10 Controversial Moments In Hulk Hogan's WWE Career

7. Killing WCW

In Bryan Alvarez's excellent Death Of WCW book, he cites Hulk Hogan as one of the big reasons WCW ceased to exist. Hulk's pay demands, creative control demands, and general self serving behaviour was a weight on the company. It ultimately contributed to sinking it. In some ways, you could argue this was the biggest controversy of Hogan's career. His backstage politics helped to kill off an entire portion of the industry that had made him. People lost their jobs, millions of dollars were squandered, lives were ruined. Specific examples would be the fingerpoke of doom and Bash At The Beach 2000 incident. The fingerpoke was the brainless angle in which Hogan poked Kevin Nash in the chest in a January 1999 Nitro World Title match. Nash went down and let Hogan pin him for the Title change. It killed the championship and Nitro's ratings bombed all the way to extinction two years later. As for the Bash At The Beach 2000 incident, it was Hogan playing backstage politics. He insisted on becoming champion, so Vince Russo instructed Jeff Jarrett to simply lay down. Hogan was unaware of this and was furious as the humiliating turn of events played out.