You made your debut during a ticker-tape parade at Disney MGM Studios in Orlando, FL on June 11, 1994 and signed your WCW contract, preparing to start a new wave of HULKAMANIA.
One month later, at Bash at the Beach on July 17, you defeated “the Nature Boy” Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, mere weeks after he unified the WCW World and WCW International World belts.
Your initial run had some ups-and-downs. After retiring Flair at Halloween Havoc following a Steel Cage match, you began rivalries with your former best friend The Butcher and Vader. But in 1995, your long rivalry with “the Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan’s Dungeon of Doom took hold of your career.
Coming face-to-face with a Giant, a mummified YETI, Loch Ness, a Zodiac, and countless other creatures, you learned to survive and overcome. Even when your manager and friend “the Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart betrayed you, you never wavered.
You encountered a short wave, alongside your Mega Power brethren “Macho Man” Randy Savage, into the “dark side of Hulkamania”. It took Sting to get you to see the light. We thought that it would’ve been a short stint to the dark, but boy, were we wrong.
In the first half of 1996, you took a sabbatical from WCW. At that time, two Outsiders were preparing to go to war with the promotion. We were all wondering when you were going to return to save the day.
July 9, 1996 was the date. You didn’t save the day. You completely obliterated it.
Along with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, you formed a New World Order of wrestling and prepared to destroy the old school tradition of WCW. You officially threw away the red and yellow like a “dirt sheet rag”, brother, and wore black and white. You sold out. You became “Hollywood”.
One month later at Hog Wild in Sturgis, SD, you not only won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, you destroyed the Booty Man and then subsequently spray-painted “nWo” on the golden main plate of the title.
Over the next eighteen months, you and your ever-growing unit of a rebellious revolution took over WCW. If not for a brooding Stinger, who became the conscience of WCW, your nWo poison would’ve terminally killed the company.
Then, in 1998, your rebellious revolution splintered into Civil War. Your nWo Hollywood took on the modern Wolfpäc. However, it was all to lead WCW into a false sense of security. Your “Fingerpoke of Doom” and absolute disrespect of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at the Georgia Dome on January 4, 1999 reunited the rebels for one last stand.
By the time August 9, 1999 came around, the nWo all but faded. Thanks to your son Nick and all of your passionate fans, you once again rechanneled Hulkamania and wore the red and yellow to a raucous ovation.
You brought us a Yapapi Strap Match in the transition between the Powers That Be and the New Blood in the Winter of 2000. You even switched into a vigilante role against Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo, complete with “F.U.N.B.” on the back of your vest. You were as aggressive as you ever were.
And then, July 9, 2000, four years after forming the greatest faction in the history of wrestling, you were excommunicated from WCW by Mr. Vince Russo, never to be seen again. Although short-term, the company needed refreshing, long-term, the company really began its descent without you until the end on March 26, 2001.
There are a lot of stories that have come out about you over your entire career. A lot of the anger towards you from many is justified. Many others feel it is not. I AM NOT here to give my opinion on that.
I AM here to talk about you in a strict character sense from your time in World Championship Wrestling. You took a company in its darkest days in 1993 and grew it into being the #1 promotion for 83 Weeks during the “Monday Night Wars”. Your ability to change yourself from being wrestling’s greatest superhero into one of the most dastardly villains of all time is unbelievable.
For those that said you “buried” talent in WCW, I highly disagree. You MADE the Giant. You MADE Goldberg. You took the Outsiders and made them even bigger stars than they were in the “New Generation”. Hell, I will even go and say, in spite of your personal feelings, you tried to make Billy Kidman to the best of your ability.
As a performer and character in World Championship Wrestling, I say thank you. If nothing else, your run in WCW proved that Hulkamania was as strong as ever, but that a change, sometimes, can make you an even bigger star than before.
As it comes to Hulk Hogan’s passing, it truly is the END OF AN ERA.
Jon Harder
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