The 50 Greatest Wrestlers Of The Last 50 Years: Who Is #3?

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#3 Hulk Hogan

Arguably the biggest star the industry has ever produced, Hulk Hogan peaked as a babyface in the 1980s and became the biggest weapon in Vince McMahon’s war against territories; reverting the idea of a regional promotion into the Stone Age and launching the national era of professional wrestling. Despite switching companies in the mid-1990s, Hogan would reinvent himself into the biggest heel in wrestling, going from hero to insufferable bully and sparking the most lucrative heel faction in the history of wrestling. Even today, almost two decades removed from his peak, to some professional wrestling is still looked at as “that thing that Hulk Hogan does.” However, despite the ridiculous amount of star power that Hogan had throughout his career, wrestling fans still debate about the true merit of his career. While his business success speaks for itself, critics have rightly pointed out his lack of wrestling skills; the fact that he was in the right place at the right time in being paired up with Vince McMahon, and that his politicizing behind the scenes hindered the careers of numerous other wrestlers and played a role in the downfall of World Championship Wrestling. If anything, Hogan has had the most complicated career out of anyone on the list. Hogan grew up in Tampa and began watching pro wrestling as a teenager in the early-1970s, which was also during the peak of Championship Wrestling from Florida. Hogan also watched Superstar Billy Graham wrestle against local hero Dusty Rhodes, and Hogan became enamored with Graham’s enormous physique and began weight training. He also began to pursue a career in music, playing bass guitar in several rock bands in the area. A lot of the bars he would perform in were frequented by wrestlers that worked in the territory and one day Jack and Gerry Brisco noticed the bassist with a tremendous physique and asked Hogan if he ever thought about becoming a wrestler and that if he wanted to be trained. Since Hogan was a big fan of the industry, he jumped at the chance and began training with Japanese wrestler Hiro Matsuda. After a year of training with Matsuda, Hogan made his debut in Florida wrestling Brian Blair in August of 1977. Although he enjoyed wrestling, he didn’t like working with Matsuda and eventually quit wrestling and began managing a night club and opening a gym. After meeting Ed Leslie (Brutus Beefcake) Hogan convinced Leslie that they could become a tag team even though Leslie had never wrestled before. Hogan contacted Graham who he had formed a friendship with and Graham got him booked in Alabama in 1978. They began working in Alabama and also moved onto working in the Memphis territory for Jerry Jarrett. Hogan and Leslie began using the names Terry and Ed Boulder and when the TV show The Incredible Hulk became popular, Hogan began using the name Terry “The Hulk” Boulder. Hogan began getting a bit of a push in Memphis and working for the Brisco brothers in Georgia. In May of 1979 he received a shot at the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship against Harley Race, losing to Race. He would capture a couple regional championships recognized in the Deep South before he was brought in by Vince McMahon Sr. to work for the World Wrestling Federation. At this point in time, Hogan was still very much a novice when it came to professional wrestling. However, he kept attracting the attention of different promoters not because of his wrestling ability or his charisma, which was largely untapped at this point, but because of his look. Hogan’s physique was incredible for the time; 6’6″ and 300lbs of shredded muscle with enormous biceps, he was so unique that he really came across as an honest-to-god superhuman, blessed by the gods to conquer the wrestling world. Similar to Andre the Giant, Hogan’s physical supremacy attracted the attention of promoters the world over who believed his inimitability could equal box office success. Hogan was brought in as a heel in 1979 and was given the surname Hogan because McMahon, who had so much success booking different ethnic stars, wanted Hogan to be an Irish wrestler. Now known as Hulk Hogan, he defeated Ted DiBiase with a bear-hug in the first match at Madison Square Garden and was paired with former wrestler Freddie Blassie as his nefarious manager. He began to feud with Andre the Giant, and it would lead up to a match at Shea Stadium which saw Andre defeat Hogan as they wrestled on the undercard of the Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko show. During his initial run in the WWF he also challenged Bob Backlund for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship on a couple of occasions, winning by count-out both times. During the early-1980s the WWF had a working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling and Hogan began making appearances in Japan. It was actually in Japan and not the United States that Hogan first began to realize his potential as a babyface, as Japanese fans quickly began to support Hogan, nicknaming him Ichiban, which translates to “number one.” He wrestled Antonio Inoki, Backlund, Riki Choshu and Seiji Sakaguchi in his early days and began to improve in the ring. In 1983 he won the first ever International Wrestling Grand Prix, a worked-shoot tournament that ended when Hogan knocked out the mighty Inoki in the championship round.

Back in the United States, Hogan left the WWF in 1981 and moved onto the American Wrestling Association. He achieved some mainstream notoriety by appearing as Thunderlips, a villain in the wildly popular film, Rocky III. While he was originally slated to be a heel in the AWA, the fans began to gravitate towards Hogan who in addition to his physique was flashing terrific charisma in the ring and on interviews. He ended up turning babyface when Jerry Blackwell, who was a monster heel in the company, was beating up babyface Brad Rheingans in the ring and while several babyfaces ran into the ring to try and stop it, Blackwell easily dispatched all of them. Eventually Hogan came in to make the save and got the better of Blackwell, officially turning him babyface. While feuding with Blackwell, the rise of “Hulkamania” a coined-term that described the overwhelming support Hogan was getting from the AWA fanbase began to take over the company. He graduated to feuding with AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel and Hogan began a long pursuit of the championship. While it was believed to be a matter of when, not if, Hogan was going to win the championship, Bockwinkel continued to cling onto it by losing by disqualification or count-out. However, AWA owner Verne Gagne was committed to promoting slick technical wrestlers as the world champion and as popular as Hogan was, he was still very green in the ring and did not meet Gagne’s qualifications for a champion. This proved to be a tremendously bad decision by Gagne, and his refusal to give Hogan the championship, along with a clash with Hogan over the revenue coming from T-shirt sales, led to Hogan leaving the company, going to the WWF and eventually systematically destroying the AWA. When Vincent K. McMahon purchased the WWF from his father in 1982, McMahon the younger had grand plans to take the WWF from a regional promotion located in the Northeast to a global phenomenon. To do so, he was going to have radically change the philosophy of the business; his biggest priority being changing the promotion from mock-sport, to open entertainment. The current WWF Champion was Bob Backlund, a smart technical wrestler who did most of his talking in the ring and whose greatest attribute was his marathon stamina. In McMahon’s mind, Backlund was the antithesis of who he needed to represent his company, he didn’t need a wrestler as much as he needed an entertainer, someone with the destined “larger than life” personality to lead the company across the world. The answer of course, was Hulk Hogan. Hogan would end up falling into the lap of McMahon when he had his falling out with Gagne, and McMahon immediately began grooming Hogan as the next big thing. He defeated Bill Dixon in late December of 1983 in his first TV match back in the WWF, and cemented his status as a babyface in the company (remember, he had previously wrestled in the WWF as a heel) by saving Backlund from an assault from the Wild Samoans. Backlund had dropped the championship to the Iron Sheik, who held the title for a month before dropping it to Hogan in a shocking destruction of the Sheik on January 23, 1984, which saw Hogan steamroll the Sheik in under six minutes. McMahon broke a lot of different rules when he promoted Hogan to the status of WWF World Heavyweight Champion. For starters it was believed that the world champion, whether it was NWA, AWA or WWF, had to be at least a passable wrestler, which Hogan was not. He also had to be a “legit” tough guy, either as an amateur wrestler or as a bar-room kind of guy, like Harley Race. Hogan was big and imposing, but never was mentioned in the same breath as a guy like Race. It was also believed that a wrestler, especially a babyface, had to chase the championship for a while and spend some time on the undercard before being elevated to champion status. Instead, Hogan decimated the WWF World Heavyweight Champion just one month after coming back to the company. Yet, McMahon and Hogan proved that none of that truly mattered. Hogan was still green as grass when he won the championship and Madison Square Garden went crazy celebrating him. Curmudgeon promoters who criticized McMahon for promoting a wrestler like Hogan would soon be trampled by the duo as they marched across the country, rolling over other promotions and eventually reducing the wrestling game in the US to two companies, the WWF and WCW. Hogan’s physique made him seem immortal to fans, and he just oozed charisma in the ring and became known for posing to the crowd after matches while the audience went into a frenzy. On interviews he had a distinct style that realistically relied on overacting and saying the words “Brother” “Dude” and “Jack” a lot; but he was very good at hitting the right points and promoting his upcoming matches and himself as a can’t miss attraction.

Utilizing the success of Hogan and the deep pockets of New York City, McMahon was able to bring in a lot of top stars from other promotions, mainly heels who could give Hogan a healthy slate of talented villains to feud against. Paul Orndorf and David Schultz were two of his earliest challengers for the WWF Championship, and both of them were known for their smart technical wrestling and antagonistic promos. Together, they were able to get respectable matches out of Hogan while also establishing him as a powerhouse performer who was nearly unbeatable. Hogan matches became very formulaic, with Hogan entering the ring like a house of fire and getting the crowd super-excited, only for the heel to use some form of immoral tactic to gain the upper-hand. Eventually, Hogan would make his huge comeback, known as “Hulking Up” where he would appear impervious to physical assault and hit his signature moves; three punches, an Irish Whip, a big boot and a leg drop to pick up the win. Critics would point out that this sequence was extremely predictable and that Hogan no-selling his opponents offense was killing realism in wrestling, but the reality was that none of that mattered; the crowd went crazy every time for Hogan and he became a sensational draw. In March of 1985, McMahon gambled on promoting a wrestling supercard at Madison Square Garden called WrestleMania. Supercards and big shows had been happening for decades, but WrestleMania was different in that McMahon sunk a lot of money into numerous celebrities’ appearances and worked closely with MTV to promote the event as not just a wrestling show, but an entertainment spectacle. Of course, Hogan was in the main event, teaming with TV star Mr. T against Roddy Piper and Orndorff. The event proved to be a tremendous success and launched the series of the most profitable events in wrestling history. In Piper, Hogan had an equal who although not nearly as physically gifted as Hogan, cut scintillating promos and used various tactics (mostly teaming up with Orndorff and Bob Orton) to get the upper-hand on Hogan. Piper would prove to be Hogan’s most memorable opponent from the golden-era of the WWF in the 1980s, although his biggest opponent would be in the man he usurped as the most beloved babyface in wrestling. By early 1987 Hogan had been the WWF Champion for three years, and although he faced many challengers, including a bloody cage victory over King Kong Bundy at WrestleMania II, he had never seriously been the underdog in his matches. That may have changed when his former friend and the top babyface in American throughout the 1970s, …

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