6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 7)

Downs...

Hulk Hogan Raw
WWE.com

7. Hogan's Appearance Awkward

In an ideal world, there was no better person to pay tribute to Mean Gene Okerlund than Hulk Hogan. So many classic promos started, “Well, you know something Mean Gene…” that anyone who did a Hulkster impression had to lead with that.

But still, seeing Hogan on Raw for the first time in more than three years was… awkward. Without litigating his sins of the past, we should note that Hogan made an appearance at the controversial Crown Jewel PPV, but had not been seen or mentioned on WWE programming since then. In fact, there was word that WWE brass banned his name being mentioned on TV.

If that’s true, then WWE used Mean Gene’s passing as a way to shoehorn Hulk back onto Raw. For what it’s worth, they could have very easily had Ric Flair – whose, “Meeeeaaaan! Woooo! By God, Gene!” on WCW Nitro was pretty iconic itself – emcee the tribute to Okerlund.

It’s tough to call this a negative, but it just felt weird, and not right. But your mileage may vary.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.