Booking Hulk Hogan as WWE Champion in 2014 – Part 1

The year is 1987. Hulk Hogan is heading into Wrestlemania 3 as the WWF Champion, standing at the top of the Wrestling world and slightly lower down in the Hollywood world. He is set to defend his title against the menacing Andre the Giant, the star from France who stood at about 27 feet tall according to Hulk Hogan, telling the story years later, and weighing upwards of one million pounds. Hulkamania is in full swing, with Hogan giving an Oscar-Winner worthy performance in the beginning of Gremlins 2 – The role of “Himself” he would continue playing into his later years.

Hogan jumped ship from WWF to WCW, later forming the villainous NWO – The New World Order were the most popular team in wrestling, winning multiple world titles and catapulting Hogan back to the top of the game he had been running since the early 80s. A renaissance in his career almost 20 years into it, it looked a last hurrah to send off one of wrestling’s biggest stars, and avoid the dreaded trope of watching old, washed up wrestlers fizzle out and wither beyond the very eyes of the 20 or so die hard fans, lined up in a school gym watching them attempted to string moves together well into their twilight years.

But the Hulkster, brother jack dude, was not done yet. No sir, you jabronni. Hogan returned to the now-called WWE (Vince McMahon lost the name WWF to a giant panda in a “Loser changes their name Lawsuit on a pole match” in court) as part of the invading NWO. However that angle petered out fast, and Hogan became the biggest babyface in the fucking world, as he lost to the Rock at Wrestlemania 18. The match hailed as “terrible if you turn the sound of”, the Hulkster thought he was entering the match as the devious NWO-Hogan, but the fans turned him into the Hulkster as soon as those magic words blared out from the speakers – “I am a real Amercian!”. The Canadian crowd went apeshit, and he and the Rock had a classic of crowd participation, and one of the best matches in Wrestlemania history.

Word spread that Hulkamania was indeed still running wild, with thousands shelling out millions of Pastamania Bucks to see the immortal one competing in the WWE. The Hulkster defeated the Game Triple H at Backlash that year to win his 6th and final WWE Title, the first of the new WWE era and last of the immortal era of Hulkamania. He lost the title to Undertaker later that month, an interesting parallel to when he lost his WWF title to Undertaker in 1993 for Undertakers first title, whereas Undertaker also defeated Hogan for both of their final reigns.

Hogan had a few feuds then on, the most notable being that incredible match against Shawn Michaels, with the heart break kid oversell everything, making a mockery of the spectacle and making both men look like absolute idiots. It was peak 90s HBK’s giving-not-a-single-shit attitude, and peak Hogan’s 90s That-doesn’t-work-for-me-brother-i-need-to-go-over-dude attitude. Two titans collide in a match that really was better than anyone could have imagined, in a “this is so bad it’s good” kind of way.

In this post, I will examine how to give Hogan a 7th title run. And it will not be in TNA in 2010, which upon googling I was surprised that Hogan did not give himself the belt during that time. We know that Hogan couldn’t work a match now, what with his many hip and back surgeries rendering him no more than 5 foot 7 and less than 100 lbs (probably, maybe he’s only about 6’3 now”, and that at 67 years old is a pensioner who has no right even being outside during the pandemic, let alone working a match brother.