Worst thing Hogan did within the wrestling context

[nastyearl]

I’m going to say refusing to work with Bret. This includes refusing to put over Bret. This happened both in WCW and in WWF. Does anything else top that?

[Gunhaver]

Killing a union, surely.

[Gunhaver]

If we’re talking purely in ring, it’s gotta be Bret or the Starcade 97 fiasco. I believe he told Nick Patrick to botch the count.

[Charles "Charlie" Charles]

Crippling WCW creatively by repeatedly insisting that plans be altered for his own benefit to the detriment of the onscreen product and the careers of wrestlers outside of his social circle.

[nastyearl]

And contrary to how the narrative has been spun, Hogan never put over Billy Kidman. Kidman was presented as a joke going into that feud and was presented as a joke coming out of that feud.

[ChitownKnight]

Pretty nuts that we are getting threads like these and nothing about favorite Hogan childhood memories lol. But he did it to himself

[dav]

Jul 28, 2025 13:08:24 GMT -5 Gunhaver said:

Killing a union, surely.

Honestly, considering the personalities involved with wrestling at the time, a union would have been a challenge to get up and running reliably. Might have worked, but I'd have been surprised if it did.

[gerbilfacedgeek]

Jul 28, 2025 13:28:42 GMT -5 ChitownKnight said:

Pretty nuts that we are getting threads like these and nothing about favorite Hogan childhood memories lol. But he did it to himself

Funny how that works out!  

Well, the main stuff was mentioned.  Dicking over Bret and Sting, creative control, union busting.  Pretty hard to add to it....

Changing WCW to HHCW/a rehash of the 80s WWF.  I get it was good for business, but like with Russo joining, you now had WWF vs. WWF Lite.  It took the Nitro and the NWO to make the company evolve at last.  To a lesser degree, he made TNA more Hogancentric as well. 

Maybe insisting WCW hire ex-WWF stars not for business, but to get his wins back?  (Warrior definitely.  The rumors about Yoko which would be even worse considering he was barely in acceptable shape)  

Oooh!  NEVER PUTTING RANDY SAVAGE OVER.  

EDIT: I came in thinking what was the worst kayfabe Hogan moments.  Was about to write HE HAD LUST IN HIS EYES in caps, LOL.  

[Gunhaver]

Jul 28, 2025 13:58:15 GMT -5 gerbilfacedgeek said:

Jul 28, 2025 13:28:42 GMT -5 ChitownKnight said:

Pretty nuts that we are getting threads like these and nothing about favorite Hogan childhood memories lol. But he did it to himself

Oooh!  NEVER PUTTING RANDY SAVAGE OVER.  

If you want to be really, really, unreasonably generous to the man, you could sorta count the World War 3 match in the sense that Hogan had the pull to make himself the winner but didn’t. That’s just as good as putting someone over, right? …right?

[gerbilfacedgeek]

Jul 28, 2025 14:11:35 GMT -5 Gunhaver said:

Jul 28, 2025 13:58:15 GMT -5 gerbilfacedgeek said:

Oooh!  NEVER PUTTING RANDY SAVAGE OVER.  

If you want to be really, really, unreasonably generous to the man, you could sorta count the World War 3 match in the sense that Hogan had the pull to make himself the winner but didn’t. That’s just as good as putting someone over, right? …right?

Except he had an out because he never went over the top, thus Savage wasn't the "real" sole survivor.  And I think he said as much in Nitro segments.  

Oh!  I got a few deep cuts.  Late '87, Hogan was having the habit of totally burying people during house show interviews.  If you look you can easily find one he did on Rick Rude, where he completely brushes him off, saying he's no bigger than his pinky finger and not a challenge after he "slammed Andre over his head" (yes, in 1987 it was already "over his head").  Then there was a NYC area promo on One Man Gang where he barges in on Gene running the card down and literally saying none of the other matches except his matters anyway.  He also goes on a diatribe about how the Pope visited him but he wasn't a real Hulkamaniac, but that's neither here nor there.  

This is the sort of thing people criticize Austin and Rock for...the Attitude Era style of promos where the point is how much your opponent sucks.  But on the other hand, if you've been told the challenger sucks, why should you want to pay to see Austin or Rock or etc. wrestle them?  

[gerbilfacedgeek]

Could we count the original idea about the Giant as one? If it was partially Hogan's idea to promote him as Andre's son?

I mean we had worse since then (Eddie- and Bearer-sploitation).

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

Behind the scenes it was killing the union. On screen, there's no defending the hatchet job that was Starrcade 97.

[Alexander The So-so]

Killing the wrestlers’ union.

Having a union REALLY could’ve helped a lot of people, and almost assuredly would’ve helped prevent a lot of premature deaths.

[chronocross]

Jul 28, 2025 13:24:26 GMT -5 nastyearl said:

And contrary to how the narrative has been spun, Hogan never put over Billy Kidman. Kidman was presented as a joke going into that feud and was presented as a joke coming out of that feud.

I agree, though I think Kidman was out of his league there IMO.

I would have either one of the other New Blood members like Booker, Steiner, Shane Douglas or Mike Awesome feuding with Hulk instead.

[mcstoklasa]

Jul 28, 2025 15:43:34 GMT -5 Alexander The So-so said:

Killing the wrestlers’ union.

Having a union REALLY could’ve helped a lot of people, and almost assuredly would’ve helped prevent a lot of premature deaths.

I get that but couldn't they have tried again at some point in the following years? He intervened on this apparent union thing like forty years ago.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Killing the union. With WCW, there are outside factors that may well have killed it anyway, but the union busting was all him and all his peers from his first WWF run would have been better off later in life.

[Hanky McCranky Jr.]

Jul 28, 2025 13:28:42 GMT -5 ChitownKnight said:

Pretty nuts that we are getting threads like these and nothing about favorite Hogan childhood memories lol. But he did it to himself

When you spend a career being an unrepentant asshole for far longer and more recently than you were thought of as a real life superhero, people are going to remember you as an asshole.

[DennyZen: No Longer Cooking]

Killing the union is close to an objectively correct answer, I think. That had a tangible, harmful effect on countless workers' lives over the course of the last 40 years, and, for as much progress as it has made within the last decade or so, the wrestling industry still does not come across like the world's best industry to work in for the average "independent contractor."

From a business perspective, weaseling his way into derailing basically every storyline the WWF had going on to win the championship at Mania 9, only to essentially leave under false pretenses, usher in one of the worst years the company has ever had, and then wind up working for the competition under a year later was pretty bad.

[DiBiase is Good]

Jul 28, 2025 15:49:29 GMT -5 mcstoklasa said:

Jul 28, 2025 15:43:34 GMT -5 Alexander The So-so said:

Killing the wrestlers’ union.

Having a union REALLY could’ve helped a lot of people, and almost assuredly would’ve helped prevent a lot of premature deaths.

I get that but couldn't they have tried again at some point in the following years? He intervened on this apparent union thing like forty years ago.

That’s my take on it too. Especially around the mid-00s when you had Eddie and Benoit dying whilst actively wrestling. If ever the wrestlers had the moment to say to to all the big promoters “right, we’re doing this and with the media fixated on wrestler’s health right now, if you make any attempt to stop it, you’ll never recover from it”.

I’m not saying that no union was the only factor in those specific examples nor that if there was a union that they still wouldn’t have died when they did but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt if there was already one in place by then

[Sephiroth]

I’d put gutting TNA up there as well. It was always a two steps forward, one step back operation, but they had found a formula that was working and it offered something different from WWE. And then he killed all of it.