10 Most Notorious Hulk Hogan Urban Legends

2. Hogan Used His Creative Control To Remove Sting As The Third Man In The NWO

Story: The New World Order storyline in WCW in 1996 may have been the best angle of Hogan's career. A lot of his babyface stuff was repetitive, but when he turned heel to join in the NWO at Bash at the Beach 1996 it added years to his career thanks to a new persona and new look. Was Hogan always the plan? There are a number of stories about it who would join Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to form the New World Order. Here's how WCW's former President Eric Bischoff explained it in his Controversy Creates Cash book: "I decided to approach Sting, but I didn€™t know if he€™d do it. Joining the Outsiders meant he€™d have to turn heel, and Sting had always been a very successful babyface character.Sting was receptive €” not knock-me-over enthusiastic, but receptive. Everyone could see the power this storyline was developing. Just a few weeks old, it was already one of the most interesting storylines in the last five or ten years. We began discussing how the storyline might develop. I talked to him a couple of times, in person and over the phone. No one else knew we were talking, not even Scott and Kevin. The identity of the third person had to be kept an extremely tight secret." Scott Hall, one of the founding members of the NWO, said this in an interview to Inside the Ropes in April 2013: "We went to the ring, we hadn€™t even met Hulk yet, I met him briefly at WrestleMania 9 but I didn€™t know Hulk. We actually went to the ring in Daytona and Hogan wasn€™t even there yet. He was on a jet, flying cross country from shooting a movie. Bischoff wanted it to be Hulk but before we went out, Bischoff told us 'If Hulk doesn't show, I€™m gonna send out Sting.'" They didn't have to "send out Sting" since he was already there as part of the WCW team with Randy Savage and Lex Luger against Hall & Nash in the tag match. It does seem weird that Hall wouldn't know at the time of the match either. At the time Hogan wasn't in WCW much due to filming movies and TV shows, but he did show up. Announcer Bobby Heenan famously asked: "But whose side is he on?" Then Hogan did the leg drop to Randy Savage and aligned with Hall & Nash as he delivered the promo saying they were the New World Order of professional wrestling. The rest is history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMFjA4EGWeY Why People Believe It: Hogan had full creative control in WCW. He could do whatever he wanted and if somebody didn't like it, that was too bad. So if Hogan wanted to change plans by having himself join the NWO instead of Sting then he could do that. Should We Believe It: No. It likely wasn't a case of Hogan using his creative control. It was a move that Eric Bischoff pitched to him and Hogan was smart enough to do it. At the time Hogan's babyface act was really getting boring, so give him credit for being smart enough to change and become a heel. It was the right thing for him at that point in his career. It also would have been bad for Sting to turn since he wasn't really a good heel. This is the best angle WCW ever did. Give all them credit for doing it the right way.