10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Backlash
1. Hulk Hogan Won The WWE Championship (2002)
Racist stain Hulk Hogan is downright toxic. He killed WCW, he killed Gawker, and in 2002, he badly hurt WWE (with Vince McMahon's permission).
At WrestleMania 18, Hogan took on The Rock for the first time ever and, in a fit of laughable nostalgia, the Toronto fans decided to cheer Hogan. That led to WWE fast-tracking a babyface turn for the past-his-expiration-date Hogan, and shooting him into the title picture, courtesy of a WWE World Championship match with Triple H at Backlash.
Despite Triple H's year-long journey back from injury to the WWE Title, the company chose to have Hogan win the belt only a month into "The Game's" reign. After some interference from The Undertaker, Hogan won a terrible match to become champion.
The consequences were immediate. Raw's ratings - which, in the high 4.0s, were not as strong as they were in their glory days but were still fairly impressive - fell to the high 3.0s. Even though Hogan only held the title for a month, the viewer exodus was permanent. Ratings never rebounded, and while they've continued to fall, no single decision was as quickly catastrophic as this one.