12 Richest WWE Matches Of All Time

12. The Iron Sheik Vs. Hulk Hogan (Madison Square Garden, 23 January 1984)

It's heartwarming to consider the 26,292 New Yorkers filing in to WWE's Big Apple base in January 1984, blissfully unaware how significant the show they were about to watch would be.

The attendance wasn't the biggest the group would ever achieve at Madison Square Garden, and the card overall certainly wasn't the best, but Hulk Hogan's liberation of the WWE Title from The Iron Sheik third from the top lit a fuse underneath Vince McMahon Jr's expanding organisation that ended up engulfing the entire industry.

Hogan had effectively cuckolded the strap upon his return to the company in late 1983 after saving former titleholder Bob Backlund from an attack by The Wild Samoans. An interview in which the company pillar anointed Hogan as the organisation's great new babyface hope was as sad as it was short, but the only colour more prominent than yellow in 'The Hulkster's first run was green.

Driving McMahon's ambitious plans to topple the territories, Hogan's position at the forefront of wrestling's biggest juggernaut spiked every metric. The 'Rock 'N' Wrestling' collaboration, the inaugural WrestleMania, skyrocketing attendances across the North East and a string of MSG sellouts were all built on the back of the 'Hulkamania' phenomenon. The game had changed.