Scott,
WWE Classics is running Monday Nitro from Aug. 17, 1998. This is significant because it's the debut of the Warrior. I believe his segment lasted about 15 minutes and he said nothing. His best line may have been "I guess this is your barber."
Hogan looked like he was ready for him to wrap it up after selling a "I'm scared shitless" look for the first couple of minutes. I can only imagine how excruciating and awkward it was being in the ring with him.
Excluding anything involving Kane on the mic, has there been a worse major segment like this? And do you recall what the reaction was in the online community? Even as a 12-year-old mark without the Internet I thought this was pretty ridiculous.
People were shocked and excited by his initial appearance, but WCW quickly set a new record by taking a guaranteed 700,000 buy PPV and promoting it down to a much lower number, something like 400,000. Plus as noted, Warrior used his creative control to stretch out the segment beyond all sanity. Just wait until the MAGIC MIRROR and sex slave Brutus Beefcake. It was definitely a case where just announcing the match and leaving it at that would have sold more shows than actually trying to build it up.
Even more oddly, the announcers were forbidden to talk about how the issue was that Warrior had beaten Hogan, because Hogan felt that if people remembered that Warrior already won their first match they’d have no incentive to watch it again. Which makes sense in a kind of twisted Hogan logic way, although the entire point of the storyline WAS that Hogan wanted revenge, and they couldn’t SAY it. But yeah, people hated the whole thing, except for a few “Let’s watch where they go with it” advocates, who were quickly silenced by the retardness that followed.
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