Hey Scott,
I’ve been watching Hulk Hogan Anthology and Unreleased DVD’s and it got me to thinking; Hogan won his first title in January of 84 and his feud with Piper started around January of 85. My question is- Did Hogan have any one main rival in that first year? Also could there have been money is a Hogan/Ventura feud had Jesse not gotten hurt?
HIs main rival was Big John Studd as far as I know. Basically he did a bunch of matches with Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff and Studd and that took him most of the way through the year. The great thing with the Hogan formula was that you could milk a few months out of a program before it cooled off. Of course, once it cooled off the heel was DEAD, but that’s hardly Hogan’s problem. And I don’t think Jesse Ventura was ever a major force in the WWF as a singles guy, although like everyone else they could have run with the Hogan program for a couple of months. Ventura basically was playing a cowardly heel when Hogan was becoming champion. The real money would have been with those two after Jesse’s commentary career hit its peak, because Ventura would have to back up his shit-talking against Hogan in the ring.