Scott,
After the success of the first three Wrestlemanias with Hulk Hogan on top, do you think it was time to take the belt off Hulk in the run-up to WM4? I know it gave us a (for the time) shocking moment with Andre's title win and subsequent "sale" of the belt to Dibiase as well as the ascent of Randy Savage to the top of the company. However, the poster for WM4 still had Hulk/Andre on it and the product never shifted from Hogan even when Savage went to the top. Nor should it have. So my question is: was it worth taking the belt off Hogan in 1987 or should they have just let Hogan carry the belt in perpetuity, ala Bruno and Backlund before him?
It didn't hurt anything to and it gave them an interesting enough angle to do something different at WM4. But would a 5-6 year Hogan reign have been worth doing instead? You could still get to Hogan vs. Savage at WM5 easily enough. The MegaPowers still team up (WWF and IC champs) against Dibiase & Andre. Savage gets jealous and wants his shot at the title. Heel turn and you're in the same wheelhouse. Plus, when Warrior beats him at WM6, it's even bigger because he's dethroning Hulk after a 5-6 year reign. These were not the days of hot-shotting a title switch for a PPV boost. Champs reigning for years on end was the norm and Hulkamania was not showing any signs of slowing down back then. Hogan remained the focal point either way, so do you think, objectively, there was a need for Hogan to lose the belt in '87? (I do recognize that we all have Randy Savage biases and might answer "yes" just for the sake of Randy being champ in '88).
What are your thoughts?
Well they kind of HAD to get the title off Hogan so he could film No Holds Barred. Certainly they could have kept running with him on top for another couple of years.
Scott's answer leads to ANOTHER question: Would you rather have Hogan lose the title and go off to film "No Holds Barred" or have another two years of Hogan as champion, but "No Holds Barred" never sees the light of day?
ReplyDeleteYea but WM 5 did like the biggest buyrate ever and held that position for 8 or 9 years. As you said, nothing really changed except is that they made Savage a megastar. And the Main Event is the most watched wrestling match in history.
ReplyDeleteI found No Holds Barred to be harmless fun really. And the Savage reign was kind of cool as for the 1st time in nearly 5 years, there was an actual doubt that there might be a title change here and there.Even Dibiase seemed like a legit threat to take the title, instead of just the champ's "opponent of the month".
ReplyDeleteIf Savage doesn't get a year run with the belt, does he become as big a star as he did? I don't think so. I know he really started gaining momentum in the fall of 1987 with his slowburn babyface turn, but I'm not sure if he ever gets fully established as a tippy top guy without his title reign, even if Hogan was still the focal point of the company for most of it.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Granted, this is all based off re-watching the Prime Time Wrestling's from the era since I wasn't old enough to have watched it live, but I felt like Savage's title run was a breath of fresh air. Even though Hogan was still going ridiculously strong at the time he lost the title, it was fun watching Savage's reign.
ReplyDeleteAnd really, after Hogan beat Andre, what was there left for him to do? His two feuds in between Andre and Savage were DiBiase and the Twin Towers. DiBiase was hot but I don't think anyone thought he could beat Hogan without trickery/shenanigans, and nobody bought into the Twin Towers as real threats to the Hulkster. Honestly, even after the Savage match at WrestleMania 5, there wasn't much left for Hogan. They weren't going back to Hogan v. Andre and the Zeus thing was a disaster. By building/booking Hogan SO strong, it created for a lot of boring feuds since it was pretty obvious that no one was gonna be able to beat Hogan. It was sorta the same rut that WWE fell into for a while with John Cena's booking, but it seems like they've positioned him as at least a little more vulnerable.
There is no alternate universe where No Holds Barred isn't a positive for humanity
ReplyDeleteYep, for all the "Super Cena" talk, he still shows 100% more vulnerability than Hogan did.
ReplyDeleteI especially hated Hogan post WM 5, as it's around where his "kick out of finisher/hulk up" routine started. If you watch older matches, you'll notice that his hulk ups were at least in different scenarios, like kicking out of a secondary move, or dodging a finisher. At least it protected the other guy a bit more and it was less predictable.
I actually liked the Zeus thing as a kid. It did make sense that the crazy actor did his part in the movie, but he believes that he would win a real fight, so he wants to prove he was the real star of the movie. Plus his no selling of everything actually made me think he was Hogan's match for a while. Ah, to be a kid again...
ReplyDeletePlus we got scenes with Joan Severance wearing granny panties
ReplyDelete"Yep, for all the "Super Cena" talk, he still shows 100x more vulnerability than Hogan did."
ReplyDeleteImagine if Cena no sold Sister Abigail along with Harper's big boot and defeated the entire Wyatt family by himself. That's Hogan 20 years ago.
Hogan showed vulnerability in the build ups tho. I remember legitimately thinking Earthquake squashed him to death as a kid
ReplyDeleteI was more referring to his initial WCW run. I can only imagine what the reaction was back then when Hogan completely no sold Vader's powerbomb and used Savage's elbow to REVIVE HIMSELF all in the same time frame.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to the How Did This Get Made podcast on the movie and apparently, Vince and Hogan rejected the original script and wrote the new version together in a hotel room over a weekend.
ReplyDeleteWonder who did the typing.
Jimmy Hart
ReplyDeleteProblem with hogans first title run is who does he eventually lose to? If he keeps it passed wm4, no challenger seems credible to take it off him so people stop going to his house shows. He's already beaten all the major guys that were in the wm4 tournament multiple times and there's only so many times you can create a new challenger of the month. I was looking at old Saturday nights main events from that time and he was facing bundy again/
ReplyDeleteI hated the Wrestlemania 5 finish. If Hogan moved out of the way causing Savage to miss the elbow I could accept that but Hogan kicking out of the elbow was just plain wrong and had me screaming bull.
ReplyDeleteDeebo HOF.
ReplyDelete