The WrestleMania VI match between Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior was unparalleled for the time period. It was the WWE Champion (Hogan) versus the WWE Intercontinental Champion (Warrior), a title vs title scenario which virtually never occurred in that era. Beyond the title belt scenario, though, the match had even more intrigue because of the fact that the WWE was putting their top two babyface characters against each other. Not to mention the fact that this was going to happen at WrestleMania in front of 64,287 fans at the Toronto Skydome. Leading up to the match, it would be fair to say that the majority of the fan base was for the Ultimate Warrior. Hogan still received a large amount of cheers, but most of the momentum was behind the younger, up and coming star with the high energy and cool theme music. A good portion of the crowd had already started to bore from Hogan's babyface run, which began way back in 1984. The WWE as a company was ready to put all of their resources behind the Warrior and see if he could run with the torch that Hogan had carried for so long. The match at WrestleMania VI was very good, universally praised as the best match of his career up to that point. A good amount of credit goes to Hogan, who also put on one of the best performances of his first WWE tenure. Of course, Warrior won the match and his first (and only) WWE Championship. In doing so, he was the only person in WWE history to simultaneously hold the WWE title and Intercontinental title (he soon vacated the Intercontinental title, as per rules at the time). Perhaps the bigger story at the conclusion of the match was that this was the first match Hogan had lost clean during his time in the WWE, going back to late 1983. He had lost one time to Andre the Giant on Saturday Night's Main Event in 1988, but that was a result of being swerved by a corrupt referee. As the Warrior held up both of the company's top championship belts at the conclusion of the show with pyro exploding in the air, Hogan exited the Skydome with a look of sadness on his face. Some have argued that Hogan stole the spotlight from the Warrior when he placed the title belt on the Warrior and left the Skydome looking so dejected. Never the less, the Warrior was given the chance to run as the company's top star, and he held the belt for the next 9 months. This would be the only time in his career that the Ultimate Warrior was WWE Champion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeC7n4wTnXA The feud did not end there. Shocking many in the wrestling industry (including Vince McMahon, who frantically tried to sign him when he heard the news), the Warrior went to WCW in the fall of 1998. Despite a massive television rating for his return on WCW Nitro August 17, 1998 in Chicago, the return was regarded by most as an overall failure. The Warrior only wrestled four matches for WCW, including the much publicized rematch with Hogan at Halloween Havoc 1998. This time the match did not live up to the hype, as it was nowhere near as good as their 1990 match at WrestleMania VI. With Hogan coming out victorious, it was speculated at the time that Warrior was brought in so solely for Hogan to get his win back from putting over the Warrior 8 years prior. Giving some credibility to that theory is the fact that the Warrior was not used again by WCW (despite being under contract) following the match at Halloween Havoc.
