“Hulk Still Rules” first example of WWE live audience hijacking the show?
By Scott Keith on 24 March 2025
The WMXIX/Lesnar talk got me thinking – was Hogan's mega-push in 2002-2003 one of the first examples of WWE's audience hijacking the show, and thus the direction of the product?
Sure, there's always been heels who are cheered and faces who are booed.
But that's the first time that I can think of where what the live crowd enjoyed (cheering Hogan for 10 minutes) wasn't borne out in the meaningful business metrics. Or am I dead wrong and Hogan actually was worth pushing into the WWE Title scene?
I’ve talked about this one before. I would have taken the same shot and they got the title onto him as fast as humanly possible and it STILL wasn’t fast enough to escape the burnout. Hulk was just remarkably short lived as a nostalgia act. But they had no way of knowing that at the time. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and take a shot.