10 Times WWE Failed To Replace Wrestlers
2. Hulk Hogan (with Lex Luger)
The most lazily egregious case of Vince McMahon trying not think about how to strategically replace Hulk Hogan's once-incredible drawing power, Lex Luger getting on a bus drenched in the vomit of a giant American flag and awkwardly slapping on a smile was a costly error.
Never had a rapid-fire push commanded quite as much cash, and to say McMahon didn't really have it to waste in 1993 would be understating the organisation's obvious commercial collapse. Nonetheless, with Hogan "working" a tepid and tenuous March-to-June "run" before disappearing for nearly a decade, the Chairman believed he had no option but to rocket-strap the next best thing.
Only, Luger wasn't really that.
The smaller but more dedicated fanbase that had stuck around beyond the peak had fallen hard for Bret Hart's charms during a WWE Title run that was cut criminally short by Hogan's politics months earlier. When 'The Hitman' won the King Of The Ring tournament as a make-good, it only strengthened the audience resolve for his reascension. The company didn't brave the reality until 1994's Royal Rumble, where an experimental conclusion saw both announced as winner as ways to gauge the response.
It was a pink and black landslide.