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Creative Control

Scott,
For years there has been talk of Hogan (and others') "creative control" clauses.  How exactly are these structured?  Obviously he was allowed to veto doing jobs, but have you seen the language of these contracts?  How much 'control' does the performer really have?  If Bischoff was to have said, "Hulk, you're tapping clean to Sting's Deathlock at Starrcade '97", what is it specifically that allows Hogan to veto that?  Is it in his contract or just an instance of Bischoff thinking it's more trouble than it's worth to argue about?  Is it the same idea with Vince re: Hart-Hogan in '93?
In the same vein, how did Hogan have the 'creative control' to put himself over Yokozuna at Wrestlemania 9?  Shawn Michaels refusing to drop the title?  Bret vetoing the Montreal job?

Bret Hart week continues here at the blog!

With Hogan’s WCW contract, he pretty much had the final say-so over anything he was going to be asked to do.  Like, they literally couldn’t even get him to come on TV and wave to the crowd without getting his approval.  So did Flair during his Crockett heyday (although not to the same crazy degree), which is one reason why Jim Herd wanted to get rid of him so badly or at least restructure the contract.  Hence the neverending Flair-Dusty war where Dusty would book Luger to go over and Flair would veto it. 

With WM9 I don’t think that was Hogan’s creative control so much as Vince deciding it would be a good idea.  Shawn definitely didn’t have that kind of contract, he was just a dick and faked a knee injury, although by his 2002 comeback he might have learned from Bret and upgraded his contract, I don’t know.  And Bret absolutely could say no to doing a job, although I would like to point out that he was never ASKED to do a job to Shawn Michaels.  People on the anti-Bret side act like someone came to him and told him to lay down and he said no, but that never happened.  Vince told him that they’d do a DQ finish, and then screwed him out of the title.

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