Another I didn't appreciate was when Bret Hart lost to Yokozuna (by cheating presumably) and then Hulk challenges the new champ on the spot and wins in a matter of seconds with his usual finishing move. Sorry for nit picking, but I did find it insulting really.Gamerforlife wrote:Hogan was to kids like me what Cena is to young kids today. Back then, I was a mark. I didn't know anything about wrestling beyond what I saw on tv. I couldn't tell the bad wrestlers from the good ones. I just knew that Hulk was a hero who always brought down the bad guys with his super hero like strength. I view Hogan strangely now. There is still that part of me that would nostalgically mark out whenever he showed up in the WWE sporting the old Hulkamania colors and doing something cool like taking on the Rock in a battle of icons even while the older me knew that he was a crappy wrestler, a part of a horrible reality tv series and an extremely greedy man with a big ego. Whenever he would come back to the WWE for whatever reason I would try to silence the old me and just let the kid in me have his nostalgic fun.Dude wrote:Another thing I wanted to add is I've never really understood Hulkamania. I find it quite shallow after the first couple of viewings because Hogan is not a very good wrestler. It requires that he be down in a match and call upon these unknown powers. He exhibits none of the blood, sweat, and tears of a champion of say Bret Hart (or any other for that matter). It's simply the boot and a leg drop. The End.
The best thing Hogan ever did IMO was when he went bad with NWO. Some of his matches with Ric Flair then were quite good because he didn't have super powers anymore and could take in pain like the other "normal" wrestlers.
Personally if I were to pick just one wrestler it would be Ric Flair. He was a sound technical wrestler, but maybe more importantly he was/is a tremendous dramatic actor. I still find his acting to be pretty much unequaled. I imagine there's an argument for overacting, but I find the depth of his acting quite real most of the time. (For get which Wrestlemania but the barbed wire match against Mick Foley comes to mind.) I get as much mileage out his interviews, including the golden years with the Four Horsemen. His best years were with the NWA IMO, and my favorite era of wrestling was the NWA's small in-house matches as opposed to the giant seating venues.
I also wanted to add that I think Vince McMahon is an unmistakable marketing genius. If he can sell Dusty Rhodes in yellow polka dots -- he can sell pretty much anything. The Dusty Rhodes thing doesn't hold up now, but the point is he did make it sell.
When you get right down to it though, Hulk was a product, much like Cena is. Vince loves Cena because he sells more t-shirts than other, more talented guys in the company. Though to Cena's credit he does love the business and can cut a great promo. I have never seen anyone handle hostile crowds as well as him either. I don't think he will ever be the "face" of the company in the same way guys like Rock, Hogan and Austin were though, but then again you could say that wrestling was more popular during those guys hey days
Vince may be a marketing genius, but Paul Heyman was the guy who could take ANYONE and get them over somehow. He was a master at finding something, anything in a wrestler and using it to make that guy get over with the crowd. Remember too, that a lot of the WWF's best years were the ones when Vince was pretty much ripping of ECW.
With Vince I would agree that he isn't selling anything new, but his genius lies in his ability to sell it better than anyone else.
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