The WORST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2025)
30. 1996 | The Doomsday Cage Match
The Doomsday Cage Match is almost too funny to include here, but equally, it was the worst moment of 1996. Even worse than the first 45 minutes of the Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 12.
Hulk Hogan was notorious for being a narcissist, fantasist and compulsive liar. Amongst countless other outrageous claims, Hogan fancies himself a real hard man. A real shooter.
He claimed to have beaten up PRIDE fighters in the 1970s (even though the MMA outfit was founded in 1997). He reckons he body-slammed Andre the Giant for real at WrestleMania 3, in a feat so arduous that he tore every muscle in his back. Hogan, and this might be the most mental one of the lot, once claimed that he killed Antonio Inoki in the middle of the ring, but luckily, Inoki was resuscitated at the last second. (Inoki did once get knocked out in a match against Hogan, but he was not clinically dead lol).
What happened at Uncensored 1996 was Hulk Hogan’s unchecked ego running wild. This was so ridiculous, so untenable, that it actually shattered the forcefield that was Hogan’s mind and forced him to turn heel for the good of everything. This was Hulk Hogan performing as the man he pretended to be: the most invincible hard nut superhero ever born. Alongside Randy Savage, he took on eight heels - originally nine! - in a farcical triple-decker cage match in which Ric Flair was portrayed as a video game baddie you can kill in one hit. Meanwhile, an untrained muscle freak, Jeep Swenson, was cast as the final boss.
Hogan prevailed - after the Booty Man handed him a frying pan, and after Lex Luger mistimed an accidental punch aimed at Ric Flair so badly that it looked like he did it on purpose.
Hogan hoisted a dying Make-A-Wish kid on his shoulders in celebration as Cher and Madonna threw their panties at him.