Theres no other way of saying this: Hulk Hogan was the biggest reason for WCWs success in the mid-to-late 1990s. Before Hogan came along, WCW was just another territorial promotion, albeit one that had a significant talent pool. Although WCW did take away a lot of wrestling fans who grew tired of Vince McMahons cartoony and over-the-top approach to wrestling, even with its superior roster it wasnt able to compete with WWF on a major scale. That is, until Hulk Hogan walked in. Through his own sustained popularity, Hogan brought WCW some much-needed attention and gave them more credibility as a promotion. After all, many viewers still saw Hogan as the best in all of wrestling, so wherever he went, that promotion mustve been, at the least, a very big deal. Hogan's debut at Bash at the Beach 1994 drew 225,000 buys, which was a surge for WCW at the time. Starrcade 1996, which Hogan main-evented, drew 345,000 buys. Halloween Havoc 1997, which also saw Hogan main event, drew 405,000 buys. These were only a few examples of Hogan's drawing power in WCW. While its possible that WCW could have continued to compete with WWE with its own pool of wrestlers, the fact is Hulk Hogan coming to WCW and his subsequent storylines was the biggest reason why WCW managed to overtake WWF for such a long time. Do you think that someone else was a major draw for WCW? Let us know in the comments section below.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
