10 WWE Plans Doomed From The Start

5. Mr. America

Mr America
WWE.com

Hulk Hogan's last full-time run with WWE effectively ended at the climax of his incredible WrestleMania XIX contest with Vince McMahon. The company had worked as hard as humanly possible to position The Chairman as Hogan's biggest ever rival going into the 2003 'Show Of Shows', and left absolutely nothing behind with a match that exploited the character-driven positives of both elder statesmen without exposing the negatives brought on by their advancing years. It was - unlike a recent Australian main event - a super showdown.

There was nowhere to go in the aftermath, but the company tried all the same by rebooting a Dusty Rhodes 'Midnight Rider' angle from the mid-1980s and attempting to reheat the angle on the SmackDown midcard. They never even made it to SummerSlam.

The gag wasn't entirely laboured. Hulk Hogan - fired by McMahon post-WrestleMania - was working under the mask but flatly denying it to the one man who, for some reason, required the burden of truth. A lie detector segment was a genuine hit and Hogan was still popular, but the fruit was proven juice-free by a p*sspoor 'Mania buyrate that dribbled in as the weeks progressed.

Predictably, Hogan and McMahon were back at creative and political odds too - to the point where Hulk revealing his identity strictly for the live crowd one week was used as hard evidence for his very real split from the company the next. Would another match really have been a much better conclusion anyway?

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.