6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 7)

Downs...

7. Hogan's Appearance Awkward

In an ideal world, there was no better person to pay tribute to Mean Gene Okerlund than Hulk Hogan. So many classic promos started, “Well, you know something Mean Gene…” that anyone who did a Hulkster impression had to lead with that.

But still, seeing Hogan on Raw for the first time in more than three years was… awkward. Without litigating his sins of the past, we should note that Hogan made an appearance at the controversial Crown Jewel PPV, but had not been seen or mentioned on WWE programming since then. In fact, there was word that WWE brass banned his name being mentioned on TV.

If that’s true, then WWE used Mean Gene’s passing as a way to shoehorn Hulk back onto Raw. For what it’s worth, they could have very easily had Ric Flair – whose, “Meeeeaaaan! Woooo! By God, Gene!” on WCW Nitro was pretty iconic itself – emcee the tribute to Okerlund.

It’s tough to call this a negative, but it just felt weird, and not right. But your mileage may vary.