Rate Hollywood Hogan as a heel

[relentless1]

Ive been watching old nitrous lately and its been a great nostalgia ride. Anyways I'm thoroughly enjoying the Hollywood Hogan character, IMO he's tied for greatest heel with the great Ric Flair, who else has had that much trash thrown at him in one interview? The way he acted and the way he spoke and rambled on and on about his greatness even down to the little things like all the "i love yous" between him and Eric or how Eric used to hold the mic for him or how he'd drape the world title over an nWo member like as if to say "hold this for me kid" how he was a supreme coward but he had a vicious mean streak as well....Anyways, just thought id throw it out there, Hollywood Hogan; greatest heel of all time, what do you guys think??

 

[The Life Of Pablo Ren]

I put very good, there's no doubt he was a very good heel. However, when we get into the category of "the greatest heel of all-time" it becomes heavily, heavily debated. Could he be the greatest? Certainly. I'm sure in the opinions of a lot here, he may very well be... but I can't just vote him the greatest without doing some heavy thinking.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

Greatest heel of all time? No he wasn't.

A great chickenshit heel? Yes he was. It was a nice contrast to the 'cool heel' that Nash and Hall played. Hogan was the older guy trying to act as cool as the young guys, but just came across as trying too hard. He'd do literally anything to keep from losing the title, like any good chickenshit heel champ should do, and the whole while acted like he was above everyone else while doing it.

It was such a good departure from the say your prayers superhero he'd played before, and really cemented him as one of the very best ever.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

Thinking long and hard about this one, I am not going to vote greatest. That's not to say he isn't worthy of the title but considering how great of a good guy he was, I think part of that still overshadows his image despite the fact that his heel turn helped kick of wrestling's 1990s resurgence. However, I would say guys like Roddy Piper and Jake Roberts might edge out Hogan in the "greatest heel" category.

Hell, I am grateful for this era in wrestling regardless and nothing can change the fact that Hogan's legacy was given a new dimension with this incarnation of his character.

 

[lowandmighty]

To me he was the greatest heel so I did vote greatest but that's just a part of my own deluded reality. The real greatest ever heel was admittedly Ric Flair. I just liked Hollywood Hogan better, he seemed so much more powerful than Flair ever did even if he was only a heel for a relatively short time.

The difference between a heel like Flair and a heel like Hogan was what they had to brag about.
Flair always had the fact he'd won a ridiculous amount of world titles to brag about and would also gloat about how much of a womanizing rich bastard he was.

Hollywood would brag about making wrestling what it had become and that all the fans wouldn't even be there and all the other wrestlers wouldn't even have jobs if Hollywood Hogan hadn't paved the way for them and that everyone should bow down before him as if he was god or something.
The thing about all this that cut deep into fans hearts was that it was irrefutably the truth! it was brilliant!

Hogan was the character that made wrestling big money business and was once adored by the hoards of fans young and old but turned his back on them and turned WCW into his own playground, surrounding himself with the very wrestlers who could've taken his place at the top as his own henchmen to do his dirty work.

 

[The Boss]

The way he acted and the way he spoke and rambled on and on about his greatness even down to the little things like all the "i love yous" between him and Eric or how Eric used to hold the mic for him or how he'd drape the world title over an nWo member like as if to say "hold this for me kid" how he was a supreme coward but he had a vicious mean streak as well....Anyways, just thought id throw it out there, Hollywood Hogan; greatest heel of all time, what do you guys think??

That ego that he portrayed so well was so well over that his haters still judge him by it to this day. They truly believe it was real and THAT more than anything else makes HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN the greatest heel of all time.

 

[The Eighties]

I was never a Hulkamaniac so I really enjoyed his heel turn and particularly the Bobby Heenan commentary that went with it, I felt vindicated!

I thought Hogan was very entertaining in this period, an overbearing egomaniac whose ego was built on some genuine truths, surrounded by a bunch of guys that protected his cowardly ass from all comers.

I don't know if he intended to come off like someone's Grandpa trying to rap when he used to use "cool kids" slang when with Hall and Nash, but it always made me laugh.

The way he riffed off Bischoff during his promos was the highlight for me, there was one in particular where he said "I'm not a wrestling god, I AM GOD!" that cracked me up.

 

[Goldie]

One of the best... not sure if hes #1 but he'd be up there.

Not all wrestlers are equally comfortable playing a face or a heel.... Randy Savage could... the Rock could... and Hogan could.
It was a massive gamble at the time for Hogan.... after 14-15 years as a babyface... but its a gamble that paid off.
Hogan has always been dynamite on the microphone and an expert at manipulating the crowd.
A heel Hogan is modelled on the great Superstar Billy Graham... and Hogan was just as brilliant at delivering killer heel promos

 

[Wald]

I remember watching Nitro back in 1997 and wishing he would die a horrible death so he must have been doing something right. Up there with the best of them, probably too hard to pick one guy as being the greatest though

 

[Makaveli31]

Hogan as heel? Just look at the pops Lex Luger and Goldberg got when they both defeated him on Nitro!

 

[justtxyank]

I'll get out on the "greatest heel" limb with you brother.

Hogan's heel run from August 1996 through October 1998 was amazing. Only HHH has been able to get close to that in the modern era as a top of the card heel. Flair wasn't that type of heel since the 80s.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

While the subject of best heels in the business is up to discussion and anyone's guess, it's a solid fact that Hollywood Hulk Hogan revolutionized professional wrestling with his betrayal. No other bad guy can stack up with that, no matter how much we may not have liked him as a character. His stint gave birth to an era known for pushing the envelope and subjecting the audience to mature subject matter.

It would be like Superman turning on the world. Like Batman giving in to The Joker. Hulk Hogan was the elite babyface and one of the most beloved wrestlers in the world. But when he started N.W.O., it was all over. I love Roddy Piper, Mr. McMahon, and Ric Flair as heels, but they did not turn wrestling inside out like Hogan's corrupt cowardly persona did.

 

[Matty~!]

I voted meh, obviously I realise what a massive deal the nWo was. What a massive part Hogan was of that as well. However, the angle and success of it didn't depend of Hogan's talent, it depend on Hogan willing to be a bad guy. He's certainly not anywhere near the greatest heel in the history of the business, he relied on smoke and mirrors and the audiences willing participation on wanting to see him do something different, which at the end of the day was the catalyst for the whole angle exploding into being white hot.

Had there been any over-riding talent involved, there wouldn't have been a constant need to flood the nWo with members to get heat, it was very much paint by numbers stuff.

 

[T2KFreeker]

Ah, the good old days of the nWo. Hulk Hogan turning at Bash at the Beach was one of the biggest moves in Professional Wrestling History. The real Heat that Hulk generated turning heel was insane. The fact that he already had cemented himself as one of the greatest faces of all time is almost overshadowed by what he was able to do as Hollywood Hogan. Yes, in the end the WWE won the Monday Night Wars, but at their hottest, WCW was on top and a huge reason for it was Hollywood. The nWo storyline was so compelling at the time. Hogan was just so good as a Heel that it was almost insane to see how easily he just dropped into the role. The feuds were good, his promo's as a Heel were excellent, and him turning on the fans was just so natural. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's the Greatest Heel of all time, but he is one of the Greatest of all time. There have been some better than him, and many that were way worse than him too.

 

[Headman]

I voted meh, obviously I realise what a massive deal the nWo was. What a massive part Hogan was of that as well. However, the angle and success of it didn't depend of Hogan's talent, it depend on Hogan willing to be a bad guy. He's certainly not anywhere near the greatest heel in the history of the business, he relied on smoke and mirrors and the audiences willing participation on wanting to see him do something different, which at the end of the day was the catalyst for the whole angle exploding into being white hot.

Had there been any over-riding talent involved, there wouldn't have been a constant need to flood the nWo with members to get heat, it was very much paint by numbers stuff.

I'm curious as to what sort of talent you're talking about? Surely you're not arguing that Hogan is not a talented showman, are you? And since I've never seen someone get booed for being scientifically sound in the ring, I know you can't be talking that kind of talent.

IMO Hogan was up there in the greatest of all time debate which is pretty impressive for one guy to lay some legit claim to being both the best face and best heel of all time.

 

[Matty~!]

I'm curious as to what sort of talent you're talking about? Surely you're not arguing that Hogan is not a talented showman, are you? And since I've never seen someone get booed for being scientifically sound in the ring, I know you can't be talking that kind of talent.

IMO Hogan was up there in the greatest of all time debate which is pretty impressive for one guy to lay some legit claim to being both the best face and best heel of all time.

There are ring skills way to be a great heel, it's all in how the heel holds themselves, not wrestling skill per se.

It's not being scientifically sound, it's the nuance of a Jake Roberts in his prime, the poise in which a Terry Funk in 1989 goes from cuddly veteran to complete prick heel in a matter of minutes, before even piledriving Ric Flair on a table. The art of being entirely unlikeable instead of wanting to being 'cool heels' which is the biggest bunch of nonsense in the history of the business.

From a business standpoint I'm not knocking Hogan he was obviously a big part of changing the business in the 80's. However, his heel turn was so huge because of how stagnant he had become as a face, how much audiences wanted to boo him in 1996, then became any bigger because you attach it to two of the coolest stars in the business in 1996 that have just jumped organisations.

It was a perfect storm of situations all combining into WCW's biggest ever angle. All it took was a leg drop from Hogan to start it and the wider audience had what it wanted for the better part of his WCW tenure.

 

[justtxyank]

If you don't think Hogan was talented at playing the heel then I'm not sure you actually watched the nwo years.

First of all, the angle with Hogan did not blow up right away. The crowd still wasn't fully behind booing him in the initial weeks following the turn. What got him over as a heel was his obviously heel promos (where he did not play the cool heel that didn't attack the fans) but more importantly, his use of in ring psychology to play the heel to perfection.

A Hollywood Hogan match in 97 was always textbook heel work. Taunting the fans, taunting his opponent, cheating to get an advantage, cowering like a wimp when the face got some momentum, cheating to steal back the momentum, abusing the referee, whipping them with his belt, choking with the belt, thumbs to the eyes, spitting on them, etc.

Hogan was the perfect heel as Hollywood.

His heel heat was so massive that even a bland babyface would pop the crowd for just flinching like they were going to hit Hogan.

It was Hall and Nash that were playing the cool heels and that's why the Wolfpac split worked so well in 98. The crowd LIKED them and they LIKED Savage, but they hated Hollywood.

 

[SSJPhenom]

There is no denying that Hollywood Hulk Hogan WAS the biggest heel in the business from 1996 through 1998. Anyone who disagrees with that obviously doesn't know what a heel is. Having said that, however, I don't think that he was the greatest heel of all time. That's always going to be arguable. I will put him in the top 5 greatest heels of all time though and really, that's great company to be in. He's definitely up there with Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Vince Mcmahon, and Triple H.

As has already been said, Hogan was so hated as a heel that any face wrestler that would go against him was almost instantly the biggest face in WCW for the time they would go against Hogan. When someone like Luger faced Hogan and got such a huge reaction from the crowd, it wasn't the crowd reacting because of how much they liked Luger but rather the crowd was reacting because of how much they hated Hogan. The same thing happened later when people would face Triple H in the early 2000's and during his Evolution years. A wrestler like Eugene, for example, wasn't getting huge pops when he faced Trips because the crowd loved Eugene. He was getting huge pops because the crowd hated Trips so much. That's the mark of a great heel.

Hogan is absolutely one of the greatest heels in the history of Professional Wrestling.

 

[Matty~!]

A Hollywood Hogan match in 97 was always textbook heel work. Taunting the fans, taunting his opponent, cheating to get an advantage, cowering like a wimp when the face got some momentum, cheating to steal back the momentum, abusing the referee, whipping them with his belt, choking with the belt, thumbs to the eyes, spitting on them, etc.

Exactly he was text book as a heel he didn't have the nuance of a cannier heel in him.

I didn't watch a lot of WCW at the time but have seen large quantities in retrospect. The things you described any pretty much the actions of any run of the mill heel would do, fitted to Hogan's gimmick. His attraction was that he was a major superstar in the business and working with talent that made him relevant again.

I'm not knocking what he or WCW did, simply because they did haven't to do any more than they did. They did bigger money than the organisation had ever done before, not to mention how hard they ran the WWF during that time period.

I just personally think when you look at the great heels in the history of the business, like The Destroyer in Japan in the 60's and 70's, Terry Funk throughout his career, Pat Patterson and Ray Stevens in the 70's, Flair, Rude, Hansen and Brody in Japan in the 80's, the list can go even further than that, all had to use their talents to be hated. Simply because the audiences they catered for weren't begging to hate them.

I don't dislike Hogan and I'm not trying to bash him, in the grand scheme of things though, he knew what he was good at, stuck to those things and didn't have to work as hard as most of the mere mortals. That's why I love a lot of his Japanese work (where he did have to work harder) he was more than decent.

 

[Slash-LN]

People who are saying the crowd hated Hogan so much are acting like fans weren't buying nwo merchandise and making signs praising Hogan and other members of the nwo. To say that the crowd just like Hall and Nash and hated Hogan is pretty far fetched. Hogan still had a good fan base in his own right. And yes Hogan was a "cool" heel. Was there a good number of people who wanted to see him get beat? Certainly there were. It was still pretty split though. Professional wrestling in America hadn't really seen this before where a huge part of the crowd was rooting for the bad guys.

And for The Boss saying that Hogan "portrayed" to have an ego and people still think it's real to this day is what makes him the best heel of all time is ridiculous. Hogan by all accounts is a hugely egotistical person. Love the guy all you want but don't try to twist things to fit your fantasy of him.

Hogan's the greatest heel of all time because people were throwing a ton of garbage at him? Sargent Slaughter had to be protected because people were making death threats towards him when he was a heel.

If Hogan was honestly the greatest heel of all time people wouldn't have been cheering him when he came back to the WWE in 2002 and was supposed to be a heel. What happened to his great heel work then?

Was he a decent heel for a few years of his career? Sure. There's no denying that. But I think for someone to be called the greatest heel of all time they should be able to a great heel any time they take the role of heel.

The nwo really changed the heel dynamic and made it a lot harder on heels moving forward.

 

[relentless1]

the reason hogan couldn't pull off the heel persona in the WWF was because he was so beloved in the federation, having a nostalgia run and all that. It was so easy to hate him in WCW because he was the big shot WWF guy.

 

[Slash-LN]

If he were really the greatest heel of all time he should have been able to be effective no matter where he went. WWE brought him back to be a heel and people cheered him anyway. They brought him back in the black and white as the Hollywood character and people still cheered.

He was never effective as a heel in TNA either. So what's the excuse there? That wasn't WWE so if he's the greatest heel of all time shouldn't he have been able to be a great heel in that organization?

 

[Hulkamaniac]

If he were really the greatest heel of all time he should have been able to be effective no matter where he went. WWE brought him back to be a heel and people cheered him anyway. They brought him back in the black and white as the Hollywood character and people still cheered.

He was never effective as a heel in TNA either. So what's the excuse there? That wasn't WWE so if he's the greatest heel of all time shouldn't he have been able to be a great heel in that organization?

Ric Flair can't be booed no matter what he does. Same for CM Punk when he was playing heel, or Daniel Bryan. It's the nature of the business for the last 10-15 years.

 

[Slash-LN]

Ric Flair can't be booed no matter what he does. Same for CM Punk when he was playing heel, or Daniel Bryan. It's the nature of the business for the last 10-15 years.

Look at my original post.

That's exactly what I said. The nwo changed the way heels are seen.

The person who responded said the only reason Hogan got cheered as a heel in the WWE is because he was a WWF guy.

My whole point is that he still had a strong fan base in every company he was in even playing the role of heel.

If you were the guys that made it okay to cheer heels all of a sudden I think that expels you from the title of greatest heel of all time.

The nwo changed the business and made it harder for heels to be true heels.

 

[SCrooked1]

Great the first year and half, was irritating in '98 though.