WWE: 5 Returns That Rocked And 5 That Fizzled

2. The Ultimate Warrior (1998)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yrsFKA3at4 Oh, but we€™re not done yet! You might think that the hot topic of conversation in 1998 was Goldberg or Steve Austin, but it was not, and frankly I€™m a little bit disappointed in you personally for thinking that. It€™s kind of ignorant on your part, if we€™re laying all cards on the table here. No, as I was walking around airports at the time, people would come up to me and be like €œScott, why hasn't Hulk Hogan ever beat Ultimate Warrior after losing to him that one time 8 years ago? As a member of the youth of the 90s, this is a pressing concern to me.€ And then airport security would escort me out because I was hanging around airports for no reason, but it was a different time and that sort of thing wasn€™t frowned upon as much. Hulk Hogan is nothing if not €œhip€ and €œa real groovy cat€, and he obviously understood that people just couldn€™t get enough of recycled WWF main events from nearly a decade before, and set about to correct that by bringing in Warrior for an obscene amount of money and then, and this is the best part, letting him have creative control. So we got Warrior creating the €œone Warrior nation€ (sic), then brainwashing Brutus Beefcake into being his subservient buddy, not to mention appearing in Hulk Hogan€™s mirror backstage to torment him. Of course, Eric Bischoff was unable to see Warrior in the mirror, but everyone watching at home could, because WCW. And then once they had killed off any interest in the match completely, we got Hogan v. Warrior at Halloween Havoc in a negative-star classic car wreck, complete with Hogan botching a fireball to finally avenge his loss to Warrior and mercifully end the whole stupid thing. Sadly, by that point Yokozuna was unavailable for Hogan to bring back and beat, because we probably would have had to endure that as well.