later in Boston.

Time for Muraco to go after a big dog. From May 18, 1985.

Hulk Hogan/Jimmy Snuka vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton

In Boston which means a hot crowd. Hogan is champion (duh) and Jimmy is probably the second most popular guy in the company. More Mania fallout stuff here. Big brawl to start and the good guys clear the ring. Snuka and Orton officially start and Bob gets his cast beaten on. Well that’s a very slow healing injury after all. They work on the arm for awhile with Hogan even coming in off the middle rope with a shot.

The arm hits the post and at this point it’s still a fresh injury, only having been broken for a month or so. Back to Snuka and the beating continues. The Human Banana comes back in and Orton can’t get anything going. Big atomic drop has Orton in trouble but he manages to trip Hogan to bring in Muraco. Gee Hogan went down quickly there. Clipped to Orton hitting a nice delayed vertical on Hogan.

Back to Muraco with some nice heel double teaming. They collide and there’s the hot tag to Snuka. The camera cuts to a shot of the crowd and a kid pops up right in front of the camera like in a horror movie. Fuji gets up on the apron for a distraction and Orton hits Snuka with the cast. Hogan takes a shot too and Snuka is busted. OH MAN is he cut. Hogan goes into the post on the floor and we’re clipped to more beating on Snuka. He gets a shot in though and it’s off to Hogan finally. Orton pops him with the cast almost immediately and it gets thrown out.

Rating: C+. I liked this one a lot and I’d have loved to see the full version of it. That and a decisive ending instead of the DQ but whatever. This was Hogan 101 back in the day: find some guy to tag with, find a pair of heels, and watch the guy get bigger than he was going to be able to get on his own. They’re trying that with Cena and Ryder at the moment, but it’s not working so well because Ryder looks like a helpless chick (remember Cena holding him?) in the whole thing.

Muraco would be entered into the Wrestling Classic.

First Round: Tito Santana vs. Don Muraco

Tito is IC Champion here, yet he doesn’t get an introduction? That makes a lot of sense. These two had some great matches for the IC belt awhile back. Gorilla and Jesse debate the wisdom of a champion being in the tournament which is a valid point. Santana really is underrated in the ring. I defy you to find a truly bad Santana match where he wasn’t getting squashed. This is just a great old school style of a match here in all its 80s greatness.

They work a very different style than what you would see on TV today but it was great stuff. A lot of the time the more basic you go the better your stuff will be. That’s what should be on Tito’s tombstone as it was how his whole career went. In an ending that I really like, Muraco hits a powerslam for the three, but Santana’s foot is over the rope. Muraco is celebrating and walks into a small package for the real pin. I really like that.

It makes Muraco looks fairly strong as he actually got Santana down for three while at the same time it keeps Santana from looking weak because while he was pinned, it wasn’t legal. Again, creative booking makes things that otherwise would be bad much better. Fun match.

Rating: B. While they only had four minutes, they were a good four minutes. See, you can have matches like JYD and Sheik that are short and suck, and then you can have matches like this that was short and good. These two went out there and went hard for a few minutes and had a fun match. That’s how it’s done guys. Take notes. Santana really was a master in the ring and Muraco was no slouch either.

Here’s a match that can’t possibly be bad. From MSG on November 25, 1985.

Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat

MSG from November of 85. They’re slow to start so I’m assuming this is going to go on for awhile. Steamboat speeds things up and a kick sends Don to the floor. Back in and Steamboat claps Muraco’s ears to send him right back to the floor. Back in and Muraco walks into a superkick and chops. Steamboat hooks the rare face chinlock (it’s a neck crank but I call them all chinlocks).

Muraco comes back but walks into more shots from Ricky to send him back outside. Back in again and Muraco STILL can’t get anything going. Backdrop sets up some armdrags and off to something resembling an STF. Now into a camel clutch. Steamboat grabs a nose lock before shifting to a front facelock. Clipped to later in the facelock as we hear about how this is a revenge match for the Dragon.

Muraco finally gets in some offense with an atomic drop and a clothesline. Steamboat goes face first into the post and he’s busted. Muraco goes after the wound like an evil man. Now it’s Steamboat on the floor as Gorilla wants a doctor to take a look at Steamboat. A slingshot puts Ricky into the post. Steamboat staggers around on the floor for a bit before getting slingshotted back in. That’s a popular move in this match.

Ricky chops away in the corner and the people get all exciteable. Muraco comes back again and Fuji throws in the cane. They fight over it but Steamboat kicks him off and into the referee. A cane shot misses Ricky so Steamboat kicks him in the back of the head and grabs the cane. The fans are LOSING IT. A cane shot draws the DQ loss for Steamboat though.

Rating: C+. Not a classic or anything but for what it was, this was fine. They let the guys do their thing and they worked the crowd into a frenzy because of it. What else do you really need to do in a place like New York? Steamboat was great and while Muraco was just a step past his prime, he could still go and do 20 minutes like he did here. Fine match.

Muraco would get a WWF World Title shot at SNME V.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Don Muraco

Real American is used for the first time here. That’s rather cool. Apparently the music video debuts tonight as well. Muraco is number one contender for some reason. This screams generic Hogan match to me but I’ve been wrong before. This wouldn’t appear to be one of those times though. Actually Hogan is dominating here which isn’t something you often see. Hogan has white kneepads. That’s rather odd.

Muraco takes over and this isn’t anything of note at all, but somehow this is by far and away the best match of the night thus far. Muraco uses a move called the Asian Spike twice. I’d assume it’s a thumb to the chest or something like that. Hulk Up time and Heenan runs in for the DQ after the leg drop.

Rating: C-. Not bad but just a filler match to set up the ending angle. Much like the rest of the stuff around this time, there just wasn’t much here. Hogan did his usual stuff which to be fair was still huge back then. This was fine for what it was, though that wasn’t all that much in the first place.

Muraco would open Wrestlemania II in a match dealing with the post Wrestlemania I fallout.

Paul Orndorff vs. Don Muraco

This is fallout from the main event of Mania last year as Orndorff turned face due to Piper and Orton leaving him behind. Muraco is an associate of Piper so this is kind of a proxy feud for Paul. Muraco has Fuji with him too. Both guys say they’ll win in a voiceover as the match starts. Paul slams Muraco down to start and the crowd is already hot. Orndorff makes a slant eyes face at Fuji which today would get him thrown out of the company. In 1986, he was making $20,000 a week later in the year. It’s funny how times change.

Paul takes him down to the mat with an armbar as Susan St. James clearly has no idea what’s going on. She’s trying but this isn’t something she knows about at all it would seem. Paul cranks on a wristlock before going back down to the armbar. Susan: “He looks like he’s using some ancient Chinese techniques”. Uh…yeah. Muraco finally escapes and sends Paul into the corner, only to have Orndorff go off on him as they brawl to the floor. In something you won’t ever hear again I don’t think, the opening match of Wrestlemania goes to a double countout. The fans chant some expletives.

Rating: D. What do you want here? The match is four minutes long and ends in a double countout. It was hot while it lasted, but the problem is that it didn’t last long enough at all. This was a pretty big feud and it gets a four minute match? That’s all they can spare these guys? Orndorff would have a MEGA heel turn later in the summer which would eventually draw 74,000 people to an outdoor show in Toronto. That’s some drawing power.

Muraco would appear at the Big Event.

King Tonga vs. Don Muraco

Both are heels here and Tonga is more commonly known as Haku/Meng. He looks weird in regular tights too. I think he’s supposed to be a face but he’s just not popular at all. He’s also referred to as both King Tonga and Haku. He works on the arm, like a lot. I mean he works on that thing like there’s no freaking tomorrow.

We’re at about 5 minutes of just arm work. Valiant and Ladd are rather annoying men. And now we hit a two minute nerve hold. I have a bad feeling I know where this is going to go. Good grief this is just boring. Nothing of note happens for the better part of ever and then we have a time limit draw at about seventeen of the twenty minutes. This was a waste of time.

Rating: D+. I hate matches like these. Draws are fine, but dang man this was just freaking boring. Haku using a high cross body was cool though. Either way, this just wasn’t interesting at all and the wrestling wasn’t any good. That makes for a very bad match, especially this early on the show.

Muraco would start hanging out with Adrian Adonis and face Roddy Piper as a result. From November 1, 1986.

Roddy Piper vs. Don Muraco

Muraco is an Adonis crony. Piper jumps him to start and he’s WAY over. He was easily the second most popular guy in the company at this point. Muraco has a beard here which doesn’t work on him at all. They go to the floor and Piper slams him into a chair. Piper bites him coming back in and then gets him tied up in the ropes.

There’s a bulldog for no cover. There are cops walking around in the front row for some reason. Muraco sends him to the floor and Fuji gets in a shot to take Piper down a few pegs. Piper gets sent into the post and is busted. I can’t actually see it but Gorilla said it and Gorilla wouldn’t lie. Back in now and Piper spears him down to take over. Oh yeah it’s dripping off his face. Muraco is busted too.

This is a total brawl now. Muraco swings away but you don’t do that to Piper. He takes over with punches and hits a suplex for two. Fuji pokes Piper with the cane to shift momentum one more time. They’re both bleeding a ton. Fuji tries to interfere again but Muraco accidentally knees him to the floor and Piper rolls up Muraco for the pin.

Rating: B-. Fun brawl here which is what Piper was best at. He could go out there and have a totally wild brawl but his charisma was more than enough to carry him to a good match. Well maybe fun is the better term that good but you get the idea. This of course all culminated with the hair vs. hair match at Mania with Piper vs. Adonis.

Time for a comedy match. From November 24, 1986.

Don Muraco vs. Hillbilly Jim

Muraco is dressed like Piper and Fuji is with him in a tux. Remember that. Muraco is wrestling in the kilt. Jim rips it off quickly and the beating begins. Muraco is sent to the floor and Fuji’s hat got crushed. Muraco hides in the corner and Jim works on the arm. A headbutt puts Don on the floor. Muraco takes him down and it’s off to a nerve hold. Jim comes back and hits a big boot. Bear hug (called a full nelson by Monsoon for some reason) draws in Fuji for the DQ.

Rating: D. Jim was a fun character and this was designed to set up the next match and that’s all. Muraco was definitely on the downside of his career at this point but he still had a few more years on the top level to go. Fuji interfering directly sets up the next match on the tape which is always cool to see.

Muraco would join forces with Bob Orton and open the biggest show ever. From Wrestlemania III.

Can-Am Connection vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton

No story here as they’re just two teams having a match. The Can-Am Connection is Rick Martel (Can) and Tom Zenk (Am) which would kind of evolve into Strike Force. Martel and Muraco start things off with Rick hitting a quick shoulder to take Don down. A hip block and a kind of monkey flip put Muraco down again and it’s a standoff. Zenk comes in for a double monkey flip and it’s off to Orton who gets armdragged down as well.

Bob gets hit from one corner to the other until Zenk takes him down with an armbar. All Connection so far. They trade full nelsons and Muraco hits Orton by mistake for two. Bob gets his arm cranked on a bit until FINALLY making the tag out to Muraco. The bad luck continues for the heels as Don is slammed down and has his arm worked on as well.

Orton and Muraco finally start cheating with a knee to Zenk’s back and a shot from the middle rope. Zenk and Bob ram heads and it’s a double tag as everything breaks down. The heels are sent into each other and a double dropkick takes Orton down. Muraco gets double teamed and a cross body with a trip from Zenk is enough for Martel to get the pin.

Rating: B-. I’ve called this the best opening match in Wrestlemania history and I don’t think it’s that far off from the truth. There are definitely matches of higher quality, but think about what an opening match is supposed to do. It’s designed to set the tone for a show and this one did that. It’s about five and a half minutes long and the good guys beat the bad guys with some nice continuity. It’s nothing flashy but it wasn’t supposed to be. This is a very nice, basic tag match and the crowd was into it, which is all it was supposed to accomplish. Good stuff here.

After turning face, Muraco would main event the first Survivor Series.

Team Andre the Giant vs. Team Hulk Hogan

Andre the Giant, King Kong Bundy, One Man Gang, Butch Reed, Rick Rude
Hulk Hogan, Bam Bam Bigelow, Don Muraco, Ken Patera, Paul Orndorff

After Andre’s team comes out, we go to the back for a great late 80s Hogan insane promo. He talks about how hungry all of his team is and apparently he trusts Orndorff again. Muraco is subbing for an injured Billy Graham who would never wrestle again if I remember correctly. To say the place erupts for Hogan is an understatement. Muraco and Rude get things going here. Again there aren’t many feuds going on here other than Hogan vs. Andre. Rude and Orndorff are feuding but other than that I don’t think there were any established programs already.

Rude gets knocked into the corner and quintuple teamed before it’s off to Orndorff for the tag. Paul knocks him around a bit and here’s Hogan to blow the roof off the place again. He drops a bunch of elbows on Rude and here’s Bigelow with a splash for no cover. Bigelow gorilla presses Rude and here’s Patera who never got back to where he was before his jail stint.

Off to Reed who has about as much luck as Rude had earlier. Muraco comes in and dropkicks Reed down as does Orndorff. Paul beats on him for a bit and it’s a double clothesline from Hogan and Orndorff, leading to the big leg and a 5-4 lead for Hogan and company. Andre comes in while Hogan is celebrating, but Joey Marella (Gorilla’s adopted son) says a high five to Patera counted as a tag so the teasing of the crowd continues.

Andre, the Frenchman that he is, thinks Patera is beneath him and tags out to Bundy. Patera clotheslines Bundy down but King tags in Gang to beat on Orndorff. Paul is all like BRING IT ON and punches Gang in the head, only to charge into a knee in the corner to bring him right back down. Off to Rude who gets his own head taken off by a clothesline. It’s been ALL Hulk N Pals so far.

Rude pokes Muraco in the eye and it’s off to Gang, but OMG misses a splash in the corner. Patera gets in and pounds away on Gang even more with right hands and a knee in the corner. Gang goes to the eyes which of course makes Jesse happy. Patera tries to fight back but they clothesline each other and Gang falls on top of him for the pin, making it 4-4. Hogan comes in immediately to take over but quickly brings in Bam Bam for a double big boot.

Bigelow is probably the second most popular guy in the company at this point or third at worst behind only Hogan and Savage. They hit head to head and it’s a double tag to Rude and Orndorff. Paul goes nuts on him but as he loads up the piledriver, Bundy jumps him from behind, giving Rude a quick rollup pin. That would be it for Orndorff in the WWF, at least in major spots.

Bigelow comes in and suplexes Rude down before tagging out to Hogan for a high knee (!). A powerslam from Muraco to take Rude out and it’s Gang, Bundy and Andre vs. Bigelow, Hogan and Muraco. Muraco goes after Bundy’s leg which is pretty good strategy. Granted it doesn’t work but at least it was a good idea. Gang comes in and Muraco can’t slam him because he’s really fat. The splash eliminates Muraco and it’s 3-2.

Gang vs. Bigelow now with Bigelow trying a sunset flip, only to get crushed by the power of fat. Bundy clotheslines Bigelow inside out and Jesse says Hogan is going to run if Bigelow gets eliminated. Gorilla RUNS to Hogan’s defense and Jesse freaks. Gang and Bigelow collide and Hogan looks like he’s about to cry. Andre finally comes in and Bigelow looks TINY compared to him.

Bigelow slides between Andre’s legs and FINALLY it’s Hogan vs. Andre. Hogan pounds away and blocks a headbutt and Andre is in trouble. Hogan decks Bundy and Gang before elbowing Andre in the head. Bundy pulls Hogan to the floor and Hulk has to beat up both of the other monsters. He slams both guys, but he’s outside too long and Hogan is counted out. Hogan, the great sportsman that he is, gets back in anyway and is STUNNED, yes STUNNED I SAY about getting counted out. It takes the referees saying that if Hogan doesn’t leave, his whole team is disqualified.

So it’s Bigelow vs. Andre, Bundy and Gang. Bigelow starts with Bundy and clotheslines him down for two. A shoulder block puts Bundy down again and a headbutt gets two. A dropkick staggers Bundy and the King misses a splash. Bigelow hits his slingshot splash to eliminate Bundy and make it 2-1.

Gang comes in immediately and starts pounding away, hooking something like a front facelock. Bigelow gets rammed into Andre’s boot and Gang goes up. Oh this can’t end well. Gang misses a “splash” and Bigelow pins him to get us down to one on one. Let the pain begin. Andre pounds him down, avoids a charge, fires off a bunch of shoulders to the back, and a kind of single arm butterfly suplex gets the final pin for Andre.

Rating: B-. For a main event, this was perfectly fine. More than anything else, it continues Hogan vs. Andre. They had their first match about eight months ago and something like this needed to happen to extend the feud. That’s the reason for the amount of PPVs going up: you need another place to have major feuds. Andre has now won something in direct competition over Hogan and there’s a reason for a rematch. Maybe on February 5th live on NBC?

Muraco would be entered into the WWF World Title tournament at Wrestlemania IV.

WWF World Title Tournament First Round: Dino Bravo vs. Don Muraco

Bravo shoves him back into the corner to start to win the first power battle of the match. Muraco hammers him down and tries something like a Vader Bomb but basically just lands next to Bravo instead. Dino comes back with an elbow to the face and a gutwrench suplex for no cover. A knee in the corner misses Muraco so he starts hammering on the knee.

A spinning toehold has Bravo in trouble but Don gets kicked away and gets his head caught in the ropes. Dino uses Muraco’s own piledriver to get two but a second attempt is countered with a backdrop. They clothesline each other but it’s Muraco up first. He hits a flying forearm which works so well that he tries it again, but Bravo pulls the referee into Muraco for the DQ.

Rating: D+. this was slow and plodding but it wasn’t horrible. Muraco was far better when he was less muscular and evil and this part of his career never quite worked that well. One very nice thing here is Jesse freaking out when Bravo got disqualified but then saying it was correct when seeing Bravo pull the referee on the replay. It’s very refreshing to see something like that.

WWF World Title Tournament Quarterfinals: Don Muraco vs. Ted DiBiase

The winner goes to the finals because of the double DQ. Ted comes out alone here for the first time tonight. Muraco pulls him into the ring by the hair and we’re ready to go. A quick powerslam gets two and Ted is reeling. There’s a clothesline for another two and Ted tries to bail. DiBiase finally gets to the floor and Billy Graham (Muraco’s manager) tries to hit him with his cane. Back in and Don tries to pull him out of the corner but gets pulled into the corner himself instead. DiBiase finally has some control but misses a falling reverse elbow off the middle rope. Muraco makes a quick comeback but walks into a hotshot for the pin.

Rating: C. Not bad here but yet again the time hurts them a lot. There’s only so much you can do in about five minutes, although it was good to show that DiBiase could get a win on his own which he did here. Muraco would be gone pretty soon if I remember correctly. Not much of a match here but it wasn’t bad.

Muraco would head to the indies for awhile before reappearing at the ECW/WCW show Slamboree 1993.

Dick Murdoch/Don Muraco/Jimmy Snuka vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Blackjack Mulligan/Jim Brunzell

Snuka in WCW is just weird. There are only three Legends matches and they’re all in a row. See, the problem with shows like these is that they have to actually wrestle. The Jims star us off here. Brunzell controls and takes over to start before bringing in Mulligan (Barry Windham’s dad). Mulligan vs. Murdoch now and they look their age. Murdoch gets taken down and goes into the wrong corner which ends badly for him.

Larry actually gets on Schiavone for knowing too much history. Dang Bischoff messed with that guy’s head and style like nothing I’ve ever seen. Murdoch (former big shot in the KKK apparently) runs from Wahoo and it’s off to Muraco. Wahoo slams him a few times and Muraco runs off. It’s weird to see Snuka on the seemingly heel team.

Muraco chops McDaniel a lot as Wahoo is face in peril I guess. Ok never mind as it’s off to Brunzell again who hits that dropkick of his. MURDOCH HITS A FREAKING FLYING HEADSCISSORS!!! I need a minute here. The announcers pop big for that. Not very horrible either if you can believe that (playa). Sleeper doesn’t work that well for Brunzell as Muraco breaks it up and hits a powerslam for no cover.

Wahoo gets a tag but the referee misses it so we’re still not ready to bring someone new in. Heel miscommunication puts Snuka down. Murdoch goes up top and puts his knee in Brunzell’s back to drive him down for two. Back to Muraco who gets caught in a cross body for two. Snuka finally comes in and gets in an argument with Snuka. Everything breaks down into a big brawl and the match gets thrown out.

Rating: C. It’s hard to come down on these matches as they’re not supposed to be good or anything. None of the guys have been active for years other than maybe some work on the indy circuits (Muraco was in ECW sometime around this, as was Snuka) so it’s not like they’ve been in the spotlight recently. The idea is to let them get one last hurrah and that’s fine. Hard to complain if the match is even remotely passable.

Don Muraco is a guy who may not have been the top guy in the promotion but he was a solid hand no matter where they put him on the card. He could wrestle with anyone and could be a good power face or a conniving heel. Muraco was a good guy to bring over from the territory system and he would rarely have a bad match. That’s a very valuable asset to have and Muraco was very good at it.

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Impact
Date: January 4, 2010
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Episode Title: Time For A Change
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

This is a show I’ve been asked to do for a long time and I could have sworn I did it live. It seems appropriate now with the possibility that Impact is ending its run on Spike. People have called this the beginning of the end, and I’m curious to see how poorly it holds up. I remember there being big problems when it was fresh but it could look a lot worse four and a half years later. Let’s get to it.

We open with a history of the company with a focus on the first show back in 2002 and the big names debuting. Naturally this all pales in comparison to Hogan arriving because the battle with WWE begins.

Theme song.

Tenay and Tazz run down the card.

Earlier today, new correspondent Bubba the Love Sponge, asked fans what they wanted to see. The general response: more wrestling, more of the old school, Hulk Hogan and clothing optional muscular men. Keep in mind that none of these people actually paid to get into this show.

Chris Sabin vs. Alex Shelley vs. Homicide vs. Kiyoshi vs. Jay Lethal vs. Consequences Creed vs. Suicide vs. Amazing Red

This is a Steel Asylum Xscape match, meaning it’s a BIG RED CAGE and the first person to climb out of a small hole in the top wins. The Guns (Shelley/Sabin), Lethal Consequences and Homicide/Kiyoshi are regular tag partners. Red is X-Division Champion but the title isn’t on the line. We immediately see the problem: there are eight people in the ring at once and the red bars are thicker than traditional cages, making it almost impossible to tell what’s going on inside.

Tenay tells us that Mick Foley couldn’t get through security to get in. Remember that because it’s going to be important later. It’s a huge brawl to start of course with various people climbing up and quickly being pulled back down. The fans are behind Shelley as he gets to the upper part of the cage (it’s shaped like a teapot with a lid instead of a regular cage) but Lethal makes a save before Alex can get to the hold.

Jay hits a Lethal Injection on Suicide but Kiyoshi (I think. You can barely tell) takes him down. The cameras are cutting away so fast that you can barely tell where everyone is. Suicide goes for the hole but Red makes a save. Well in theory as he kind of touches Red to get him down before diving at Sabin with a hurricanrana instead. Homicide busts out a baton and starts beating people……for a no contest. IN A CAGE MATCH.

Rating: F. None of the spots were anything special, the match ran less than five minutes, YOU COULDN’T SEE ANYTHING, AND IT WAS A FREAKING NO CONTEST IN A STEEL CAGE MATCH. Throw in that this was for nothing but bragging rights because the champion was in the match, meaning there wasn’t a title shot or anything like that up for grabs, and this was one of the worst opening matches I’ve seen in years.

The fans are rightfully livid, but we’re not done yet. Homicide goes climbing after the match is over….and he can’t get out. To be fair to him it’s a horrible design that a trapeze artist would have trouble getting out of but that’s why this was stupid. As Homicide is hanging upside down and trying not to die, the other guys get up so Homicide drops down to the mat.

They keep brawling until Jeff Hardy debuts (coming through the crowd because Hogan bringing him to the ring and saying “LOOK WHO I SIGNED” was too simple) and gets in a fight with Homicide outside (nearly falling over the bottom of the cage) of the ring. Jeff lays him out with a chair shot and Twist of Fate before climbing the outside of the cage and sitting on top. After tonight, he wouldn’t appear TNA for over two months.

Hardy and Shannon Moore are glad to see each other after a break.

Hulk Hogan is on the way, complete with a motorcade. Keep that in mind as well.

Kevin Nash makes sex jokes with Christy Hemme (no issue there) and says this is a great night for TNA and for Hogan himself. He talks about being mentored by Hogan and how good it’s going to be to have him back. Nash reiterates that Hogan is on his way and not alone.

Knockouts Title: ODB vs. Tara

ODB is challenging and Tara (coming out to the rocking BROKEN song) is actually wearing the belt. ODB takes over with some choking to start, followed by the fall away slam for two. Back up and Tara hooks the Tarantula followed by a slingshot flip legdrop for two of her own. The Widow’s Peak is countered into a rollup with a handful of trunks (and a cutaway because they come up a bit too high) to give ODB the title.

Rating: D. I forgot how good Tara looked at this point. The match was nothing to see though as it was mainly just a brawl for a few minutes until ODB cheated to win. This comes off like the US Express losing the Tag Team Titles to Volkoff and Sheik at the first Wrestlemania: give them something to make it historic. The similarities continue as Tara would get it back less than two weeks later.

Tara lays out the new champion and puts her spider on ODB’s face.

Ric Flair arrives in a big surprise and goes into World Champion AJ Styles’ locker room.

Earlier today Christy was talking to fans when Mick Foley arrived and tried to get in. He’s been barred from the arena though and doesn’t seem to care. Security stops him though and Mick just leaves.

Bobby Lashley and his girlfriend Kristal come out with something to say. A loud BOBBY chant cuts Kristal off as she tries to talk about how big of a night this is. She says Bobby wants Hogan to know what a big star he is and how no one can handle him. Unlike MMA, wrestling is full of inbred degenerates that people like Lashley have to put up with. Lashley has asked for his release because they have more important things to do. Both would be gone before the end of the month.

The Beautiful People are playing strip poker because that’s what good looking women do. Notice the Five Hour Energies (sponsor) on the table. On the other hand, ignore that Lacey claims to have a flush but seems to have four hearts and a diamond.

Scott Hall (looking BOMBED. DDP truly is a miracle worker) and Sean Waltman beat up security but get stopped.

Hogan is still coming.

After a break the limos have stopped outside the Impact Zone. Someone gets out of one limo and gets into the other one.

Hall and Waltman get into the arena.

It’s 9pm so here’s Hulk in black. Brooke is of course in the front row. Hogan immediately puts over the roster and the locker room for working as hard as they have. Now we get the infamous line from this promo: “I’ve been in the back all day.” Remember that this is after AN HOUR OF WATCHING HIM DRIVE TO THE BUILDING. That line was edited out of the rebroadcast of the show and it’s painful to hear all over again.

Hogan talks about how many new and familiar faces there are here. As he’s talking, Hall and Waltman try to get to the ring. Hogan says give them a mic and let them get in the ring. Hall and Hogan do the Wolfpack sign and Hall says the party is back. The boss tells him that’s not how it works anymore. Waltman thinks it’s the same people so it’s the same party, but Hogan shoots him down too. In a laughable line, Hogan says it’s time to grow up.

Hall says everything is changing, with or without Hogan. Wait so is everything changing or is everything the same? Nash comes out and wants to know what’s going on, but Hulk insists he’s not playing a role. Hogan says they need to do this FOR REAL because it’s a different time. Hall and Waltman are ready to fight but Eric Bischoff debuts and says they reinvented this business. Dixie Carter is shown watching from the crowd.

Bischoff says this is all about communication and that has broken down recently. Everyone has to earn their position in this company, which Nash hears loud and clear. Nash, Hall and Waltman leave and Bischoff again claims that they can change the business again. Hogan says they’ve shuffled the deck as Dixie cautiously applauds. Bischoff rips up the format sheet to show how different things are going to be. He hands the producer a new format because they’re turning this company upside down. So this basically boiled down to the same “this is new” promo that every indy company starts with.

Sting is shown watching from the rafters.

Knockouts Tag Team Titles: Awesome Kong/Hamada vs. Sarita/Taylor Wilde

Hamada and Kong are challenging. Sarita armdrags Hamada down a few times to start as we cut to the back to see the Motor City Machineguns laid out. Kong comes in and starts cleaning house but Taylor kicks Hamada out to the floor. The champions double team Kong to the floor and hit stereo dives to take the villains out as we take a break.

Back with Hamada hitting a running basement dropkick for two on Sarita. Taylor comes in and is promptly destroyed by Kong with ease. Hamada gets in some shots of her own and it’s back to Kong, who actually allows the hot tag to Sarita. The challengers catch a top rope cross body with ease but Taylor makes the save. Kong drops Sarita with a spinning backfist and an Awesome Bomb with Hamada adding a missile dropkick gives us new champions.

Rating: C. I liked this better than I thought I would but I always liked Hamada. There’s no story here of course but then again there never were with these belts. This title reign didn’t mean much either as Hamada and Kong would be stripped of the titles when Kong left the company due to an altercation with Bubba the Love Sponge.

The Beautiful People are still playing cards when Sean Morely shows up in a towel. He wants to deal.

Security still won’t let Foley into the arena. He’s in the building now at least. Foley leaves and the Nasty Boys debut but can’t get in either. Allegedly this was a rib by Bischoff and Hogan for fans who would ask where the Nasty Boys were.

Matt Morgan/Hernandez vs. Raven/Dr. Stevie

Carbon Footprint ends Stevie in thirty seconds. Apparently this was a #1 contenders match.

D’Angelo Dinero is ready for Desmond Wolfe when Orlando Jordan (not named here) debuts and asks if they’ve seen Hogan. Pope isn’t happy. Somehow this took like three and a half minutes.

D’Angelo Dinero vs. Desmond Wolfe

Wolfe throws Dinero around to start and goes after the arm with a flying hammerlock. The arm is sent into the buckle but Dinero comes back with a knee in the corner and a Vader Bomb elbow. The fans think that THIS IS WRESTLING as Pope escapes the Tower of London and small packages Wolfe for the pin out of nowhere. Too short to rate but the fact that TNA didn’t even bother saying Wolfe was awesome tells you everything you need to know about it.

Jeff Jarrett arrives.

Rhino is down in the back. Bubba the Love Sponge shows up and says he’ll get to the bottom of this.

The announcers recap the evening and we get a clip of Hogan debuting.

AJ Styles is excited about Hogan arriving and is ready for his match with Angle at Genesis so he can prove how great he is. Bischoff comes in and makes AJ vs. Angle for the title tonight.

Jeff Jarrett makes his big return to the Impact Zone and thanks the fans for being here. He founded TNA seven years ago and the fans said they wouldn’t last six months. Instead he’s sitting here in a six sided ring on a Monday night. He spent years trying to get Hogan here and now the time is right.

Jarrett talks about doing good and bad things, but the best thing he’s done is bring in people like Beer Money, Daniels, Samoa Joe and AJ Styles. The best is yet to come….and Hogan cuts him off. Hogan talks about how Jarrett ran the country into the ground and how he and Bischoff are here to save it. Hogan is now Dixie’s partner and he’ll take TNA to the top. Jarrett has no power and needs to lace up his boots and be ready.

Let’s stop to recap this for a second. Hogan and Bischoff came into the company as good guys. This should be obvious given how they were hyped up. Jarrett didn’t show a single bit of heelishness in the promo and it was all for the fans. They were into it as well, and then Hogan cuts him off at the knees like a heel. It didn’t come off like a heel turn, but rather Hogan talking to a heel.

Was TNA expecting Jarrett’s promo to get booed? I have no idea why as there wasn’t anything but sucking up to the fans in it, nor do I have any idea why Hogan has to oppose Jarrett. Yeah Jarrett did some stupid stuff in real life, but what does that have to do with his on screen character? In theory it’s more of Hogan’s blurring the lines stuff and this is a good example of how bad it can look.

Daniels is in the back when JB interrupts him (a recurring trend tonight). Apparently Foley is still trying to get in and convinces Borash to open a door. Foley finally gets in and wants a meeting with Hogan.

Jeff Hardy is painting but Shannon Moore says the big man called. They leave.

Abyss vs. Samoa Joe

This is the sixth match of the night and these are the second and third people still actually with the company just four and a half years later. Actually, so far the only people we’ve seen still with the company are the announcers, Christy, JB, Lashley (who was gone for a four year stretch), Homicide, Joe, two Beautiful People, Hardy and Abyss. That’s eleven people out of probably thirty or forty still around and only seven are active wrestlers. That’s an INSANE turnaround in less than five years.

Joe hammers him down in the corner to start and hits a quick Facewash for good measure. They head outside and Abyss has to duck a chair being pelted at his head. Back in and Abyss slams him down but charges into a boot to the face. We see Sting watching from the back. Joe follows it up with a middle rope boot to the chest for two. An enziguri staggers Abyss but he chokeslams Joe down with ease. The referee gets bumped and Joe nails Abyss with a chair, setting up the Clutch for the submission.

Rating: C-. Decent power brawl here but more than that it was nice to see a match get nearly five minutes without anything interrupting it. Oh wait there was the Sting deal. I knew it was too good to be true. The match didn’t mean anything but that’s par for the course on this show.

Bischoff is editing the new format when Kristal comes up and demands a meeting with Hogan. Eric tells her to take a number and wait in line.

Now Beer Money has been attacked. Bubba thinks he knows who did it.

The Nasty Boys still can’t get in so Bubba comes in and says let them in.

Kurt Angle (the eighth person still on the roster) says he’s been waiting to get his hands on AJ since September.

Jeff Hardy and Shannon Moore get envelopes (presumably contracts) when some teenage girls come up. Jeff gives them the painting and they scream a lot.

The Nasty Boys trash Team 3D’s locker room. Team 3D would lose the showdown on PPV.

TNA World Title: AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle

AJ is defending. Angle quickly suplexes out of a headlock as the fans are split on what to do. Kurt goes outside and gets taken down by a big flip dive to finally give the fans something good to cheer for. A masked man comes in and attacks AJ but Angle helps get rid of him to save his title shot. Angle nails a buckle bomb and we take a break. Back with AJ nailing some shots to the face and hitting the AA into a backbreaker.

The springboard forearm is caught in an overhead belly to belly but AJ escapes the Angle Slam. A catapult sends AJ into the buckle and it’s time to roll some Germans. He’s able to escape the Slam again but Angle counters the Pele into the ankle lock. AJ rolls out and hits another Pele for two with Angle getting into the ropes. Now the Angle Slam connects for two but Angle walks into the springboard forearm to put both guys down. The champion takes his time getting to the top, allowing Angle to run the ropes for the belly to belly.

This time it’s Kurt going up but missing a frog splash. There’s the Styles Clash for two but Kurt is able to fight out of a superplex attempt. The frog splash lands for two and Angle is getting ticked off. Another Angle Slam is countered into a DDT, drawing a WHO NEEDS BRET chant (Bret was returning to the WWE on Raw). Angle rolls out of another Clash attempt but can’t get the ankle lock.

A springboard into the reverse DDT gets two for the champion. AJ takes too long going up this time so Angle hits something like the Angle Slam off the top for two. I remember buying that as the finish back in the day. The ankle lock is countered with Kurt being sent into the buckle and a second Styles Clash gets two. Angle rolls through a third Styles Clash attempt and grabs the ankle lock with the grapevine.

AJ becomes one of the only people to escape the hold as Flair comes out to watch. Styles suplexes him down and hits a springboard 450 for two. We take another break and come back with AJ in what looks like a triangle choke. He powers up but gets caught in the ankle lock, only to counter into a third Styles Clash. A second springboard 450 is enough to retain AJ’s title.

Rating: A-. Awesome main event here but unfortunately it came at the end of a horrible show. There were a ton of great near falls in there and I loved that AJ escaped the hold that Angle spent the entire match trying to grab. Flair meant nothing and Daniels meant even less. Oh Daniels was the masked man in case you were wondering. Odds are you forgot though, just like TNA apparently did as he wasn’t mentioned after the first two minutes of the match.

Hogan comes out to applaud and give his seal of approval but there’s another interruption. Foley is breaking up the poker game (remember that?) and demanding to know where Hogan is. Because THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE AND VAL VENIS are the first people you would ask. He goes into Bischoff’s locker room and they go back and forth a bit with Foley saying he wants to stay. Hall, Nash and Waltman come in and lay him out, revealing themselves to be the attackers all night long. Shocking I know. Hogan comes in and sees what happened to close the show.

Overall Rating: D-. I can’t call a show with that good of a main event a failure. That being said, that’s the extent of the good stuff about this show. Let’s see. TNA brags about having the best young roster in the world. Ok, that’s cool. Let’s look at how it was utilized tonight. The opening match is one of the biggest disasters I’ve ever seen. Seriously, it’s that bad. Hardy didn’t make things better as he got on my nerves with one of about two million stories going on throughout the night.

Moving on, Tara vs. ODB was too short to mean much but it was nothing special. The other Knockouts match was better, but is that really the match you want getting the second most time all night? Yeah it was watchable but this is supposed to be TNA’s grand showcase show, not any other episode of Impact. I’ll give the girls a pass for this show, but they were really just passable at best.

As for the up and comers, Morgan and Hernandez got about thirty seconds, Pope had a nothing match against one of the best wrestlers in the company who might as well have been any given jobber, and two former World Champions had a four and a half minute match that didn’t mean anything. The main event was indeed great because it was given time to be great, but it didn’t make up for everything else.

Let’s look at the backstage segments. I don’t hate him nearly as much as some do, but Bubba the Love Sponge is as big a waste of space as anyone I’ve seen in a good while. A handful of people might know him, but if you think he was hired for anything other than being Hogan’s friend you’re missing the point. His main story throughout the night was either letting in the Nasty Boys (more on them later) or saying “Yep, these young guns have been knocked out cold. I think I know who did it but I’m not going to tell anyone.”

That brings me to all the old people being brought in to take spots from younger people. Aside from Hogan, Bischoff and the NWO guys, we had Val Venis, Orlando Jordan, the Nasty Boys, Ric Flair, Jeff Hardy and Shannon Moore debut. Of those six full time wrestlers, only Hardy and MAYBE Flair should have been signed. It doesn’t help that Venis, Hardy, Jordan and the Nasty Boys all won their debut matches, making the TNA guys look second rate as a result.

That’s the line to sum up this whole show: the newcomers made TNA guys look second rate. The old guys’ stories looked more important (all 19 million of them), they were treated like bigger stars, they got more time, and their stories all made little to no sense. Also, they can all be summed up as “let the old times roll!” That’s the extent of the main story: the NWO guys want to be the NWO again and Hogan is split over loyalties. Tell me: how does this make TNA look good? It comes off as Hulk N Pals using TNA as a playground instead of actually making them look better.

The whole show came off as “step aside kids and let the big boys show you how it’s done.” Unfortunately, those old guys aren’t all that interesting anymore because they haven’t meant much in about ten years. The problem with that is the same thing that has plagued TNA for years: they would rather be a nostalgia promotion rather than something new. It’s fine once in awhile, but when it’s all you’ve got, it stops being fun and becomes a promotion built around old guys that a lot of fans have no connection to. If you’re under about twenty, this show holds no appeal to you as far as nostalgia goes and that isn’t going to work long term.

This show was a disaster with almost nothing going right. The debuts (other than Hardy and the shock value of Flair) came off like the last minute hires to fill in a roster, the matches were bad save for the main event, and the stories were all over the place. It didn’t make me want to watch any more and the whole thing was just a mess. TNA would waste a few more years on Hogan and Bischoff before they left with more damage than anyone could solve.

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Today is Hulk Hogan.

Obviously no timeline here.

We’ll start with the biggest money match ever at the time. From Wrestlemania V.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage

This is huge and Savage is on fire here. As I said Liz is in a neutral corner despite never being Hogan’s manager as a singles guy ever. Savage comes out first for no apparent reason. Savage immediately heads to the floor to stall as you would expect him to do. The fans HATE him at this point after loving him like crazy a year earlier. Hogan finally shoves Savage down and it’s time to stall some more.

Back up and Hogan shoulders him down again for the third trip to the floor for Savage. As Jesse and Gorilla get in an argument over the value of managers, Savage grabs a headlock. Hulk shoves him off and Randy heads outside, only to hide behind Liz in a truly evil move. Back in again and Hogan actually uses a nice amateur move and hooks a front facelock. That wasn’t bad at all. Savage powers out of it (surprising as well) and pokes Hogan in the eye to take over.

A top rope ax handle gets one on Hogan and it’s off to an armbar. In something you don’t often see, Hogan is pulled down to the mat by his hair. It feels weird even typing that. Hulk uses a handful of trunks to launch Randy out to the floor and Jesse freaks out. Back in and a clothesline puts Randy down, followed by a series of elbow drops. Hulk is bleeding above the eye.

Randy gets in a shot to the face and puts on a fast sleeper which is transitioned into a chinlock. Hulk comes back with an atomic drop but an elbow drop misses. A shot into the buckle sets up a rollup with trunks for two on Hulk. Savage stomps on his fingers which ticks Hogan off. Hogan slams Savage to the floor where the champion doesn’t want Liz’s help. Hulk follows him out and rams Randy’s face into the barricade.

Savage escapes being posted and sends Hogan in by mistake. After sending Hulk back in, Randy yells at Liz a bit more and shoves her up the aisle. The referee ejects Liz, making the only interesting factor a nonfactor. Back to the floor and Savage drops the ax handle off the top to send Hogan throat first into the barricade. Savage goes after the throat with various evil measures but the elbow only gets two. Hulk Up, big boot, leg drop, new champion.

Rating: B-. It’s Hogan vs. Savage so these two are always going to have at least a watchable match, but at the end of the day this was pretty much designed to be a Hogan win and that’s what it wound up being. The smart move would be to have Savage keep the title by DQ or something, causing Hulk to chase the title until Summerslam for the title change. But instead we go with the easy (and not horrible) ending. It’s a good match here but not great.

From January 23, 1984 in MSG, the night that it all began.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Iron Sheik

This is it. This is the match that changes EVERYTHING. Sheik beat Backlund like a month earlier and Backlund is too injured to get his rematch here, so Hulk gets the shot instead. The place goes NUTS for Hogan’s entrance for the first of many occasions. This is Hogan’s return to the Garden after about three years. After being bored all night, the place is going nuts just from hearing “From Venice Beach, California.”

The bell rings and Hogan CHARGES at him in the corner before Sheik can even get his robe off. A clothesline with the robe takes down the champion and it’s all Hulk so far. Another big clothesline puts Sheik down before Hulk easily picks him up for a choke. Hulk, ever the hero, spits on Sheik to a huge ovation. Big boot gets two so Hulk hits a pair of elbows for two. Hulk FINALLY screws up by missing a running elbow in the corner and Sheik takes over.

The champion stomps away with those curled boots of his. I guess it’s a Middle East thing. A backbreaker puts Hogan down but he easily powers out at one. Off to a Boston Crab but Hulk powers out after about ten seconds. Sheik can’t get anything going here long term. A gutwrench suplex gets two for Sheik and (with an infamous erection for some reason) puts on the camel clutch that won the title. Hulk casually wags his fingers no and he powers out of the hold in less than thirty seconds. Hogan picks Sheik up, rams him into the buckle, drops the big leg, and as Gorilla puts it, Hulkamania is here.

Rating: A+. This was exactly what it was supposed to be as Hogan squashed Sheik here, basically selling nothing and escaping Sheik’s best move before beating him in less than six minutes. Look at this card: even the opener was a minute longer than this match. Hogan DOMINATED the champion here and left no doubt about who was better. After this, everything became about flash than substance, and for people who complain about it, let it go already. The change is over and it’s never going back. Absolutely perfect here.

Here’s Hogan’s WCW debut, from Bash at the Beach 1994.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

Again, they’re actually doing this in his first match with the company. Mr. T. is with Hogan for absolutely no apparent reason. Hogan’s arms have shrunk insanely now to the point that he looks like he MIGHT weigh 260. Hogan drops Flair then Flair shoves him back to the corner but that doesn’t last because Hogan has to dominate all. I really can’t believe this is his first match in the company.

The stupidity of that astounds me to this day. The fans are way into this of course, which is impressive as they didn’t really build to it at all. Naturally for about five minutes or so, the world champion who I believe held it for over a year three times or so is destroyed. Ah thank goodness: we’re doing the Flair formula and not the Hogan one, although I have a bad feeling it’s going to be a hybrid of the two instead.

Flair works on the bad knee and takes control while trying in vain for the submission that will never come. The announcers are of course biased as all goodness which can get a bit annoying but it’s something you get used to over the years. Sherri and Hart interfere a bunch and nothing comes of it. Throughout the match Hogan’s length of time between matches grows from about 14 months to three years.

Don’t you just love the over the top aspects of WCW’s commentary? Sherri pulls the referee out because we need more time and to go over the top here to make sure that this has the “big match feel” to it or something like that. Referee number two comes out to check on the figure four which Flair of course puts on the wrong leg. Naturally that’s not the ending either. Hogan Hulks Up and I wonder why Flair doesn’t run here. I’ve never gotten that.

When Hogan is up and going insane, why not just hit the floor and wait about three minutes? Heenan says this is the greatest match either of them have ever had. It’s not even the best match they’ve both been in at the same time that Heenan has called. Sherri misses a splash and Hogan puts him in the figure four. Flair is all like boy please and just moves Hogan’s leg off of his which I don’t think was supposed to be on camera.

Mr. T. grabs Sherri to validate his paycheck. An illegal object nails Hogan and he of course no sells it. Hulk Up time and the usual finishes. Naturally Hogan, the new world champion wouldn’t wrestle at the next PPV. Why should he do that? We have the NASTY BOYS to main event the show. Heenan’s recapping of it is great as he breaks into tears. He came to WCW to get away from Hogan and he’s world champion all over again. Bobby, that’s two ham sandwiches I owe you now.

Rating: B-. This was fine. Flair and Hogan usually put on good matches, but did they need to do this in the first match? Imagine the money they would make from having Flair cheat to win here and hold the title until maybe STARRCADE, you know, the BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR. Naturally we can’t do that though because we need to have Beefcake get a title shot there while Flair doesn’t even wrestle.

The match that brought wrestling to the main stage. From March 31, 1985.

Hulk Hogan/Mr. T. vs. Roddy Piper/Paul Orndorff

Piper comes out with the full New York Pipe and Drums band while Hogan and T come out to Eye of the Tiger. Advantage Hogan/T. Piper and Orndorff have Bob Orton as their second while Hogan/T have Jimmy Snuka. Advantage Hogan/T. This is looking kind of one sided isn’t it? Oh and Pat Patterson is the inside referee while Ali is the outside referee. The heels all hug and we’re ready to go.

Orndorff and Hogan get things going but Piper tags in before there’s any contact. Therefore T wants to fight Piper and they immediately head to the mat. T and Piper do some amateur stuff and T actually lasts long enough for a standoff. We get some staring until T hooks Piper in an airplane spin. Everything breaks down and Ali gets in to help break it up. Orton and Snuka try to get in as well but Ali glares Orton down.

Things break down again and the heels get rammed together until we get down to Hogan vs. Piper. Hulk rams Piper’s head into the mat over and over until it’s back to T. Hogan offers his knee as something to ram Piper’s head into and it’s back to the champion to send Piper to the outside. Orndorff jumps Hogan from behind and knocks him outside where Roddy blasts him with a chair.

Paul chokes away from the apron until T charges in for the save. Pat Patterson has to pull T off and you know he enjoys this in some way. A double atomic drop puts Hogan down and Orndorff hits a vertical suplex. Roddy comes back in to get in his punches and knee shots followed by an Orndorff top rope elbow to the back of Hulk’s neck for two. Paul goes up again but misses the knee drop and there’s the hot tag to T.

Orndorff and T brawl on the mat for a bit until Mr. gets in trouble via a Piper front facelock. That goes nowhere though as T stands up and makes the tag with no effort to be seen. Hogan pounds away but walks into a belly to back suplex. Orton and Snuka get in the ring for no apparent reason and as the referee calms things down, Orton comes in off the top with the cast but hits Orndorff by mistake to give Hogan the pin.

Rating: B-. Is it great? Not even close, but the point of this match was the crowd reacting to it rather than the match itself. It’s easily the best match of the night and while the only question coming into tonight was who was getting the fall. This was exactly what the fans wanted and that’s what this was supposed to be about. Nice main event here.

Now we’ll go seventeen years later to the dream match of all dream matches (save for Steve Austin but you get the idea).

We recap Hogan vs. Rock, which is the real main event of this show. Hogan talked about how he was a legend but then the people turned on him. Rock came out and said that it was Hogan that changed rather than the people. He said Hogan had talked about main headlining Wrestlemania after Wrestlemania, so how does he feel about headlining one more Wrestlemania against the Rock. Hogan said yes and got a Rock Bottom for his trouble.

Then a week later, Hogan hit Rock in the back of the head with a hammer and put him in an ambulance which he then rammed with a semi-truck. Since this is 2002 and one of the dumbest years ever in wrestling, Rock was back the next week. It’s one of those moments that was really REALLY stupid and not needed at all.

Hollywood Hogan vs. The Rock

Both guys get solid pops as this is an old WWF city, which means Hogan could set fire to a kitten orphanage and still be popular. The pre match chants seem to favor Hulk, but here are some Rock fans to counter them. They stare at each other and there’s the loudest pop for an opening bell I can remember. Hogan shoves him down to start and the fans go NUTS. You can tell Hogan is feeling it here. After a quick headlock Hogan runs him over and poses, sending the crowd further into a frenzy.

A clothesline puts Rock down as the crowd is almost completely one sided. Rock comes back with a jumping clothesline and the fans boo him out of the freaking building. Rock says just bring it and knocks Hogan to the floor with some right hands. Back in and Rock loads up the Rock Bottom but Hogan escapes and elbows out of it. He rakes his boot over Rock’s eyes to another big pop. There’s another big HOGAN chant for good measure.

A belly to back suplex gets two for Hulk and there’s an abdominal stretch for good measure. Hulk even adds in a rollup for two before raking Rock’s back. Rock escapes and comes back with some chops in the corner but walks into a chokeslam of all things from Hulk. He sends Rock out to the floor as this is still almost one sided so far. Rock goes face first into the steps and dropped on the barricade for good measure.

Hogan starts loading up the announce table but Rock fights back with right hands. Rock gets a chair but the referee takes it away, allowing Hogan to clothesline Rock down. Back inside and Rock is sent into the referee. Rock comes back with a lame spinebuster and the Sharpshooter. Hulk makes the rope but there’s no referee. Rock pulls him to the middle of the ring but there’s still no referee.

The fans just lay into Rock now with the Rocky Sucks chants as he checks on the referee. Hogan hits him low though and gets a pretty freaking good Rock Bottom for two. Hogan takes off his weightlifting belt to whip Rock’s back but Rock comes back with a DDT. There’s the Rock Bottom but Hogan HULKS UP. The fans absolutely lose their minds now as Hogan shakes his finger and hits the big boot, but the legdrop only gets two. Another big boot hits but the second legdrop misses. There’s the Rock Bottom again and a third for good mesaure. Rock nips up and hits the People’s Elbow to end it.

Rating: B. This is a hard one to grade but I think it’s a lot like the Hogan vs. Warrior match in the same building: the crowd carries it to a much higher level than it deserves to be at which is just fine. The crowd was completely eating up the nostalgia and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. Hogan would get one of the longest ovations in history the next night in Montreal and those two reactions were enough to put the world title on him for a month soon after this. It wasn’t the best idea in the world, but given those reactions I can understand why they did it. This was a very fun match and should have been the main event.

Post match they stare each other down with Hogan holding his ribs. Hogan extends his hand and Rock gladly shakes it. Hulk lets Rock pose but here are the Outsiders. They yell at Hogan and beat him down, but Rock runs back in for the save. Hall and Nash are dispatched and Rock and Hogan stand tall, apparently having made up after Hogan HIT ROCK WITH A HAMMER AND CRUSHING HIM WITH A SEMITRUCK. Rock has Hogan pose for the fans after the match in another nostalgia moment.

From one of my all time favorite shows, Summerslam 1990.

Hulk Hogan vs. Earthquake

This is Hogan’s big return after being gone all summer due to an attack by Earthquake which broke his ribs. They lock up but Hogan can’t shove the big man around. Now Quake shoves him down a few times as Jimmy is losing his mind. Quake shoulders him out to the floor and Hogan takes a breather with Bossman. Back in and Hogan tries pounding away but Quake sends him into the corner to take him back down. Hogan gets a boot up in the corner and nails some clotheslines but Quake won’t go down.

After knocking Bravo and Hart off the apron, Hogan finally drops Earthquake with the big windup punch. All four guys get inside and the heels both take big boots to the face. The referee puts Bossman out though, allowing Bravo and Quake to hit a double slam on Hogan. A big elbow drop keeps Hogan down and a top rope forearm (from the 468lb Earthquake) to the back has Hogan down again. Off to a Boston Crab but Hogan tries to push his way out. That doesn’t work so Hogan looks to his left and realizes he’s about four inches from the rope for the break.

Bravo gets in some cheap shots on the floor but Earthquake misses an elbow drop back inside. Hogan finally gets to his feet (sidenote: Roddy Piper should not be allowed to cheer for Hogan. Ever.) but falls back down on a slam attempt. Off to a bearhug by Earthquake as the match slows down. Hulk punches out of it and tries a cross body like a schnook, earning the powerslam he gets as a result. Earthquake drops a pair of Earthquake splashes (seated sentons) but Hogan gets up at two to shock the crowd.

It’s Hulk Up time and there’s the slam but Dino distracts the referee after the legdrop. Jimmy comes in but gets tossed at Earthquake, sending everyone to the floor. Hart accidentally hits Quake with the Megaphone and Hogan slams the big man onto a table (it’s in Philadelphia after all)….for a countout? For the life of me I have no idea why Hogan didn’t get a pin here. I guess they wanted to save that for house shows, but it’s not like people wouldn’t want to see Hogan do it again live.

Rating: B-. The match itself was nothing of note but this is exactly what the fans wanted to see other than Hogan getting a pin. These two feuded on the house show circuit for the next four months or so, which really is amazing when you consider how basic the angle was that set it up. This falls into the fun category which is fine for a show like this.

Post match Quake chokes Hogan until Bossman blasts him in the back with a STEPLADDER. Quake finally drops him and looks at Bossman so the cop pulls out the nightstick to chase them off. Lots of posing ensues as you can see the house show rematches with any combination of these four guys being made up.

Here’s a title defense from Saturday Night’s Main Event II.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Nikolai Volkoff

I love the smelled of squashed Russians in the morning. After a long national anthem, here’s Hulk. He promises to win and keep the title and defend America. He comes out to Stars and Stripes Forever here in a nice touch. It’s a standard Hogan 80s match vs. a monster as Hogan gets jumped early but then makes his amazing comeback. Hogan knocks him over the top and Volkoff’s back rings the bell.

A ram into the post though has the powers of Russia in the lead and Hogan is in trouble. Jesse isn’t talking much at all here. Volkoff slams him and Hogan makes his comeback and finishes with a spinning legdrop. Yes I said spinning. Hogan spits on the flag and uses it to shine his shoes.

Rating: C. This was a run of the mill Hogan match which is what this was supposed to be. It got Hogan on national TV and let him beat up someone that most people were going to naturally boo. This is the epitome of what SNME was supposed to be about in the old days and it worked very well.

Here’s the highest attended event in WWF history….for about eight months. From the Big Event.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff

This is the hottest feud in the world as Orndorff had turned face to help Hogan with Piper and Orton but Hogan had more or less been a jerk (I don’t know about you but I’m STUNNED over that) to him and wouldn’t answer the phone when he was working out. Heenan then poked Orndorff into believing that Hogan didn’t ever care about him but that Heenan always would.

Orndorff, wanting to be accepted and not used, turned to the dark side and beat up Hogan at a big show to set up this which launched the hottest feud in perhaps ever at this point. This was the only reason that this whole show happened on such a huge stage, much like Hogan vs. Andre. The only difference here is that there wasn’t a Savage vs. Steamboat to balance it out. Also, Mania would have nearly 20,000 more people, or another Madison Square Garden on top of this. That’s just completely ridiculous.

They start off with just a big freaking brawl and the fans are WAY into this. This is more or less all punching and chasing until Heenan makes the stop and the heel takes over. Orndorff was a different kind of heel as instead of this big fat slob, he was small and athletic which was something new for Hogan. Also there were a lot of people that were siding with Orndorff as Hogan had really just been a massive prick to him.

Ladd really likes kissing up to Hogan. He’s getting into Vince territory, but then again Hogan has muscles and Vince is way too obsessed with musclemen. GOOD NIGHT that referee is slow. Paul dominates until Hogan starts to Hulk Up. He uses a jumping knee to the back of Orndorff and the referee is crushed. Hogan imitates Orndorff with the arm in the air for the clothesline which is how Orndorff turned on him.

He goes for Orndorff’s piledriver but Heenan runs in with a wooden stool to blast Hogan in the head. Why he had that is beyond me. For no apparent reason the referee wakes up and taps Orndorff to say that Hogan wins by DQ. Hogan wakes up and kicks his head in for no apparent reason other than being a dick. We get a replay with no commentary for no apparent reason before posing and credits take us out.

Rating: B-. This was all about the atmosphere and not about the match itself. Even still this was fine as both guys were over as free beer in a frat house in their respective roles and this was indeed a huge match. Hogan going over unclean was smart as it gave Orndorff a reason for a rematch which was required so all was fine here. I’m not sure I get why Paul was disqualified but it was Hogan’s world so there we are.

The other match that changed everything.

Sting/Lex Luger/Randy Savage vs. Kevin Nash/Scott Hall/???

In case you don’t remember, the WCW guys were selected by putting the names of the top 6 WCW wrestlers based on win/loss record over the past I think six months or a year in a hat and drawing them out. The others were Hogan, Taskmaster and Giant. Hall and Nash come out alone and don’t have names yet. Tony gives them their names here. Until then they were just the Outsiders.

I’m not one for six man main events but this feels huge. Partially because it is huge. Gene goes into the ring before the WCW guys are here to find out who the third man is or for that matter where he is. The build for the drama here is epic. They’re milking this for everything they can.

The commentators aren’t even trying to stay unbiased which for once is nice. Even Randy Anderson is taller than Gene. Buffer is almost as tall as Scott Hall. Wow I didn’t realize that. The bell rings and we actually start with a handicap match.

The paranoia of the announcers actually upgrade this, marking the final time the WCW commentators don’t make me want a stiff drink in the history of WCW. Luger and Hall start. Now we get to the interesting part about a minute in. It turns into a big brawl and Nash and Luger are in the corner. Sting launches a Stinger Splash and nails Nash.

He also nails Luger, whose head and neck are rammed into the turnbuckle/bar attaching the turnbuckle to the ring. He’s OUT. They bring out a stretcher to carry him to the back and we have a 2-2 match with the third man on the way out. Now this does a few things. First of all, it makes the Outsiders look like they have a chance. Being realistic, there was no three man combination in the world that could have beaten Sting, Luger and Savage at this point and looked dominant.

That’s a WCW All-Star team to put it mildly and it would have been a waste of time to try. By making it two against what would become three, it makes WCW, the faces, at a disadvantage as they should be (are you listening TNA?). Also, this throws out a tiny piece of meat to the smarks as Luger and Sting had been the top candidates to be the third man.

It opens a door for Luger coming back and never being hurt and it opens a door for Sting to have done that on purpose. Either way the match pretty much stops at this point while we wheel Luger out. Tony says the Outsiders planned that somehow. That makes no sense but whatever. Crowd is RABID here.

Savage comes in but when Nash goes for a big elbow he lands on Savage’s head so Sting has to come in. Nash beats the heck out of Sting as does Hall so Savage is going to get the hot tag. There’s no real penalty or reward if the Outsiders win. They’re doing something brilliant here as they’re pacing things out to the point where we forget about the third man.

That’s very smart booking and I’m in awe of how this match is going. Tony says the Outsiders should get hurt. Wow. I’m not sure if that’s awesome or not. Savage FINALLY gets the hot tag and you actually can barely understand the announcers over the crowd. Nash gets a low blow on him though…and here comes Hulk Hogan. Heenan asks which side is he on.

The Outsiders clear the ring….and Hogan turns heel, dropping a leg on Savage and then another one. To say the crowd is ticked off is an understatement. This is legitimately a shock as NO ONE, not Meltzer, not Keith, not Reynolds, no one called this and if they did they were wrong at the time because from every report I can find, this decision was made the day of or the day before the show as Sting was scheduled to be the third man until Hogan agreed to do it.

This was a legitimate shocker and it lived up to every bit of the hype. Hogan turning was the one thing that made this angle work as I’ll get into later on. This was a great moment and I was about to cry when it happened. The fans flood the ring with garbage as Gene gets in. Hogan cements his heel status by saying the fans need to shut up if they want to hear what he has to say. That line alone makes this promo.

He says the name and the rest is history. Hogan claims the success for making WWF. I’m shocked too. Hogan says he’s bored with WCW and is joining up with the Outsiders and calls them the new blood of WCW. This is the one problem I had with both this turn and Austin joining the Alliance in 2001. Both guys said they were bored with the companies they had been in and wanted better competition.

If you’re going to be fighting the company you used to work for, won’t you be fighting the same competition you were fighting before? Hogan’s title win was over Giant who he had fought at I think three PPVs and his first defense was against Flair and you know that history. That just never made sense to me.

He throws in the for some reason semi-famous line about Bischoff selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis which is actually true. Hogan runs down the fans and does his trademark line. Tony says Hogan can go away twice and we’re done.

Rating: A+. This was about launching the NWO. It worked.

Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan happened on Raw, March 11, 2002.

New World Order vs. Steve Austin/The Rock

This is the first time the NWO has ever competed together in the WWF. Rock and Hall start things off but a Hogan distraction lets Hall take over. This is a handicap match if that didn’t come through. Rock comes back and Hogan bails from the apron in fear. A clothesline gets two for Hall and it’s off to Nash. Rock pounds away but a sidewalk slam gets two for Nash. Snake Eyes puts Rock down and it’s off to Hogan.

Hogan pounds on Rock a bit and suplexes him down before Hall and Nash work Rock over a bit. There’s the hot tag to Austin who cleans house. Nash somehow botches a Thesz Press from Austin so Austin hits a spinebuster on Hall instead. Nash can’t even hit Austin in the head right so Austin clotheslines the Outsiders down. A big boot, the only move even Nash can’t screw up, takes Austin down and it’s back to Hall.

The fallaway slam gets two for Scott and it’s back to Nash. Kevin pounds on Austin in the corner and it’s back to Hall. A clothesline puts Austin down for two and now for the only time that I can EVER remember, it’s Hogan vs. Austin. Hogan pounds away with some punches and a chokeslam before tagging out to Hall. It only lasts 25 seconds, but that actually felt special. Hall chokeslams Austin down but the Razor’s Edge is broken up by a backdrop.

Austin’s comeback is stopped AGAIN by a clothesline but he takes Hall right back down. Hot tag brings in Rock vs. Nash and Rock cleans house….for about 20 seconds before Nash takes him down again. This feels like WCW all over again. Off to Hogan to clean up the Rock scraps, but Rock nips up to terrify Hulk. Nash of course stops the momentum and everything breaks down. In a REALLY anti-climactic ending, Hogan punches Rock, hits the boot and legdrop and gets the pin.

Rating: D+. Huge historical moment aside, this was a really odd match. It was basically a squash with the NWO never really breaking a sweat against two of the biggest stars of all time. Nash looked like he had never been in a ring before and the whole thing looked awful. Then again, this had Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan in a legal match so it gets an automatic pass.

Want to see Hogan put someone over? From Nitro on July 6, 1998.

WCW World Title: Hollywood Hogan vs. Goldberg

Goldberg’s pop is still big but it’s a slight step behind what it was earlier tonight. They loudly pop for the bell though and Heenan is already losing his mind for the match. Goldberg grabs a headlock to start and Hogan screams NO NO NO. A shoulder puts the champion down and the fans are making up for the slightly quieter pop on the entrance. Goldberg takes him down on a test of strength and the place is coming unglued.

Hogan comes back with some solid right hands and the weightlifting belt to the back but Goldberg easily takes it out of Hogan’s hands. He throws it to the mat and says bring it. A low blow slows Goldberg down and a clothesline drops him again. Hogan chokes a lot but misses some elbows, allowing Goldberg to hit a clothesline, knocking Hollywood outside. With the weightlifting belt back on, Hogan gets back in and shoves Goldberg outside one more time. Some chairs to the back have Goldberg in trouble and we hit the ring again.

A slam sets up a pair of legdrops (literally not mentioned at all by the announcers) as Curt Hennig comes to the ring. Tenay finally mentions the legdrops as Hogan hits what sounds like a third (camera was on Hennig) for two. Malone comes out and Diamond Cuts Hennig on the floor, allowing Goldberg to spear Hogan down. The fans literally rise up as Goldberg Jackhammers Hogan for the pin and the title. Heenan goes NUTS in the most passionate speech you’ll hear him give this side of a Flair promo.

Rating: B. This is a hard one to grade because the match wasn’t anything special from a wrestling perspective. What it was though was exactly what it should have been. Goldberg took a beating but came back and destroyed Hogan for the 100% clean pin. Hogan put him over completely clean here and it felt like a new star was made. That’s exactly what was supposed to happen here and the fans got what they were hoping for with no shenanigans. This is what Sting vs. Hogan should have been at Starrcade.

Let’s jump back to 1980 for the original version of a match. From Showdown at Shea.

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant

Yeah this works. Hogan has the traditional colors on but is a heel here. Cole keeps talking about Mania 3 and their FIRST MATCH EVER! This show and match was a big blow to Hogan’s ego that he lies about to this day. He claims that he and Andre drew this house but for the whole summer this and Larry/Bruno were the top feuds. One time was Hogan/Andre the top listed match and it got about 40% of a house full. 3 months later they came back and did the traditional listings resulting in a full house. Real World: 1, Hogan: 0.

It’s so weird seeing the yellow and red as heel colors. Foley fought Andre in Japan. I never knew that. Those ropes are LOOSE. Black elbow pads for Hogan which is a weird look. Hogan with a headlock to start as it’s a long feeling out process. Far different match than you would get at Mania. Foley talks about being at a Harley Race BBQ where Race has a picture of him slamming Andre. Take that Hulk!

We get some cool Andre stories which are just amazing every time. Hogan has a hairy back. Now that’s a weird one to write out. Bearhug by Hogan and this is a very slow match. Andre blocks a slam with a hammerlock. Down goes the referee as Hogan gets slammed. Hogan slams Andre and it’s just a normal move other than Cole and Foley babbling about it. Funny though. Andre gets a splash and a tainted count to win it from another referee. He got out but the referee counted it anyway.

Rating: D. Boring match here but these two are always fun together. This is the unspoken match as everything that Vince didn’t want you to know about at Mania time happened here. This was quick and more or less harmless though. I’m very surprised that this went so fast though, not even getting 8 minutes. Andre got busted open after the match.

Here’s a rarity: Hogan’s return from the AWA on January 1, 1980 in St. Louis.

Bill Dixon vs. Hulk Hogan

Oh my goodness! Now THIS is an historic moment. This right here is Hulk Hogan’s first match back in the WWF after being gone for about four years and becoming a superstar in Rocky III. He comes out to Eye of the Tiger and is way over. Hulk would jump into the world title scene in about two weeks, winning the title in about three weeks and holding if for four years.

Actually, this is being reviewed on the anniversary of his title win so that’s appropriate. Hogan takes him to the mat with a Fujiwara Armbar ala Del Rio. Dixon hammers away but Hulk comes back with a big boot, slam and the big leg (I’m assuming making its WWF debut) ends this. Total squash but the crowd reaction tells you everything you need to know here. This is history people.

This match should have headlined some big show but it only happened on some house shows and a later SNME. Here it is at MSG on December 17, 1979.

Hulk Hogan vs. Ted DiBiase

Yeah it’s the same guys you think it is. Hogan is NOTHING yet as he’s just a big muscle head with limited talent in the ring. Well I guess some things never change. He would become Thunder Lips in Rocky 3 a few years later and change his life forever. He even has Freddie Blassie as his manager and a big gold robe here. DiBiase is this young kid that used to have a midcard title but it was stolen by those pesky Brazilians and put into some tournament.

DiBiase is billed from Omaha, Nebraska of all places. This is Hogan’s MSG debut. Hokey smoke this is actually famous then. The inside of the robe is all rainbow colored. Vince is clearly about to orgasm on the spot at the sight of Hogan in tights. Hogan stalls but gets caught in a full nelson. It’s so weird seeing him at 26 and this green. DiBiase is incredibly popular and fast here. I feel like I’m in some parallel universe seeing DiBiase vs. Hogan with DiBiase as an over face.

Now I’ve never been one to make jokes, but Hogan is called the Fabulous One and has a coat with rainbow colors. I doubt this was intentional but it’s funny by mistake. Ted gets knocked to the floor and Hogan keeps hitting him which is kind of pointless. Hogan hits a legdrop which 8 years later would get you a 30 count but here it’s just a regular move and only gets two.

Hulk reminds me of a muscular Dolph Ziggler. This ends any connections between the two for the rest of time. Hogan puts on a chinlock and the bell rings which confuses everyone so I’m guessing it was accidental. Yeah it must be since the match just keeps going. DiBiase makes a standard comeback but the crowd loves it. A charge misses though and DiBiase passes out in a bearhug. Oddly enough the only two matches that I can think of that have ended like that have both involved Hogan.

Rating: C. Total formula stuff before the formula was written but that’s fine. Both guys were pretty new at this point so it’s not like you could ask for much of them otherwise. How in the world did this match never get a huge build and a huge blowoff 8 years later? Well depending on who you listen to that would be the Honky Tonk Man, but look up some of my other stuff for that since I’m tired of telling that story.

Here’s one of Hogan’s biggest matches in the AWA at a show called Super Sunday.

AWA World Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan is fresh off Rocky III and comes out to Eye of the Tiger. The arena, in a word, ERUPTS. I mean the place comes alive like I haven’t seen an AWA crowd ever do. Hogan is all fired up and immediately charges at Bockwinkel and points at the belt. He’s wearing a shirt that says WE WANT THE BELT and the fans are going nuts when he points at it. Find a copy of this as it’s one of the best Hogan entrances I’ve ever seen.

They introduce every major AWA executive for some reason and no one cares. In something I’ve never seen before, they do the big match intros and play Hulk’s music (Eye of the Tiger) again. The fans are still chanting Hogan and we’re underway. This is another match in a long running series of DQ’s and screwjobs and all that jazz. Bockwinkel stalls a lot like he’s an old car. Hogan pulls him into a shoulder block and the crowd pops again. We’ve been stalling for almost two minutes now.

Hulk shoves him out of a lockup but gets caught in a headlock. That gets him nowhere and Hulk runs him over again and Nick hides in the corner. A third shoulder block puts Bockwinkel on the floor and we’re at five minutes already. Bockwinkel finally gets in some offense by firing off some knees to the stomach. That gets him nowhere as Hogan fires off even harder knees and more of them as well.

Bockwinkel gets slammed down and rammed into the corner. We’re almost seven minutes in and this is total dominance so far. Nick finally gets in a shot to the ribs and a right hand to take over. Hogan will have none of that and easily kicks him out of the ring. Nick runs back in and throws on a front facelock. After maybe a minute of the champion in control, Hulk backdrops him down and we’re back to even.

Nick channels his inner JYD (was he a big name yet? I don’t think so) and rams some headbutts into Hogan’s ribs from all fours. Bockwinkel charges into a boot in the corner and Hogan takes over again. There’s the windup punch for two. Big clothesline sets up an elbow drop for two. The fans are really coming alive for these nearfalls. Shoulderbreaker gets two. Bockwinkel fires off some punches to slow Hulk down.

The punches stop working because Hogan Hulks Up and fires back at Bockwinkel who can’t stay on his feet. Powerslam gets a close two. The legdrop misses and both guys are down. Nick hammers on Hulk in the corner but Hogan kicks him back down. A pair of elbows gets a very slow two. Hogan misses a corner charge and gets caught in the sleeper, which is one of Bockwinkel’s finishers.

Hogan finally flips Nick down but the referee, who looks to be about 75, goes down too. The fans know what’s coming. Bockwinkel gets put in the sleeper again but Hulk rams him into the corner, crushing the referee again. A third sleeper goes on but Hulk dumps him over the top to the floor. Back in Hogan slams him down and drops the leg for the pin and the title.

Before the rating, a second referee comes out, says Hogan threw him over the top, and it’s a DQ win for Bockwinkel, causing trash to be thrown into the ring like the night the NWO formed. Hogan beats up Heenan and Bockwinkel post match to a huge roar from the crowd. Hogan says this is the people’s belt and that he’s the real champion.

Rating: B. The match was good as we had Hogan taking everything Bockwinkel had and continuing to come back. He broke the sleeper three times through raw power and had the people eating out of the palm of his hand for almost twenty minutes. It was the perfect kind of match to FINALLY change the title.

But that’s not what they did. What you have to remember is that this had been going on for a LONG time. I know of at least one other match where they did this, and I’d bet on this being the finish for a ton of house show matches between these two. This show would be the equivalent of a PPV for the AWA, but it was the same finish. That right there is one of the big factors that led to the downfall of the company (Note that I DID NOT say it was the final blow, because it wasn’t. The company was around for about 8 more years).

The problem was that Gagne didn’t want to change and wanted it to be about the old school style. Depending on what version of the story Hogan is telling, Verne wanted to give Hulk the belt (which I’ll believe) but he would have had to either A, give up his NJPW commitments which were very lucrative for him, B, marry a Gagne, or C, take lower than 50% of his merchandise sale demands. Let’s look at each of these separately.

If it’s the NJPW stuff, I can understand that. Hogan made a deal to be in Japan and he wanted to hold up to it. That’s fine. As for marrying a Gagne, that’s something I’ve NEVER agreed with. There’s this mentality at times of keeping it in the family, but in a case like this it makes no sense. Sign him to an exclusive deal or whatever, but let the marriage stuff go.

Finally, we get to what allegedly made Hogan leave: his merchandise stuff. Hogan allegedly demanded 50% of his merchandise sales to stay and Verne said no, so Hulk went back to Vince. In short, if this is true, Verne Gagne is an idiot. Yes, that’s a huge number, but LISTEN TO THE FREAKING PEOPLE. The place EXPLODED when Hogan came out and that kind of reaction wasn’t touched for the rest of the night. The people wanted to see something new (Bockwinkel and Gagne traded the title for two days shy of FOURTEEN YEARS) and that was Hogan.

The common expression you hear is that the money is in the chase. The problem here is that the chase had been done for the better part of a year at this point and there was no reason to keep doing it. The fans stopped caring and therefore buying tickets because they stopped believing the title was going to change. If you don’t believe the money is in Hogan as the champion, I’d point you to the WWF from January 23, 1984 to February 5, 1988.

At the end of the day, it was a bad business decision by Gagne. The stuff he had done did indeed work in the past and had gotten him this far. The problem was that Hogan was unlike anything he had ever had to work with before. Any money they lost in the merchandise would have easily been made up by additional revenue from house shows or the additional merchandise they sold because of Hogan. The company was certainly not dead after Hogan left but it was nowhere near what it could have been and it became a shell of itself in the years to come.

Thankfully this did happen on PPV once. From The Wrestling Classic.

WWF Title: Roddy Piper vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan, in white tights, is jumped by Piper during the music. This is more or less a token title defense here as it’s pretty much fallout (8 months later) from Mania. It’s of course a brawl from the start as nothing else would work for these two I guess. This reminds me of a UK game as it’s blue and white. That automatically makes this awesome. Hogan is dominating early so all is right with the world.

The referee stops a punch though, allowing Piper to punch Hogan. God bless sensible officiating. In something you don’t see often from Hogan, he uses a bearhug. His weight and size was rarely talked about as he was always against monsters, but he was bigger than about 90% of wrestlers ever. That’s saying a lot.  This is about as standard as you can get as I feel like I’m watching a house show.

The sleeper is the submission hold of choice here and there’s the arm popping up on the third try. In a cool spot, Hogan runs at the ropes and dives over to break the hold. Yes you read that right, Hogan jumped. I’ll give you a minute to recover from that. Uh oh we have a ref bump. Piper drills him with a chair and of course being hit by a professional athlete with a large and heavy object made of steel isn’t enough to hurt Hogan at all.

Hogan gets Piper in a sleeper (yes you read that right) but Orton runs in for the DQ in another cheap finish. Orndorff makes the save. Gorilla says that Orton was effective. How? He caused his man to get a DQ and therefore it’s the same result as him getting pinned, but then again what do I know?

Rating: C-. This was generic, but then again it wasn’t bad at all. These two had a great chemistry together as there’s such a perfect natural rivalry that you can’t plan or script here. I always wanted for Piper to win the title, even for a month or two. Can you imagine the money that the rematches would draw? Dang that would have been FAR better as the main event of Mania 2. Anyway, this wasn’t bad or great, but it was more bad than good because of the ending.

Time for a cage match! From Saturday Night’s Main Event XXI.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Big Boss Man

This is in a cage remember. Slick says that the surprise is Zeus. He stands on the steps and slams the cage door, blocking Hogan’s entrance. Dang it I was hoping I was done with this guy. Ok here’s the concept of Zeus. Hogan made a movie called No Holds Barred.

The main villain in that movie was named Tom Lister, playing the character of Zeus, a monster fighter that was a crazed wrestler. Hogan played a character that more or less was himself named Rip. At the end of the movie, Rip beats Zeus as you would expect him to. So what this would be is Zeus the character coming after the actor that played the character Rip.

In other words, a character played by an actor is coming after a character played by a character played by Terry Bollea. Now here’s the big problem: LISTER CANNOT WRESTLE. Vince of course contemplated putting him vs. Hogan in SkyDome at Mania 6 for the title. Yeah around this time WWF was in REAL financial trouble until Mania saved the freaking company. Anyway, this is Zeus’ debut.

Remember, this is a movie character going after an actor that played a character that beat his character up. Yeah it was idiotic but oddly enough few got the problem, mainly because most kids were so freaked out by Zeus, including me, that they didn’t get how stupid this was. Oh and remember Hogan hasn’t even come to the arena yet.

We get a clip of No Holds Barred, showing Zeus beating up a street fighter. That movie needs to be on DVD. It just does. Hogan comes out and can’t get in. Zeus beats Hogan down as you would expect. Remember, this would be like Christian Bale claiming to be Batman beating up Liam Neeson. Not Ra’s-as-Ghul, but Liam Neeson. Boss Man dominates early but here comes the champion as you would expect.

See here, the fans are cheering and money was coming in. BIG difference to today. He hits what would be called a spinebuster on Hogan but doesn’t have a name other than “look at that maneuver!” Boss Man gets over the top of the cage but since Boss Man can’t climb down with any kind of speed, Hogan gets there in time. We then get the mega spot of the match, which really isn’t much by today’s standards.

With Boss Man on the top of the cage and Hogan on the top rope, Hogan suplexes Boss Man to the mat. I think it’s because of the size and era that this is considered such a great bump. They’re up about 45 seconds later and everything is fine. Boss Man has handcuffs which don’t work of course. Ah never mind it’s just a chain. Both guys get rammed into the cage and they’re both down.

This time it’s just for a few seconds though. Boss Man is bleeding a bit. The usual stuff ends it as Hogan goes over the top to get to the floor. For those of you that don’t remember, Slick is more or less Pope minus wrestling. I forgot to mention that Slick runs in and there’s a mix up, causing Boss Man to get cuffed to the rope. Hogan beats Slick up afterwards.

Rating: B-. It’s a Hogan cage match. That’s all there is to it. The bump is nice, but other than that there just isn’t much here. Hogan vs. a monster was where he was at his best and this came off just fine. It’s no classic or anything, but for a TV match this was quite good.

Here’s a WCW match that continues to blow my mind every time I see it. From Uncensored 1996, and my favorite match review ever. The review of this one match is longer than the reviews for some full episodes of Smackdown and Impact but it’s worth it.

We recap the feud with Hogan and Savage against the Alliance. More or less what happened was simple: the Alliance challenged Hogan to a 4-1 cage match, but WCW wised up and realized Hogan carrying a match like that could expose him too much, so they threw Savage in there too. Now, how did the Alliance put out this challenge? Was it by beating down Hogan?

Was it by destroying something he held dear and valuable? Was it by making threats to his family and home? Nope to all three. They sent him a telegram. Let me repeat that. The feud and match were set by a group sending Hogan a telegram. That’s so freaking stupid I can’t even make fun of it. I truly can’t. They sent him a telegram. I can’t get over that. Something else I notice: there hasn’t been a single mention of Randy Savage all show.

It’s been nothing but Hogan. The team is known as the Alliance to End Hulkamania. In the build up from the announcers there’s no mention of Savage. What in the world is wrong with these people? Why am I trying to figure that out?

Hogan/Randy Savage vs. Alliance to End Hulkamania

The Alliance is Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, Barbarian, Lex Luger, Taskmaster (Kevin Sullivan), Z-Gangsta (Zeus from the late 80s) and Ultimate Solution (big fat strong guy that never did anything other of note in wrestling. He did play Bane in Batman and Robin though in case anyone is interested.) Now you might be wondering how this is going to work. Well until about 3 minutes before the bell rings, so was everyone else.

Literally, they didn’t know what they were going to do until the day of the show. That’s your brilliant wrestling company at work. The idea would be this. You have a ring with three cages on top of it. In other words, there’s a ring with a cage over it that’s very tall and has a top of in. The top of that cage is the floor of a second cage. That cage has six sides, all made of cage. There’s ANOTHER of those on top.

The match starts up at the top for no apparent reason. The idea is that it’s more or less a gauntlet match. There’s two guys on top, four in the middle cage and two in the bottom cage and Hogan and Savage have to win in all three cages. Yep, that’s it. In a match that’s supposed to be all about violence and called a Doomsday match, we have a freaking gauntlet with regular pins and submissions. Let’s get to this.

Michael Buffer is in the ring doing introductions for this as I have a feeling that this is going to take a LONG time. He asks if they’re ready. He asks it again. I wonder if they’re going to break it down after the match. The cage I mean. Oh Brian Pillman is supposed to be in this but he’s left for ECW at this time where he would be for all of a day or so and then on to WWF.

Flair comes out sans belt or any acknowledgement that he’s champion so you can see where the priorities are. Oh we also have to wait for them to all climb up the steps to get to their cages too. Barbarian has been banned from wrestling in most countries in the world too. You learn something new every day. Zeus (I refuse to refer to him as Z-Gangsta more than I have to) and Ultimate Solution aren’t here yet. His original name was Final Solution.

I’ll give you two guesses as to how that went. So we’re starting with Anderson and Flair at the top so we’re starting with the Mega Powers vs. Anderson and Flair. Tell me, what’s wrong with that as a main event? I’d like that FAR better. Luger left WWF for this. That’s just sad. They finally just give up and call Hogan a superhero. Naturally the camera follows him up the stairs as my fear of heights is kicking in.

Dusty says the fans have been waiting for days in and around this building. Just go with it. Once they finally reach the top we start immediately and also immediately we see the massive problem: the fans can’t see a thing. They’re about thirty feet from the ground (which of course hits as high as 65 so far according to Brain) and the lighting is awful. Also, this is before the days of the Titantron.

If they had that, this would be ok. No actually it wouldn’t be but it would have been better. The people watching the PPV from home have a hard time seeing this so imagine what it’s like for the fans there. They’re dead quiet too after the opening maybe 10 seconds because reality has set in. Oh Arn is wearing a full black body suit for no apparent reason.

Heenan says what I think might have been hidden jabs at WCW by saying “What a great thing for television!” and “Only here in WCW!” Those are either fed to him or shots at the brilliant minds who came up with this. Actually no. They’re not worthy of sarcastic praise. They’re freaking idiots. I mean seriously, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING??? If you’re going to do a cage match, fine.

If you’re going to do a big cage match, fine. If you’re going to do a gauntlet cage match, that’s fine too. Actually that’s kind of an interesting concept. However, DO IT WHERE THE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT. My goodness how hard of a concept is that? What’s the most important aspect of any show? How about being able to see it? The fans here might be able to make out someone next to one side of the cage but other than that, nothing.

And don’t even bother staying if you sit across the arena and don’t have binoculars because you’re screwed. Sting and Booker won the main event already. I can’t get over how ridiculous this is. Seriously who thought this was a good idea? Oh and there’s a referee up there too even though it’s Uncensored and therefore unsanctioned. There’s also a massive pole in the middle in case Hogan wants to shoot a Brooke Hogan video up there.

They go to a wide shot to just further show how stupid this is. We can hear the wrestlers talking which is usually covered up by the crowd. Maybe they can see as there’s a pop for Hogan ripping the shirt off. Heenan says this is better than the World Series or the Super Bowl. Yes it does Bobby, yes it does. Hey we’ve hit 70 feet in the air! Heenan redeems himself a bit with the line of all a manager can do here is hope they have a client in the morning.

We get a random reference to some woman named Becky in Denver. Ok then. Tony sums up the match perfectly: the fans wanted to know what the Doomsday Cage was so they’re finding out here. Well thanks for that Tony. In other words, we’re going to throw out a cool sounding name and say Hogan is in it against a bunch of guys that we’re only going to vaguely mention and say to find out, pay up.

Once you hook them, you don’t have to do anything. They did the same thing with the Elimination Chamber in 2002, but the difference was that match wasn’t bad. It certainly wasn’t great but I’ve seen far worse matches. Exhibit A is being reviewed at the moment. In the ultra violent match, we get double figure fours.

Heenan’s comedy is all that’s holding the pieces of this in place. Notice I didn’t say together but just in place as they would likely want to run away and join a witness protection program or something. Zeus and Solution didn’t wrestle again after this. They were the smart ones I guess.

Dusty says if you have a chain length fence (who doesn’t?) just go lay on it to see what this is like. Bobby: Then call your neighbor over and slap the figure four on him! Then put the figure eight on your Doberman! Bobby Heenan, I love you very much. You need massive amounts of therapy and medication, but I love you. Flair drops something from one cage to the other which is never explained or mentioned again.

My guess would be the will of Flair’s career since it’s dead at this point. Hogan and Savage throw powder, which is likely the remains of the cocaine they needed to agree to this. They go through a trapdoor to get to the next cage, and Anderson and Flair are eliminated. WOW. Ok so wait. All they had to do was get through a door? They didn’t have to pin someone or get a tap out but just go through a door?

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m done. I’m going to stop trying to make sense of this match and that’s all there is to it. This just doesn’t make sense at all but for some reason they insist that it does. Bobby says Boris Karloff would love this. Not really but ok. Hogan has a chain and beats on Sullivan with it. They’re down about 12 feet now so the crowd is a bit more into it.

It’s the Faces of Fear (Meng and Barbarian) on Savage and Luger and Sullivan on Hogan. This room has a door in the middle of it so it’s like two small cages. Actually there’s a reason for it though which will come up in a minute. After being beaten on by two grown men and a steel chain, Hogan is fine and manages to get the chain away to lock the door (which didn’t have a lock before but whatever) and trap Meng and Barbarian inside.

A shot of the cage from the floor makes this look a lot better as in essence they’re fighting on top of a regular cage. That’s not bad I guess. Anderson and Flair drop to the second cage and are trapped as well. Where’s my wah wah music when I need it? Heenan says it’s a maze with no way in or out. Yep other than the doors they came in through, the doors they leave through or the path that the referee points them through to get to the end.

Speaking of doors they go out of one and fight on the stairs which is kind of scary when you think about it as there’s no wall to save them there. Sullivan is actually over halfway out as Heenan says that he’ll be spam if he hits. I’ll infract him if he does. I don’t want any spam in my reviews. Savage and Luger are still in the cage by the way. According to Brain everyone is on their feet. They have to be to see this I suppose. They’re more or less quiet by the way.

Luger gets loose and we’re out on the floor. Yep, they got out of the cage and while the rules stated earlier in the match said that Hogan and Savage just needed to get down to win, they apparently are going to keep going. Hey, we’re having a Doomsday Cage Match, so let’s fight in the ring! Yep, they’re fighting in the ring. Luger and Savage are fighting by the cage with Hogan and Sullivan in the ring.

The four guys in the upper cage break out and head down the cage. Now this could be cool: Hogan and Savage 6-2 in the arena. Well ok I can go with that as at least its easier to see. It’s more or less the same thing as the previous match but…that’s….why are the other four just leaving? They just walked back to the dressing room. Anderson and Flair are supposed to, but the Faces of Fear are still in this legally, but who cares about that? That would MAKE SENSE!

Hogan is beating on Luger in the ring while Savage is having boards thrown at him. Apparently the Faces of Fear have been eliminated. Oh ok I think I’ve got it now: the rules are as follows. Hogan and Savage had to go to the top of the cage where they had to either pin or get a submission from Flair and Anderson but they were allowed to have an alternate way of winning because Hogan made a large donation to the Save the Wombat Foundation.

Next up they had to get pins or submissions on some combination of the Faces of Fear, Sullivan or Luger, but they were able to lock the Faces of Fear into a cage and therefore receive a Federal credit for preventing an international assault and battery charge since both men are international ambassadors sent by the King of Tonga to study wrestling (that’s actually not made up if you can believe that. That’s legit true).

Now at the beginning the rules stated that they simply had to get to the floor to win, however there was a clause stating that if there was a high percentage (17 or greater) of time spent on discussing the social habits of Bulgarian monks in the 15th century by the four in the second cage during the battle in the first cage, then simply getting to the floor wouldn’t be classified as a win.

In that case a pin in the other ring would work. However, that won’t work either because Lex Luger’s lawyers feel that the population of fire ants in this match were misrepresented so therefore a simple pin in the ring won’t work either, and the final two members of the Alliance to End Hulkamania, which has founded new chapters in Laos, Manhattan and the North Pole, fighting off the evils of Hulk-Chi-Min, Hulk Maritoni and Hulk-a-Claus, must be equally represented in this match, which must end via pinfall in the original ring.

HOWEVER, it will be allowed for former members of the Alliance to reenter the match under the Columbus Act which also founded Ohio in 1776, but also said that wrestlers were unlawfully evicted from the match via an international treaty can be allowed to return. ANYWAY, now that we’re back to the match, let’s continue here but I need to make sure this remains logical. It’s very important to keep that going here.

They’re all at the ring now and we have more bad chair shots. I love how the graphic under the split screen says Doomsday Cage Match despite a significant lack of cage. Here’s Ultimate Solution and Zeus. According to the clause listed above, we head back to the original cage for the showdown.

Yep, it’s Hogan and Savage in a no tag tag-team match against two big strong guys. How do they come up with these things? Sullivan is lurking around as I feel he needs to register. I’m sure there’s something in this match for him too. There must be a tournament somewhere.

As if this wasn’t riveting enough, we hit a bear hug. Hey now, it’s time for the rematch of the match that didn’t happen seven years ago in another company that we’re not going to mention but imply that everyone knows anyway because that’s how we roll. Ultimate Solution (hereafter known as porkchop for no other reason than I have the Doug song in my head) picks up Savage and has him in position for a slam, prompting Dusty to wonder what he’s going to do with him.

Heenan says that he picked Savage up like a 100lb infant. Tony says there’s no winning or losing but only surviving. Yeah I’d agree. Whose career can survive this match? Here’s Arn and Flair again as apparently their plan to eliminate Hulkamania is just to stomp them and punch them and slam them a lot. Yep, that’s the epic plan. Tony is holding out hope despite a few seconds before saying it’s hopeless. I love that top level journalism there Tony!

Keep it up and one day you might be able to get a better job like selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis! They actually argue over how many people are in there against Hogan and Savage. To get off of that we point out that this started with a telegram. Somehow that’s an improvement. Naturally they ask if Hulkamania can survive instead of Hogan and Savage.

It amazes me that he got so little respect over the years. He was nuts, but dang could he wrestle. In one of the best unintentionally funny moments I can ever remember, the powder that Hogan and Savage have spills out and within 5 seconds Brutus is there to help them. That’s just greatness. Also they’re almost face down in it. Could this get any funnier? Now the interesting part is what Brutus does for them.

He brings them weapons to even the odds, instead of actually sticking around to help fight like a friend would. Nope he brought them something to help them fight off the forces of evil. What does he bring? Does he bring brass knuckles? Maybe a club? Perhaps a couple of chairs? Nope. He brings frying pans. Brutus Beefcake brings a pair of frying pans to help save his friends. Where in the world do I start?

Let’s see: how about WHY DID HE HAVE FRYING PANS??? Was he making bacon in the back or something? Does he tend to carry cookware around with him? Did the barber shop fall through? I guess he couldn’t repair the window after Shawn broke it so he became a chef. Somehow, that is the most logical thing I’ve said all night. There’s five minutes left so let’s get through this if we can.

Luger comes back in with a glove that they imply is loaded. He sets to hit Savage but Macho ducks (that sounds like an upgrade to Duck Hunter) and Luger stops, but then starts again to hit Flair and turn face I guess. Hogan and Savage turn to leave but Savage runs back in and pins Flair while everyone else kind of stands around and lets it happen. WOW. So did they forget the whole pin thing too I suppose? Heenan is ticked off and leaves and we’re finally done.

Rating: -F. This is below an F. We’ve gone so low that we’ve went past Z (which stands for Zeus not Z-Gangsta blast it) and we’ve reached negative letters. That’s how insane this was. I mean it made no sense, the rules I laid out might as well have been the real ones because nothing stayed the same as it was in the beginning, you couldn’t see a thing if you were in the audience, the match was exactly the same thing that it had always been with Hogan surviving, and the plan was just to beat them up a lot? Take note fans: never, I mean never, send a telegram in your life. You can see what it can lead to.

The passing of the torch. From Wrestlemania VI.

WWF World Title/Intercontinental Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior

This is title for title. It’s one of those matches where both guys are built up to the point that neither can lose and the fans are completely split on who they want to win. That’s REALLY hard to pull off and I don’t remember a better execution of something like this ever before. The shot of Warrior on the ropes doing his pose as Hogan comes to the ring still sends chills up my back.

They stare each other down and both guys shove the other into the corner. We get the famous test of strength with Warrior taking over to start. Jesse is STUNNED but Hogan fights back up and takes Warrior down to his knees, giving us one of the most popular .gif’s in the history of the internet (implied oral sex if you’re not familiar). Hogan trips Warrior down and drops an elbow for one but Warrior pops up and no sells a slam. Warrior slams Hogan down and clotheslines him to the floor where Hogan might have hurt his knee.

Back in and the brawl is on with Hogan’s knee being fine and not ever mentioned again. Hulk takes over and pounds away at Warrior’s head before getting two off a pair of elbow drops. Off to a front facelock and a small package for two. Hogan hooks a chinlock and pounds away on Ultimate’s head. After a brief break we’re right back to the chinlock followed by a belly to back suplex for two for Hulk.

There’s chinlock #3 and you’re not likely to ever hear the fans freak out as much from someone fighting out of a chinlock as you get here for Warrior. A double clothesline puts both guys down and Hebner counts VERY slowly, which is the right idea here. Warrior grabs the ropes and starts Warrioring Up before hitting some clotheslines. A suplex gets two for Warrior and it’s off to a bearhug on Hulk.

Hogan fights out of the hold with some solid rights to the head but on the breakup, the referee is taken down. Warrior hits a pair of ax handles off the top and starts to get fired up. The shoulder block misses though and Hulk drives him head first into the mat, but there’s no referee. Warrior suplexes Hogan down but there’s still no count. A rollup gets a VERY close two for Hogan and it’s time for the punches.

An elbow sends Warrior out to the floor and Hogan gets posted. Back in and Warrior snaps off some clotheslines followed by the gorilla press into the splash. That gets two and it’s time to Hulk Up. Hogan pounds away and hits the big boot, but the legdrop misses. Warrior hits a fast splash for the surprise pin to win the title and shock the world.

Rating: A. That’s likely high but the crowd here REALLY helps this one. This is a match that just works and there’s almost no other way to put it. I don’t think there’s much of an argument over this not being Hogan’s best match ever and it’s easily Warrior’s first or second best ever depending on your taste about next year’s entry. Either way, this is a great match and one of those matches you have to see at some point as part of being a fan.

Hogan hands Warrior the belt and leaves in the cart, partially stealing the spotlight but it’s not as bad as I remember.

Is there anything else that could close it out? You better know where this is from.

WWF World Title: Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan walks to the ring and the ovation is unreal. To put it simply, this is the biggest match in the history of professional wrestling. We get the historic staredown and we’re really supposed to believe that Hogan is nine inches shorter than Andre? It’s like three at most. Hogan punches away to start but goes for a slam a minute into this and falls down, giving Andre a very close two. That right there would fuel the rematch requests for the next year. Hulk’s back is hurt and Andre starts taunting him. A big forearm hits Hogan in the back and Andre slams him twice. Andre pounds away very slowly and hits a few headbutts.

Hulk fights back up with some forearms into the head. A running elbow staggers the Giant and Hogan sends him head first into the buckle ten times, only to charge into a boot to slow things right back down again. We hit the bearhug and Hogan is in trouble. This lasts for a LONG while until Hogan punches his way out of it, possibly hurting his hand in the process. Hulk rams into him a few times but charges into a chop to put Hogan down again. A boot to the ribs knocks Hulk to the floor but Andre headbutts the post. Hogan tries a piledriver of all things but is easily backdropped down.

We head back in for the legendary ending sequence. Hogan ducks a big boot and clotheslines down. It’s Hulk Up time and in the most famous scene in wrestling history, Hulk Hogan slams Andre the Giant to blow the roof off the place. The big legdrop makes Hogan immortal and the title is retained.

Rating: B. Ok here’s the thing: if you think this is about the wrestling itself, you have completely missed the point here. This was about making Hogan look like the biggest star ever and to say it did that is an understatement. On top of that, the match isn’t that bad. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not a masterpiece or anything like that, but the match is nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be. This was exactly what it was supposed to be.

My original conclusion was going to be something like “yeah it’s Hulk Hogan. You know the rest.” Then I started going through this stuff and my mind got blown a bit harder. I thought things like “the highest attended show ever….for like eight months until Hogan did it again.” It’s amazing how big this guy was and still is to this day. There will never be anyone close to doing what he did for wrestling and having the impact that he had. There’s only one and that’s all there was room for.

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