Which do you think has a bigger legacy or impact on wrestling in 2022: Hulkamania or nWo? For one example, nWo was the fourth highest selling "superstar" for WWE according to this article released 8 months ago. That's for everyone, both current and former. nWo sold $1.3 million in merchandise on WWE Shop. Hogan ranked 15th at $439K. Hulk merch wasn't even the top earner for previous nWo members, that was Randy Savage at $467K. https://wrestletalk.com/news/top-merch-seller-wwe-shop/
You're only judging by one metric: Merch sales. In that case, it's not debatable, but what proves too much proves nothing: CM Punk was a merch mover all throughout his hiatus but was he influential? Hulkamania's influence is so pervasive most don't even stop to realize how much of the way we watch champions today came from Hogan's four-year run with the belt. The nWo's influence is much easier to ID: heels that are fun to boo, anti-authority, blur the kayfabe line, outsiders invading, the hip to teens merchandise, etc. But Hulkamania? Those influences run DEEP. John Cena did a parody of it during the peak of his run with WWE, but set that aside. Before Hogan, babyface champs were bland, crew-cutted "babyfaces" (hence the term). Hogan was a cartoon character, with a mullet, big sideburns, biker mustache, surfer lingo, and a big mouth. Makes sense as he was originally a heel and did very little to change his character once Vince Jr brought him in to be his Bruno. Before Hogan, babyface champs rarely showed ass in a match. They usually got their shit in and looked like unassailable supermen. That's why it was always so shocking when a babyface champ lost. Look back on the reactions to Bruno dropping the WWWF title to Ivan Koloff. You'd have thought the Russians had nuked DC. Hogan, for all the jokes, often spent most of his matches getting his ass kicked before "hulking up" and winning with his five moves of doom. He basically created the template that WWE babyface champs still follow: "start hot, get beat down, come back, win." It's a formula the crowd has been conditioned to expect and Hogan basically created it. The influences of Hulkamania are the influences of wrestling on TV. Every babyface champ, even if his reign lasts only a week, is doing a riff off of what Hogan did in the 80s.
I think the simplest answer is: Hulk Hogan is the most influential pro wrestler ever. Don't try to specify red/yellow or black/white. The answer is just Hogan
Agreed here. Vince was trying to recreate the Hogan magic forever. Cena was the closest, Rock was the best and Austin was the most over.
You're telling me the nWo shirt sells better than the individual merch of someone who had a major racist scandal 7 years ago? Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
That's not the ONLY metric. I said for ONE example. I don't really care to write an essay about it like you did lol.
If your answer to this question isn't Hulkamania, you probably know nothing about the history of the wrestling business before 1995. It's not even close. And using website merch sales to try to back up that ignorance is fucking hilarious.
The last 35 years of what we now think of "pro wrestling" or whatever we're calling it was built off the back of Hulkamania. WCW might not have even existed for the NWO to happen without it.
go listen to any 1993 episode of the Between the Sheets podcast and they'll basically say WCW was circling the drain at that moment until they signed Hogan in 94 and did the big business of Bash at the Beach and then the Clash in August to turn everything around
That's not proving the point. He said WCW wouldn't exist without Hogan. It debuted in 1988 as essentially a nationalized Jim Crockett Productions and Hogan didn't get there until 1994. Now if you want to say the below then you could have something to work with.
I'm saying Turner could've potentially pulled the plug on WCW entirely had they not signed Hogan in 94
Turner bought it in 1988 after 4 Wrestlemanias built around Hogan proved that the business could be national instead of being a bunch of regional territories. Turner immediately tries to turn WCW into a national brand because WWF had proven it could happen. And WWF proved it could happen because of Hogan. Turner spent years from 88 through the mid-90s buying stars chasing it (often unsuccessfully), leading up to the NWO era. This isn't complicated.
I also think we're getting lost in some details here. My initial claim was who has a bigger legacy in wrestling TODAY, Hulkamania or nWo Hollywood Hogan, not who was bigger in their time or had a bigger impact in their time. This below is more along the lines of what I was talking about.
Shawn is speaking like someone that only started watching after the attitude era. Hill Hogan was starring in movies based on Hulkamania. NWO was a great angle based on the fact that the world was changing so he had to change with it or wither away (a la Stone Cold reinventing himself).
But that’s like saying which has a bigger legacy today: the wheel or the automobile? The latter doesn’t exist without the former.
Not really a fair comparison. Hulkamania and Hollywood Hogan are two characters emanating from the same person. A wheel is a component of a larger item such as a car. You also don't have cars without axels, for example.
Hulk Hogan's obit is going to have a lot of stuff in it. A lot of it is going to be bad. But Hulkamania is the first part of said obit, and goes on for multiple paragraphs. The NWO comes after all of that. That's what his legacy in wrestling is today, just like it was in in the mid/late 90s. Hulkamania helped create the modern wrestling business. The NWO was a really popular angle he was a part of for 2 years that a lot of people who watched wrestling back then still remember fondly enough to buy some merch.
33 million people watched that Main Event with Hulk vs. Andre. Regardless of viewing habits in '88, that is an absolutely ludicrous number for pro wrestling. That's about the same number of people that watched Kirk Gibson's homer in Game 1 of the World Series that year.
And as far as this whole "the first doesn't happen without the second" stuff, I don't really consider that a legitimate argument. There's always something that precedes something else. Hulk Hogan doesn't happen without Dusty Rhodes being the first star to get him interested in wrestling and Superstar Billy Graham being the guy that inspired him to become Hulk Hogan. Going by that "logic," Hulkamania and Hollywood Hogan never would have existed without both characters being inspired by the character work of Superstar Billy Graham. Then you can start a never ending string of "Well who came first before Superstar Billy Graham to inspire him? Then who came before that guy, and the guy before that, etc."
Want you to know I appreciate you. You’re the catalyst in this thread and I enjoy the back and forth. Also, peep Hobbs when he first got in the company, he was a jobber on Dark. Now he’s a midcarder with a clear trajectory to the main event scene. He’s found his voice and his confidence. And they also let him come out from the middle entrance, so I think they have big plans for him.
Shawn, not your best work and I feel guilty kind of getting you here. Of course Hulkamania was the biggest thing to ever happen to pro wrestling. It cannot even be questioned. My point was that the Hogan turn was the coolest angle I had seen, simply because it was necessary and perfectly executed. Had it been anyone but Hogan no way it works as well.
Nobody would argue that Ringmaster is more iconic than Stone Cold or Rocky Maivia is more iconic than the People’s Champ, The Rock which each was the reinvention. Hulkamania will always be bigger and more iconic than Hollywood Hulk Hogan.