Perhaps the most well-known
professional wrestler, and also the most despised among wrestling "smarts"--those who follow the
inner workings of the business.
Born
Terry Bollea, Hogan started wrestling in small wrestling promotions after he finished school. Many don't know that Hogan first wrestled for the
World Wrestling Federation in the very early 1980s, but left after a dispute with
Vince McMahon's father, Vince McMahon (Sr). He then spent a few years wrestling in the
AWA, lead by promoter
Verne Gagne. He gained some noteriety there, but returned to the
WWF in 1982 after a disagreement with Gagne concerning his spot on the card.
He won the
WWF Championship from the
Iron Sheik soon afterwards, starting an amazing four year uninterrupted run as the WWF Champion. Perhaps the crowning moment in his career was his match against
Andre the Giant at
Wrestemania III. Andre had been
professional wrestling's biggest attraction for the last twenty years--during which time he was advertised as being
undefeated--and his defeat by Hogan at WM III was symbolic of Andre
passing the torch to Hogan.
After many more years on top in the
WWF, he left in 1993 and promptly joined
World Championship Wrestling. He wrestled in much the same
babyface (
good guy) role until 1996, when--in one of the most shocking moves in wrestling history--he turned
heel and joined the
New World Order along with
Kevin Nash and
Scott Hall at Bash in the Beach '96.
He stayed as the leader of the
NWO (known as
Hollywood Hogan due to
intellectual property disputes with
Marvel Comics) until late '99, when that angle became completely stale. After a final unsuccessful
babyface run where he tried to bring his character into the '90s, he left
WCW in early 2000.
His incredible success during the peaks of his career are that much more intruiging due to the fact that, in actuality, he was a horrible, horrible wrestler. He knew virtually no holds and almost never
sold moves (acted like he was hurt), and yet the fans cheered him rabidly anyway. It eventually led to his
downfall, as the cheers he got started to diminish in 1991 and 1992 (one of the reasons he left the
WWF), but it is baffling how he managed to stay on top for so long with the same tired routine.
Perhaps even more baffling,
Hulk Hogan returned to the WWF in early 2002. Alongside
Kevin Nash and
Scott Hall, they resurrected the
nWo angle from the grave, this time under the pretense of taking over the WWF. Hogan headlined
Wrestlemania X8 against
The Rock in a match notable not for the wrestling, but for the fact that
the crowd cheered for Hogan and booed The Rock. As the announcers scrambled to make some sense of this, before you could snap your figures Hogan was turned
babyface and all of a sudden it's 1985 again.
To be continued?