Hogan jobs
By Scott Keith on 6 March 2025
Hello.
I was thinking about Hulk Hogan (as one does) and him losing. Back in the day the Hulkster caught a lot of critisism about him not doing the job to every vanilla midget under the sun, but nowadays cooler heads seems to have prevailed and Hogan gets a lot
less flack about not being pinned.
less flack about not being pinned.
This got me thinking about in what matches Hogan should have looked at the lights. Common sense and money kind of makes it clear that the 1984 – 1988 period up until the Andre match at The Main Event is excellent booking of Hogan and him doing the job
in that period is stupid.
in that period is stupid.
After that the discussion gets more complicated. Meltzer, and as far as I remember you yourself think that Hogan losing to Randy Savage at WrestleMania V, could work out. I myself disagree because looking at the buyrate of SummerSlam 1989 Cagesideseats
reports it doing 625 000 buys, which is a number of buys that the WWF would not do until 1998 again. The Zeus angle was a big draw.
reports it doing 625 000 buys, which is a number of buys that the WWF would not do until 1998 again. The Zeus angle was a big draw.
After that it gets even more complicated. I think no one would argue against Hogan winning at WrestleMania VII, but myself I feel that Sid going over at WrestleMania VIII setting up Sid vs Warrior could have done better than Macho Man vs Flair part II,
which was a bit shit.
which was a bit shit.
After that comes the early WCW run and the argument that Hogan should have dropped the belt to Ric Flair at the Clash of the Champions in 1994 to set up Halloween Havoc. I'm not really convinced about that. The Clash did a record television number and
the Halloween Havoc cage match did a good number as well.
the Halloween Havoc cage match did a good number as well.
The Vader match at Superbrawl in february of 1995 though. I think that Hogan dropping the title here or at Uncensored the month after could have set up a bigger rematch in the summer.
What do you think?
Just to clarify, I don't think he should have LOST to Randy Savage at WM5 as much as he should have just not won. Countout or DQ to keep the belt on Savage and keep the heat going.
I think Hogan doing the job to Flair at the Clash and then putting his career on the line in order to regain the belt would have done an even bigger number for Halloween Havoc. It did a big number as it is, but the dynamic of the story was all wrong and the promotion went off a cliff right afterwards anyway.
And yeah, Hogan should have 100% absolutely positively done a job for Vader. He also should have done a job for Randy Savage in WCW at some point because GOD KNOWS he owed the Macho Man one or two or fifteen of them and by then it wasn't gonna hurt him.