10 WWE Careers That Were Transformed In One Year
3. Hulk Hogan - 1993
"What a piece of sh*t" - Michael Hamflett, 8.
Not really, but your writer as a young enthusiastic fan was struggling to come to terms with the emotional disconnect with what he saw on screen. Fans in that Las Vegas car park were going wild enough, and 'Real American' had been a popper in the tag team match earlier on the card, but nothing felt celebratory about the way Bret Hart had just been cheated even if Hulk Hogan was holding the WWE Championship above his head.
Similarly, there wasn't a great deal of commiseration for 'The Hulkster' when he lost the title back to Yokozuna at King Of The Ring a few months later. Certainly not with 'The Hitman's King Of The Ring tournament progress carrying far more weight by then anyway.
Vince McMahon believed he'd found the magic again as the 'Show Of Shows' went off the air, but he'd confused it with a mere illusion. Hogan called the belt "a toy...a trinket" during a NJPW press conference to leverage a future there instead.
Hulkamania wasn't dead (nothing could f*cking kill it, man), but without a commercial power over WWE audience, it might as well have been.