The WCW Conspiracy Iceberg EXPLAINED!
19. Hulk Hogan’s Convenient Vacations
Hulk Hogan was not stupid.
He was a racist, a compulsive liar, he destroyed WWE’s sole mainstream competitor to preserve his own ego, he was a cad, a notorious backstage politician, and generally, when speaking on the topics of John Graziano and dead children that he invented to make himself look good, a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
But he was not stupid.
He was a star who knew exactly when to win, jump ship, and bail. His business instincts were phenomenal. He knew to trust Vince McMahon and buy into the vision of the expansion; equally, he knew when the good times were over. He spent a couple of years behind the times in WCW, granted, but he also sensed that Hulkamania was as dead as the WWF Golden Age in 1996, turning heel to become the figurehead of a second wrestling boom. He also learned, in the 2000s, that Hulkamania was a powerful yet fleeting sensation, and adjusted his WWE schedule accordingly. He lowered his stock going to TNA, but he made a stupid amount of cash knowing that he’d be back to where he was the very second ‘Real American’ blared out on WWE television - which was never not going to happen. All of which is to state that a certain conspiracy theory might be on the mizz-oney.
Some cynics observed that Hogan, while in WCW, was prone to taking convenient vacations purely so that he could pop a number and cast himself as the saviour - which would then increase hs leverage to do what he wanted. (While this was written into his contract, he did have to justify his position somewhat.)
Hogan made one of his returns to WCW on the July 12, 1999 episode of Nitro, capturing the WCW World title in the process - just in time to skip the NBA finals and benefit from the ratings bump!