Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of when Hulk Hogan turned heel and launched the New World Order.
It was one of the biggest things to happen in professional wrestling and kicked off a period for World Championship Wrestling which led to the company overtaking the WWF for about two years.
Hogan's turn came at the end of the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall - who had just jumped to WCW from the WWF - went up against Sting, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage and Lex Luger with the tease that a third person was coming in to assist the newcomers.
The Hulkster came out - and it looked like he was there to aid the WCW babyfaces - but ended up dropping the leg to the fallen Savage.
As WCW pay-per-views didn't air over here in the UK, and I was no longer able to watch the events weeks later on the German DSF sports channel, the first I read about this turn was on a teletext page on the TNT Movies channel days after the show.
What a prehistoric way to find out wrestling news, eh?
I remember being shocked when I read it. It wasn't a surprise like 'why did he do this!?' It was more like a 'wow, this is something different.'
And it was.
You've got to remember that back then, the Hulkster was the hero to millions so it was a gamble to have him become the bad guy. Not only was it a risk for the company, it was also one for Hogan himself.
It sure did pay off, though. The company did big business albeit for a short time afterwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment