Before Hogan left to wcw and was still in the "wwf" I was thinking. If he faced undertaker at wrestlemania..would undertaker win?
They where pushing undertaker like crazy. Hogan was at the top of his game and was the face of the company. So if we go back in time to the late 80's with hogan vs undertaker. There is not doubt in my mind that this match would be epic and great and one to remember. But would this change history as we know it now? Would taker still win? Or the famous hogan known for not putting over people beat the undertaker at what was his show at the time wrestlemania.
I have no idea who would win but I am really interested to see how this conversation would turn out.
Personally, if Hogan was at any time during his 1980s-1990s Hulkamania WWF run booked to face Undertaker at a WrestleMania, I would have to say and albeit with utmost reluctance that the Taker would have potentially lost the match. However if we had not had the Ultimate Challenge at WrestleMania VI with The Warrior, who knows what would have happened, maybe The Undertaker could have been the one to be the first to take Hogan out with a clean win during that particular WWF run. As we know, Taker's heel run when he debuted didn't last very long, at best it was around a year and some change, so who knows if there had been this monster campaign to groom Taker at that time we might have seen this match. I think with the fact that Warrior didn't pan out as a long term successor to Hogan showed that Vince still went with Hogan as the top guy and even did so when Hogan was on his way out. Hence why we saw moments like Hogan winning the title back even after losing it. But there was no way that Hogan was going to lose clean to a heel, especially at that time, and let us not forget, what face ever really loses to a heel in a clean scenario? Seriously.
One thing I will say though man, nice topic to start here on this thread, but despite how big of an Undertaker fan I am, I take exception to your comment about Hogan not putting someone over and don't interpret this the wrong way but during this era in Hogan's career there was no way anyone was going to beat Hogan even though the Warrior did it that one time. Do I agree with this booking decision? No, not really. As much as I liked Hogan, there were matches I wanted to see him lose, it always frustrated me as a kid to never see Macho Man get a pinfall win, dqs and countouts as wins for Macho were lame to me. So trust me, I am not here to totally mark out for Hogan, however, make no mistake , Hogan didn't "put people over" most of the time, because I don't think that's what Vince wanted or else Hogan would have lost the title fairly to Andre back in 88 or he would have started losing matches to other people much earlier.
Vince relied on Hogan to be the top draw and the proof is in the time-line, when you look at how there were failed attempts to shift the focus to other superstars. Even though I am sure like any other massive star in his chosen field, Hogan had his political clout there's no questioning that, but unless you can prove to me otherwise, I would say that Vince still had just as much to do with Hogan's continued wins over practically every opponent as Hogan did. After all, to recycle the classic "Hogan never put anyone over" mantra would in essence be questioning Vince McMahon's running of the then-World Wrestling Federation. I might not have been on board as a fan for everything Vince has done, i.e. Hogan's multiple World Title runs following his first mega run with the belt in 84-88, to me I just thought that his array of opponents was very disappointing compared to his first reign where so many legendary names faced Hogan, (Iron Sheik, Orndorff, Beefcake Bundy, Rude, Roberts, Valentine, Adonis, Savage, Kamala, Muraco and so on.) Now some of those names might get a snicker out of the smark community of the IWC, however if you go back to the eighties these were very recognizable names and there was so much intrigue for who would try to conquer Hulkamania next, don't forget Bobby Heenan's family, for years he tried to take the title from Hogan only to fail, it was a classic story of the hero vs the villain, people were buying it bossman, no doubt about it.
Anyway, with the exception of the Yokozuna, Undertaker, Warrior and Sgt. Slaughter many of Hogan's match ups in his subsequent World Title reigns did nothing for me like his first run did, just my opinion but this time also coincided with Hogan's decreased participation in house shows, Wrestling Challenge and Superstars of Wrestling tapings. However, there were still enough people buying into the Hulkamania schtick, even if it was waning for guys like me and possibly you.
People can say all they want about Hogan's dominance in the eighties to nineties, but you just had to be there like I was growing up during that time. It's a very unique time in wrestling history and while the Attitude Era was definitely something that surpassed the eighties in many ways, i.e. the media outlets and tie-in merchandising, I still don't think there have ever been as many fresh matchups as there were during the Hulkamania era in WWF. This also goes for the undercard of the organization, i.e. Jake Roberts having feuds with Honky Tonk Man, Ricky Steamboat, Rick Rude all within a span of a couple years. Nowadays you'll be lucky to see John Cena wrestle someone other than Triple H or Randy Orton when he was wearing the WWE Title. Even during the Attitude Era, Austin's typical opponents included a combination of The Taker, The Rock or Mr. McMahon. Later on I know he had feuds with Angle and Triple H, but I don't in any way think the gamut was as unique as it was in the Hogan era.
However, I am straying here. Basically, I am not the biggest fan of Vince McMahon's decisions all the time, but basically the (W)WWF/E is still the gold standard of professional wrestling in this hemisphere and arguably the entire world. I feel it was Vince's decision at the end as to who Hogan was going to win or lose to, and the demand for Hogan was still there even when guys like Savage and Warrior seemed to be overtaking that spot that Hogan more or less had from 1983-1993, even with the hiatuses to make what I thought were lame movies like No Holds Barred and Suburban Commando, Hogan was still the man.
Overall, I feel Undertaker should have met Hogan at a WrestleMania and won, if I had it my way, it would have been at WrestleMania VIII (When we thought Hogan was actually going to leave, remember this is pre-internet rumor and what not, it seemed legit) or even WrestleMania IX (which actually would be Hogan's last WM for almost ten years), if you look at my avatar I think you can tell I'm a Bret Hart fan and I would not have wanted to see Bret Hart and Yokozuna get sacrificed for that in some ways, but as we know that ended up pretty much happening anyway when Hogan won the belt back, but it led to Yokozuna's continued dominance of the WWF as a long term heel champion, when he rematched Hogan at King Of The Ring. So even though I would have liked to have seen this scenario happen, it was not meant to be in the cards to be honest man. Hogan did indeed put over Yokozuna, while people may complain and say that it was because of a cheaply booked win because Yokozuna had to cheat to beat Hogan, well that's what heels usually have to do. They have to cheat in order to win and if you look at how things worked back then without the bias of the internet it was a greatly executed move, I mean it gave Yokozuna this legendary status as a villain in the squared circle by decimating the legend of Hulkamania. It's no different than what Billy Graham did to Bruno Sammartino and what The Iron Sheik did to Bob Backlund in the storylines.
No one who truly understands the concept of storytelling of wrestling at least in the old days can deny that the desired effect was reached. Hell even Undertaker's brief reign over Hogan in my mind didn't hurt him any even though Hogan won it back a few days later, and let us remember both matches were booked controversially which saved face for both wrestlers because even though Taker didn't beat Hogan fairly, Hogan couldn't do the same either.
From what we saw happen in the early 90s WWF, Vince just didn't for one reason or another see any need to make Undertaker a long term champion at that juncture or to have him face Hogan at WrestleMania. Who knows why, but to say Hogan never put anyone over is a point I have to challenge.
The Hogan character with Vince’s decisions had put over other wrestlers as best as he could with the superhero character he had. I know this took a long time to get back to the point of Taker vs Hogan at WrestleMania, but considering how Hogan was booked it would seem likely that Undertaker’s streak would never have started, I also think the aforementioned WWF Title matches the two had, might have discouraged Vince from pursuing another contest at an event like WM, however it’d have made a hell of a rubber match. Overall, I like the thread but have to bring up some points of contention. Yeah this is a manifesto, but I feel the need to try to speak from an objective point of view and not jump back to the “Hogan never put anyone over” argument, which other than speculation and internet rumor has no real solid proof.
