Did Warrior beating Hogan kill the 80s boom?

[wildojinx]

I've heard it said that Warrior beating Hogan at WM6 killed the whole 80s boom period for the WWF (yeah, i know it was 1990, but still,,). Would you agree with this? It did kind of kill Hogan's "mystique" since he had never been cleanly pinned in the WWF during that run (ignoring his 1979-81 run). It should be stated that 1990 was actually the year I got into wrestling (thanks to, of all things, the NES Wrestlemania game).

[BorneAgain]

Hogan did do some great house show business with Earthquake later in the year, so it certainly wasn't an instantaneous downturn.

Really it was the failure to get any decent feuds for the new champion that was really worrying. The company had basically utilized and beaten every major heel that Warrior had no programs to attract for live events. Rude, Perfect, Demolition, etc were prominent performers, but none were protected enough to be considered major threats in the fans' eyes.

WWE had Hogan pass the torch to Warrior with no real road map on what to do with him when he got it.

[lildude8218]

I don't have an answer to the question but here's an interesting factoid.

The Ultimate Warrior never had a WWF World title defense at Madison Square Garden. He only had one match at MSG as World champion and that was in a six-man tag with LOD against Demolition. Hogan had 4 defenses there in 1987. Savage had 6 in 1988.

Clearly something changed with the way they ran business.

[Kevin Hamilton]

Nah. Warrior was over as hell. If anything, them not having any booking catering to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses did. Outside of Rude, they hadn't built up any natural opponents for him at all. And even Rude feud (heh Rude feud) was only based on the previous IC title loss. Warrior shoulda had the Quake feud for one. Warrior was likely never gonna be a long term answer, but giving him the belt at the time was good in theory. They just f***ed the execution.

[CeilingFan]

Dec 23, 2018 14:37:21 GMT -5 lildude8218 said:

I don't have an answer to the question but here's an interesting factoid.

The Ultimate Warrior never had a WWF World title defense at Madison Square Garden. He only had one match at MSG as World champion and that was in a six-man tag with LOD against Demolition. Hogan had 4 defenses there in 1987. Savage had 6 in 1988.

Clearly something changed with the way they ran business.

Warrior was supposed to defend the WWF Championship against Randy Savage at MSG, but he lost the title one week earlier to Sgt. Slaughter.

[The 1Watcher Experience]

Not really. If you look at the buyrate for Summer Slam 90 there was some drop off. Survivor Series 90 remained about the same. Royal Rumble 91 was the best business a Rumble ever did for them and none of them for years to come would touch that number. That was with Warrior going in as champion. It can’t really be argued that people got it for the Rumble match because the level of interest is so much higher than the others. They all had Rumble matches too. All the PPVs after throughout 91 experienced a sharp drop off in business. You had Slaughter as champion coming out of the Rumble. You had Hogan going for the title at Mania and regaining it. They couldn’t even fill their original venue for Mania 7. People just didn’t care enough about seeing Hogan getting the belt back. I think that’s what killed their momentum.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Dec 23, 2018 14:46:37 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

Nah. Warrior was over as hell. If anything, them not having any booking catering to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses did. Outside of Rude, they hadn't built up any natural opponents for him at all. And even Rude feud (heh Rude feud) was only based on the previous IC title loss. Warrior shoulda had the Quake feud for one. Warrior was likely never gonna be a long term answer, but giving him the belt at the time was good in theory. They just f***ed the execution.

The problem is when there’s just too much damn weaknesses that you can’t hide them anymore. Back then your champion couldn’t be so limited and have Pat Patterson design absolutely everything move for move.

The Ultimate Warrior was just smoke and mirrors, he was charismatic but that’s it. He couldn’t carry the company.

Now that being said I don’t think he killed the 80s boom, I think the steroid scandal killed it and Hogan’s disastrous interview with Arsenio Hall.

[Kevin Hamilton]

Dec 23, 2018 15:03:18 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Dec 23, 2018 14:46:37 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

Nah. Warrior was over as hell. If anything, them not having any booking catering to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses did. Outside of Rude, they hadn't built up any natural opponents for him at all. And even Rude feud (heh Rude feud) was only based on the previous IC title loss. Warrior shoulda had the Quake feud for one. Warrior was likely never gonna be a long term answer, but giving him the belt at the time was good in theory. They just f***ed the execution.

The problem is when there’s just too much damn weaknesses that you can’t hide them anymore. Back then your champion couldn’t be so limited and have Pat Patterson design absolutely everything move for move.

The Ultimate Warrior was just smoke and mirrors, he was charismatic but that’s it. He couldn’t carry the company.

Now that being said I don’t think he killed the 80s boom, I think the steroid scandal killed it and Hogan’s disastrous interview with Arsenio Hall.

Sure, but they knew that already. It's on the bookers to put their talent in the best position to succeed. You don't elevate the guy in the first place if you have no plan in place for him. The failure is 80% on them

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Dec 23, 2018 15:27:58 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

Dec 23, 2018 15:03:18 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

The problem is when there’s just too much damn weaknesses that you can’t hide them anymore. Back then your champion couldn’t be so limited and have Pat Patterson design absolutely everything move for move.

The Ultimate Warrior was just smoke and mirrors, he was charismatic but that’s it. He couldn’t carry the company.

Now that being said I don’t think he killed the 80s boom, I think the steroid scandal killed it and Hogan’s disastrous interview with Arsenio Hall.

Sure, but they knew that already. It's on the bookers to put their talent in the best position to succeed. You don't elevate the guy in the first place if you have no plan in place for him. The failure is 80% on them

This is Vince McMahon we’re talking about he’s the opposite of irrational, he tried to bring Warrior back several times despite the guy being a mental case.

[2coldMack is even more baffled]

Dec 23, 2018 14:46:37 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

Nah. Warrior was over as hell. If anything, them not having any booking catering to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses did. Outside of Rude, they hadn't built up any natural opponents for him at all. And even Rude feud (heh Rude feud) was only based on the previous IC title loss. Warrior shoulda had the Quake feud for one. Warrior was likely never gonna be a long term answer, but giving him the belt at the time was good in theory. They just f***ed the execution.

I've long had a pet theory that Hogan putting Warrior over at VI is his greatest political play ever. He gets to look like the "team player" putting over the "new top guy", knowing that when the money inevitably dipped with a new champion, Vince would panic, stumble, and eventually come running back to Hogan instead of seeing the dip through, booking Warrior with better stuff, and seeing if they could ride it out.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Dec 23, 2018 19:41:06 GMT -5 2coldMack is even more baffled said:

Dec 23, 2018 14:46:37 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

Nah. Warrior was over as hell. If anything, them not having any booking catering to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses did. Outside of Rude, they hadn't built up any natural opponents for him at all. And even Rude feud (heh Rude feud) was only based on the previous IC title loss. Warrior shoulda had the Quake feud for one. Warrior was likely never gonna be a long term answer, but giving him the belt at the time was good in theory. They just f***ed the execution.

I've long had a pet theory that Hogan putting Warrior over at VI is his greatest political play ever. He gets to look like the "team player" putting over the "new top guy", knowing that when the money inevitably dipped with a new champion, Vince would panic, stumble, and eventually come running back to Hogan instead of seeing the dip through, booking Warrior with better stuff, and seeing if they could ride it out.

I disagree, Hogan was never a team player for that particular situation. He never wanted to put Warrior over, that’s why wcw spend a lot of money hiring Warrior just so Hogan could get his win back.

Regarding Vince, apparently he was the only one who wanted the Ultimate Warrior as a champion. Prichard claims that Ted Dibiase even went to Vince before Wrestlemania and told him that he was making a mistake and that Warrior couldn’t carry the company.

[wildojinx]

Of course, if it wasnt Warrior, I've heard the plans were to extend Hogan vs Zeus to WM6 and have them have a singles match there as the main event. That would have been a complete disaster.

[Deleted]

As people said the big problem was just that they had nothing for Warrior to do once he got the belt. The logical move was Earthquake beating Hogan to really put him over as this incredible threat to Warrior but y'know, Hogan.

[J. Hova]

They booked themselves into a corner with Warrior and had no way to get anything compelling with him. You can only have Rick Rude bump all over the ring for him for so long until fans get tired of it.

Say what you will about Hulk Hogan, but he could at least have some decent ring work (it's still unfortunate that they wouldn't let him work like he did in Japan). He wasn't an entrance and that was it. I can't believe that with all of the brains they had working in the office at the time (Patterson, McMahon, Prichard, Brisco, Dillon, etc.) that someone didn't raise their hand and say, "You do realize this guy is quite possibly the worst worker in the business, right? He hurts people, his offense looks like shit, he can't sell, and his promos are like a bad acid trip. We don't have anyone to work with him, either."

It didn't help matters that Hogan was still the guy, but what else could they do?

[The Thread Barbi]

Dec 24, 2018 4:19:02 GMT -5 J. Hova said:

They booked themselves into a corner with Warrior and had no way to get anything compelling with him. You can only have Rick Rude bump all over the ring for him for so long until fans get tired of it.

Say what you will about Hulk Hogan, but he could at least have some decent ring work (it's still unfortunate that they wouldn't let him work like he did in Japan). He wasn't an entrance and that was it. I can't believe that with all of the brains they had working in the office at the time (Patterson, McMahon, Prichard, Brisco, Dillon, etc.) that someone didn't raise their hand and say, "You do realize this guy is quite possibly the worst worker in the business, right? He hurts people, his offense looks like shit, he can't sell, and his promos are like a bad acid trip. We don't have anyone to work with him, either."

It didn't help matters that Hogan was still the guy, but what else could they do?

Work rate and that doesn't change the numbers. Financial year 89/90, Warrior was outdrawing Hulkster in merchandise and house show circuit, so on paper it was the right time to put the title on him as he was the company's biggest draw, and Hogan was thinking of time off and Hollywood anyway.

I think the Undertaker debuted six months too late, otherwise the Warrior reign could have been salvaged.

[evilone]

Not knowing how to work in the ring has never stopped anyone from being over as the biggest draw in the company. Warrior was over as hell and it was the right decision to put belt on him just like it was a right decision to put belt on Goldberg, Nash or Rock.

You can't solely blame everything on one thing and that's the case of mild Warriors champ run as well. One of the problems was Hogan still hitting the main event like number one face of the company, that's something Hogan didn't have to deal with when he was the champion. The other problem is Warrior being so unreliable from professional side of things and a dude that couldn't work compromises. And then there were problem #3, problem #4 and so on. Mach Man worked around Hogan a lot better than Warrior did but he was not fond of Hogan politicking around when he was the champion and neither was Warrior. So there is that.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

You can't blame Warrior for the downturn when Hulk was still the focus of the product. Warrior had the belt, but his feuds were nothing new and Hulk was still the focus of the shows and events designed to sell tickets and drive buyrates, and people were tired of him.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Dec 24, 2018 4:19:02 GMT -5 J. Hova said:

They booked themselves into a corner with Warrior and had no way to get anything compelling with him. You can only have Rick Rude bump all over the ring for him for so long until fans get tired of it.

Say what you will about Hulk Hogan, but he could at least have some decent ring work (it's still unfortunate that they wouldn't let him work like he did in Japan). He wasn't an entrance and that was it. I can't believe that with all of the brains they had working in the office at the time (Patterson, McMahon, Prichard, Brisco, Dillon, etc.) that someone didn't raise their hand and say, "You do realize this guy is quite possibly the worst worker in the business, right? He hurts people, his offense looks like shit, he can't sell, and his promos are like a bad acid trip. We don't have anyone to work with him, either."

It didn't help matters that Hogan was still the guy, but what else could they do?

They tried telling him but Vince isn’t a rational human being.

[ToyfareMark]

Dec 23, 2018 14:37:21 GMT -5 lildude8218 said:

I don't have an answer to the question but here's an interesting factoid.

The Ultimate Warrior never had a WWF World title defense at Madison Square Garden. He only had one match at MSG as World champion and that was in a six-man tag with LOD against Demolition. Hogan had 4 defenses there in 1987. Savage had 6 in 1988.

Clearly something changed with the way they ran business.

They also stopped running MSG for 6 months in 1990, so there's your reason.

[stevec484]

Hogan was still the top guy after Warrior won the belt. Didn't matter that Warrior was champion