Hogan's Title Reigns
As we have just learned, this debate is mainly about success. There are many ways to define success, but the best way to do it in the professional wrestling world is by looking as title reigns. In terms of number of world title reigns, Hogan had 6 as both the WWF Champion and the WCW Champion. However, if we look a little deeper into the numbers, we find that Hogan was much more successful in the WWF than he was in WCW. He held the WWF total for a total of 2,185 days with his longest title reign lasting for 1,474 days. Both of those are second only to the great Bruno Sammartino. Hogan only held the WCW World Title for 1,177 days with his longest reign being 469 days. Both of those numbers are significantly lower than his WWF numbers.
Hogan's title reign lengths are once again from two different eras. Hogan was holding the title longer than most people held them in WCW at the time...so you have to look at things relatively. Yes, Hogan had a 1,400 day title reign. But all of the rest were very average or below the average of other reigns around his.
Hogan's second WWF title reign: 364 days...Savage had just had a 371 day reign.
Third reign: 248 days. Two reigns prior...Ultimate Warrior held the belt for 293 days.
His fourth reign: 1 day. This was after The Undertaker had a 6 day reign.
His fifth reign: 70 days. Prior to losing the belt to Yokozuna at Mania IX...Bret Hart held the title for 170 days. After beating Hogan for the title at King of the Ring...Yokozuna held the belt for 280 days.
Thus, Hogan's length of reigns were average or sub-par after his big 1,400 day reign.
>>>In WCW, however...Hogan was putting up above average reigns in terms of length.
His first reign...469 days. Prior to that....Ric Flair held the title for 87 days, and after defeating Hogan for the title, The Giant held the title for 8 days.
Hogan's second reign: 359 days. Sandwiched between The Giant (110 days) and Lex Luger (5 days).
Third reign: 141 days. Sandwiched between Luger (5 days) and Sting (11 days).
Fourth reign: 77 days. Sandwiched between Savage (1 day) and Goldberg (174 days).
Fifth reign: 69 days. Sandwiched between Nash (8 days) and Ric Flair (28 days).
Sixth reign: 62 days. Sandwiched between Savage (1 day) and Sting (43 days).
Thus, Hogan's title reigns in WCW were far more above average than Hogan's below-average title reigns in terms of length in the WWF when compared to relative title reigns.
Hogan's Popularity
Another aspect of thriving in wrestling is popularity, both with hardcore wrestling fans and with the mainstream, casual fan. Upon his arrival in the WWF Hogan was quickly pushed to the top of the world. He handled this exceptionally, not only becoming the face of the WWF, but as the face of wrestling as a whole. The Hulkamania era was the defining time period for professional wrestling. Wrestling's popularity was at its peak and it was all thanks to Hogan. Not only was Hogan a star in the wrestling world, he was also a star on MTV. He was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and People Magazine. Hogan even had his own saturday morning cartoon show. That is impressive for any celebrity, much less a pro wrestler. And of course, all of this happened while he was in the WWF.
And what kind of moolah was Hogan seeing from all of that? Oh, a pretty good amount I suppose. But how much money was Hogan making in WCW? A CRAPLOAD. And he was working a pretty light schedule...and he was still making movies. So...I'm going to say that his "thriving" in the WWF couldn't hold a candle to Hogan's personal thriving in WCW.
Better Quality
Overall, Hogan was simply better in the WWF than he was in WCW, when looking at both feuds and matches. His best feuds came while he was in the WWF, maily against the likes of Savage, Slaughter, Piper, and Orndoff. He also had all of his most iconic and memorable matches in the WWF. Andre at Wrestlemania, Warrior at Wrestlemania, the Mega Powers v. the Mega Bucks at Summerslam. All of Hogan's biggest and best matches came while he was in the WWF. As a part of WCW, Hogan is better known for winning thanks to lay downs.
This is extremely relative. Hogan's presence in the nWo was instrumental in WCW taking control of the ratings war, and he was part of WCW's biggest merch line of all-time...nWo t-shirts. The reason that his matches are more "iconic" and "memorable" in WWE is because WWE spends like half a year promoting Wrestlemania. How often does WWE spend time promoting non-existent Bash at the Beach or Halloween Havoc events? Oh that's right...zero time. It's because WWE owns the footage...they do what they want with it. It makes more sense to push WWE than to push a dead WCW.
Hogan's Return
After a period of time in WCW, Hogan returned to the company where his star shone the brightest, the WWF. Upon his return, he compete in what may be the greatest and most memorable match of his career against The Rock at Wrestlemania 18. Despite being a heel in this match, the crowd was completely behind Hogan. It was one of the greatest wrestling moments of all time. Despite coming out the loser, Hogan had shown that he was not done as a pro wrestler and that his career had been reinvented in the WWF. Despiting being nearly 50 years old, Hogan won his 6th and final WWF Title against Triple H in 2002.
What Hogan did during his return was phenomenal, but so much of it was because of his WCW successes. He was brought in to do the nWo angle...and it just evolved from there. In the end, he still wasn't going to be getting the kind of money that he amassed in WCW and didn't have the personal control that he wielded...thus he thrived less.
In summation, every aspect of Hogan's career was bigger and better in the WWF. He held the title longer, made more of an impact, was more popular, and was an overall better wrestler in the WWF.
In summation...no...he thrived more in WCW because of all the things I said.