Hulk Hogan has never been the most impressive wrestler in the ring, with his offence mainly consisting of punches, kicks and big leg drops, brother.
However, he has wrestled some great matches in his time. His bouts with Inoki and Tenryu in Japan showed a different side of him, and classics in the US with Randy Savage and The Rock showed why he was the top name in the wrestling world.
Hogan has had some stinkers, though. He’s had some formulaic matches with silly endings, ridiculous selling and more “Hulking Up” than you can shake a stick at.
However, no Hulk Hogan match (or any match in wrestling history) is quite as bad as his long-awaited rematch against the Ultimate Warrior in WCW. This was by far Hulk Hogan’s worst match in his career – here’s why.
Hulk Hogan’s Worst Match
By far, Hulk Hogan’s worst match in his career was his clash against The Ultimate Warrior at WCW/nWo Halloween Havoc 1998.
Hogan brought Warrior into the company to get his win back from WrestleMania VI, a largely selfish action considering how peak-NWO Hogan did not need to wrack up victories.
Warrior was hardly in his prime either. Eight years on from his WrestleMania VI victory, the former WWE Champion had barely wrestled, on top of being sacked by the WWE twice.
The fans seemed pretty apathetic toward the match. Warrior was not the star he was in 1990, and wrestling had moved on from the days when big muscles and nothing else made you a top star.
Their match at Halloween Havoc 1998 had some horrible segments in the build up
The match began with a lot of posturing, trying to get the crowd to go crazy in anticipation of them finally touching. This did not work, and they just booed Hogan and ignored Warrior.
Eventually, Hogan just attacked Warrior, throwing him into the corner and laying in some actual vicious looking kicks and punches.
The match was such a basic match, but performed so poorly, that it’s hard to realize exactly what happened. There was a ref bump almost right away, and what followed was Hogan whipping Warrior with a belt before no less than 5 people making run-ins to stop help Hogan win the match.
Those people were:
- The Giant (Big Show/Paul Wight)
- Vincent (Virgil)
- Stevie Ray
- Horace Hogan
- Eric Bischoff
This is all in a 15-minute match, although it felt like about 45. The fans did not care about the Ultimate Warrior, even once he got cracked on the skull with a steel chair by Horace Hogan to cost him the match.
The actual body of the match was dull. Warrior got beaten down for the bulk of it, in a very entertaining way. He actually had the match won at one point (from what, who can remember?), but due to Hogan’s repeated attacks on the referee (which turned funny in the end), he had to count the pin himself.
Hulk Hogan attempted to throw a fireball at Warrior at one point, completely mistiming his flash paper and dropping a small flame in the ring, to the bemusement of everyone involved.
They tried to get the crowd to sympathize Warrior by the end of the match, but just did not care. He lay in the ring, motionless, as WCW hoped the crowd would cheer him and will him to get to his feet.
Sadly, they just sat their waiting for the main event match – the WCW World Heavyweight Championship bout between DDP and Goldberg.
Hogan even doused him in lighter fluid after the match, threatening to set him ablaze. However, he just…didn’t. No explanation why.
When people ask if a match was really that bad, the answer is usually no.
This match is that bad. It was given a negative-five star rating by Dave Meltzer, becoming one of just five matches to have that incredible dishonor.