Hogan v.s Kidman

[Trent Valentine]

Around the time of the dying days of WCW, the writers were getting more and more desperate to bring back the crowd they lost during the Fingerpoke of Doom. And so, Russo and Bischoff formed the New Blood, a group full of young guys who are sick of sitting by and letting the WCW Stalwarts such as Hollywood Hogan, Diamond Dallas Page, Sting, Lex Luger and others hog the spotlight. They felt these guys were nothing but washed up has beens who can't seem to grasp the fact that their glory days are behind them and the younger generation has passed them by. But the Vets refused to let these young punks drive them out. And so the battle lines were drawn, The New Blood vs The Millionaire's Club. In this classic clash of Old School v.s New School, only one faction would be left standing. The winners would be the ones to represent WCW. This looked real good.

Man were we wrong...

One infamous feud that came about was Hulk Hogan v.s Billy Kidman. This feud stemmed from Hogan's comment about Kidman's lack of Main Event experience..saying he couldn't sell a flea market. Russo smelled Money and decided to make it a feud. What really made me cringe was they decided to have Kidman shoot on guys like Hogan, Nash and Sting. Which really didn't make sense. Not just because he sounded so forced and had the charisma of a dried peanut, Three of these guys were main eventing arenas back when his mommy was still wiping his nose..what was supposed to make him so superior?

Another thing about it was the size difference. I understand that people always like to build up little guys as Giant Killers like they done in the past with 1-2-3 Kid, Rey Mysterio, Little Spike Dudley etc, but this just didn't do it..the whole feud was lopsided. It culminated with Kidman's girl Torrie Wilson turning on him.

What are your thoughts on this angle? How horrible was it to you? Or was it booked correctly?

[Ultimo Chocula]

The match itself was the worst, with Hogan absolutely burying Kidman for 95% of the match. Then Kidman gets the win after a run in and Hogan calling it an honest attempt to get him over. Pure, all out fail.

[Cela]

It could have been good, and Kidman was massively over at the time. But you are only as good as your opponent lets you be.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

I just remember how radical of an idea it seemed at the time. Hogan interacting with Billy Kidman was some fairly surreal television at the time, and I still like the "FUNB" iteration of Hogan's character.

[El Dandy]

Hogan was right. Kidman couldn't draw at a flea market. The guy has zero personality. Fun to watch in matches against luchadores. But does anyone recall anything significant Kidman did as a wrestler? He should be happy Hogan obliged to do a program with him.

[hollywood]

Much as I like to criticize Hogan...

He was right. Kidman, God love him, was never a main eventer. He was pretty much WCW's Matt Hardy. A solid worker who put on solid matches. Dependable. Reliable. A good hand to have on board. But he was never going to sell tickets. Not like Hogan did.

But all that aside. Fine. You want to pit Kidman against Hogan. Okay, great. Pit the scrappy underdog against the superstar. It probably won't sell out arenas, but it's a novel concept that can work pretty well. Not only that, it can get the fighting underdog over even if he loses.

Oh. Wait. Can't do that. This is Vince Russo. Gotta throw out the "formula." Do something "different." No, Kidman wasn't a scrappy underdog. He was the heel. Full on, obnoxious "I'm better than all you pissants" heel. And he's taking on the Hulkster, who, as a result of this whole doomed-to-failure New Blood angle, is seen as the underdog.

Let me repeat that... The "Immortal" Hulk friggin' Hogan was portrayed as the underdog. And all this was supposed to somehow elevate Kidman. Are you kidding!? I was a teenager at the time, and even then I thought, "Wait...what??"

Hogan's not innocent. Not by a long shot. But the blame for whatever damage this fiasco did to Kidman's career falls primarily in the lap of Vince Russo.

It's like Russo came aboard and said "Okay, f--- Hogan. We gotta get Kidman over. So let's bury the s--- outta the Hulkster and get Kidman over." A smart booker/creative head/whatever-the-holy-hell-you-want-to-call-yourself knows you can't operate that way. You have to get both men behind your idea. Come up with something they can both get behind. Meet with the superstar and say "Hey, we really need to get this guy over. What's the best way to do it?" Hell, Hogan's the guy GIVING something here, he's the one you've REALLY gotta sell this to.

Vince failed to do that. Royally. Abso-frikkin-lutely.

I'm not one to defend Hogan, but I can hardly blame him for how he handled this whole thing. The entire rivalry was destined to fail. He just saw to it he didn't come out the other end looking the worse for it.

[Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster]

Hogan was right and Vince Russo must of been whacked out of his mind on drugs to think that fans were going buy Kidman as a legit main eventer.

[N E O G E O B O Y S]

Well, this feud gave us this

[Trent Valentine]

Apr 13, 2010 16:32:52 GMT -5 N E O G E O B O Y S said:

Well, this feud gave us this

What in the wide wide world of sports was that? God, even on the mic he sounds so forced. He was standing there running down Hogan..i'm sure the whole world was asking..who the hell is this guy?

[hollywood]

This thread merits repeating the following statement:

VINCE RUSSO IS AN IDIOT.

[dav]

Apr 14, 2010 13:46:33 GMT -5 hollywood said:

This thread merits repeating the following statement:

VINCE RUSSO IS AN IDIOT.

Does it? I thought on every thread it was pretty much taken for granted...

[Lenny: Smooth like Keith Stone]

The thing Kidman did that I liked the most was in the mid 90's when he was in Raven's Flock, and his gimmick was that he always scratched himself. In some disgusting way, I actually thought that was really funny!

[DavidArquette]

Apart from some promos, I only saw one match from this feud, the one at Slamboree '00, which I think is actually pretty cool. Did I buy Kidman as a 'main eventer' and legitimate threat to Hogan? No, but it was fun to pretend. I give this feud 2 thumbs up!

[Mesousa]

Sad, really, Kidman just didn't work as a main eventer.

Wait, scratch that, wasn't his feud with Hogan only on the midcard?

Well, that's one way to put Hogan on the midcard.

[wcw]

It didn't work because who the f*** was Billy Kidman. In order for a guy like Kidman to believably get over a guy like Hogan you need to build him up for at least 18 months or 2 years.

Hulk Hogan even in 2000 was still a big name and a guy who held a big standing. Billy Kidman was just some guy who was a Cruiserweight and got pushed to the moon real quick and everyone said get the f*** out of here like this guy can go tow to tow with Hogan.

Now had Kidman gotten a push towards the upper mid card in 1999 with his tag title run with Rey Mysterio then yeah by 2000 he could have pushed towards the main event and maybe by mid to late 2000 he could have faced Hogan.

But Russo had to hotshot shit with no build because he has no clue on how to book anything.

[VenomFang]

Hated this fued immensely.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

Okay, to jump in and defend Russo/WCW yet again, it's not like he really had the time to build up Billy Kidman. This was after they lost nearly all of their upper mid-carders from the "Sullivan Exodus" of 2000. All they had left were the '80s main eventers, Booker and Jarrett as upper midcarders, and a midcard. They pretty much had to throw some lower card guys out there and hope they'd catch fire.

Billy Kidman was somewhat popular at that time, probably the equivalent of V1-era Matt Hardy. Hell, this angle didn't do a whole lot to diminish him in WCW fans' eyes, it was his role as a WWE Sunday Night Heat (or was it Velocity?) Superstar (and Torrie Wilson's house husband) that did his career in.

[Paco]

Apr 12, 2010 18:29:05 GMT -5 Ultimo Chocula said:

The match itself was the worst, with Hogan absolutely burying Kidman for 95% of the match. Then Kidman gets the win after a run in and Hogan calling it an honest attempt to get him over. Pure, all out fail.

Fuzzy memory there. The only win Kidman got over Hogan was a Handicap match where Mike Awesome teamed with Kidman. Awesome did the dirty work, Kidman got the pinfall. Yay.

Hogan and Kidman then got two PPV matches. Both handily won by Hogan.
The Slamboree one is pretty good though in match quality. Didn't help Kidman one bit but twas a fun ass-kicking.

Apr 13, 2010 16:29:12 GMT -5 Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster said:

Hogan was right and Vince Russo must of been whacked out of his mind on drugs to think that fans were going buy Kidman as a legit main eventer.

I would've had no problem with Kidman as main eventer.
Of course, I was clamoring for the next generation to take over WCW main event.
Kidman did not look out of place among the other guys hitting their heads on WCW's glass ceiling. You said his name in the same breath with Eddie, Benoit, Booker, Rey, Jericho, Malenko, Buff, Saturn, etc. and you didn't laugh. They were popular and ready and, if WCW would have just tried, would have been accepted. That was late-'98 to early '99 though.

By 2000, the only fans WCW had left paying to see them live were the ones who went to see the old faves a.k.a. the Millionaires Club members.

["Nature Boy" Ric Moranis]

I used to listen to that WCW Live internet radio show during that time (with Borash and Bob Ryder) and before the Hogan/Kidman feud, many people within WCW were all referring to Kidman as "the next Shawn Michaels".

They whiffed on that guess. But it wasn't as bad as when Bob Ryder used to refer to ECW's Danny Doring as "the next Shawn Michaels".

But WCW had high hopes for Kidman. His WWE run washed out his career, but that's mostly because that place didn't mesh with his style. I still believe that if WCW would've never folded, I could've seen him as a guy in around the World and U.S. Title picture. He was one of the few acts they had left that was homegrown and over with the majority of the crowd.

Hogan was just the wrong fit for a feud. A good long feud with DDP would've been better for Kidman around that time.

[carter 15]

I remember pretty much the entire IWC LOVING the thought of this fued. Kinda funny now in retrospect.

But yeah, Kidman was going to be the next big thing for a few years. But he couldn't talk.

Sort've like John Morrison.