Hulk Hogan vs Hollyoowd Hogan - Which one did IWC like most?

Publish date: 2024-05-08
Hogan played a great heel, in part because by the mid 90s fans were already getting savvy to backstage events like Hogan's refusal to put others over, and because his character had grown stale. Brett Hart was playing his goody too shoes, say your prayers, etc character in WWE and he wrestled better. Ric Flair was considered "more cool" with the flamboyant robes, women, etc....as LeBron James said two years ago, for many of today's athletes, Flair was their favorite because he was the "originator of bling"....plus smart fans respected Flair more because of his work ethic and match schedule. WCW fans never embraced Hogan because he was the standard bearer for WWE and WCW was "Flair Country"..... Hogan's heel turn was completely unforeseen but it still made sense since much of it was rooted in what fans already believed about him, at least to an extent, behind the curtain. Hollywood Hogan also took the NWO angle to a whole new level and made them maybe the hottest heel gang ever, at least since the heyday of The Four Horsemen.

That said Hogan's original gimmick from his second WWE stint, his "Hulka-Mania" era, may not have been the most complex character ever created but Hogan played it pitch perfect, and he was the main star that catapulted wrestling in general and WWE in particular into the pop culture mainstream. Andre was big, Piper was big, Savage was big, Dusty was big, Flair was certainly big, and without those guys wrestling in general doesn't enjoy the boom it did business wise in the 80s, but Hogan was main attraction. Im not sure how much the industry would have boomed without Flair, Dusty, Savage, etc in that decade but Hogan was the biggest attraction, and there is no doubt about it.

In the NWO Hogan was the icing on the cake, and he did a great job initially, but even without Hogan the NWO Invasion was a red hot angle and the idea of completely turning WCW alliances on their head - making guys like Flair & Arn Anderson team up with Sting and Savage for instance, was extremely interesting at a time frankly when the business was relatively dull....WCW was already doing well, often beating WWE head to head, but it was the attraction of seeing the stars of the 80s in their last big hurrah, Hogan, Flair, Anderson, Sting, Savage, Luger, all basically doing the same thing they did 10 years earlier, which fans found moderately more entertaining than watching guys people didn't recognize fighting on RAW. The NWO angle would have been huge and I believe would have firmly tilted WCW way in the battle between the two companies without Hogan, but his heel turn, a huge event, certainly helped and elevated it. Still his impact on the business and WWE in particular in the 1980s was much bigger and with that I have to vote for "Hulka-Mania" Hogan.

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