[1991-09-14-WWF-Superstars] Interview: Hulk Hogan

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

First, we get a commercial for the HOT TICKET PPV Hulk Hogan - A Real American Story. Did anyone ever see this?

 

It's overkill when Hogan starts his interview by also hyping the Hulk Hogan hotline. This guy was really obnoxious and self-absorbed sometimes.

 

Eventually, this segues into Hogan talking about Ric Flair. He actually puts him over, and accepts his challenge to face him anywhere anytime. He says he has to know who the better man is for his own peace of mind. I'm sort of surprised they struck the right chord.

[PeteF3]

"ALMOST mythical," Gene?

 

The Hogan slurping from Okerlund and Vince is pretty over-the-top here, even by their lofty standards. They're almost trying too hard, trying to convince themselves more than us at how great of a roll Hogan's been on.

 

Hogan turns serious real quick when the subject turns to Ric Flair. After the asskissing and hype, this was a real, real effective promo from Hogan. Self-doubt, acknowledgment that Flair has a legitimate claim to the "World Championship"...Flair's arrival has definitely started out on the right foot.

[Kevin Ridge]

I am curious to watch the Hogan PPV. To see how it was editing and did they include full matches and stuff.

 

Hogan heavily plugs the success of the Hulk hotline. Give him credit for thanking the fans. Oh, Hogan talks about the questions he gets about him matching up with Flair. In hindsight, this already feels like WWF dropped the ball big time by teasing this stuff but not falling through with a big PPV match. Hogan accepts Flair challenge to step in the ring.

[soup23]

Hogan PPV? Doesn't sound like a winner to me.

Gene announces Hogan as the champion of the universe which had me rolling my eyes but Hulk comes out and cuts a great promo with a lower and more serious tone than usual when he addresses Flair. It puts over the gravity of the situation in the right way. Really enjoyed this.

[garretta]

Hogan does a better job here of putting over Flair than anyone else in the WWF has to date. You can tell that he really respects Flair, at least at this point in his career, and he probably was asked by a lot of Hulkamaniacs how he would stack up with Flair, especially since he made his home in a place (Tampa) where Flair's name and reputation still carried a lot of weight. What I'd like to know is why Vince was too scared to follow Hogan's lead and really promote Flair as an equal to Hogan. Hogan himself didn't seem to have a problem with it, at least not at this point; this promo wouldn't have been quite as effective if he had. Of course, if Vince already knew that the big money was going to be made with Hogan facing first Taker, then Sid, we can see why he felt free to have guys like Gino treat Flair like dried snot. I just hope what we see between these two is good as far as it goes.

 

I don't think Hot Ticket showed full matches, but it was interesting that we saw Sheik as Sheik in the small clip of Hogan's original title win, especially in light of how Vince went out of his way to promote Sheik and Col. Mustafa (who was still on the roster) as two entirely different people. I guess he figured that the newer fans wouldn't connect the two through such a short clip, and the older fans already knew they were the same guy anyway.

[dawho5]

After the hotline bullshit I though Hulk cut a great promo. The way he put a lot of his success on the fans was, for sure, deliberately pandering but rings true. How is it the guy who is the biggest asshole of his era about protecting his spot is putting Flair over better than the rest of the WWF combined not named Bobby Heenan? Awesome that Hogan puts him over as I think it does way more positive for Flair than everyone else's negative hype could bury.