The WORST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2025)
33. 1993 | Hulk Hogan Saves The Day
WrestleMania IX was an almost tragic denial of the good times going away.
The feds were closing in and the audience was drifting away. The WWF, a major pop culture player in the 1980s, had resorted to promoting its biggest show of the year in the car park of a Las Vegas casino. Hulk Hogan was bound for Hollywood, or at least his hilariously ill-fated attempt. The bodies, those prized, oiled bodies, were shrinking. The money wasn’t flowing and the tickets weren’t selling. The company was heading towards TV tapings at high school gyms. WrestleMania IX, despite its strangely endearing chintz, was a bleak afterparty for the Golden Era.
What tends to happen, when long-term relationships become untenable, is that those involved give it one last halfhearted go. That was Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan in Vegas.
When Bret Hart lost the WWF title to Yokozuna, a relatively noodle-armed and monstrously black-eyed Hogan made good on his promise to challenge the winner of the main event. Reflecting just how rushed the decision was, and how little effort was put into convincing fans that Hogan was properly back, the impromptu match lasted just 22 seconds.
Watch it back now, and you’ll hear a pop, but that, too, is halfhearted. There is no overwhelming sense of real jubilation, because what was there to celebrate?
The whole thing is just off. Even young kids could detect it, even if they were unable to articulate it; the sad sight of Bret Hart’s demotion is cited by many fans, who would return, as their first dropping-out moment.