What if Ted Dibiase pinned Hulk Hogan

[Wrath]

First of all I don't know much stuff from Hogan era so this thread is more of a question than an opinion. Do you remember when Andre beat Hogan in Main Event for WWF title by Dibiase screwing him up and title was vacated at that time. Just think about for a second instead of seeing Dibiase vs Hogan in semi finals what if it was in the finals for the WWF championship and Dibiase could find a way the screw Hogan. Yeah I know Randy Savage deserved his title opportunity for a long time but you know Savage would one day got his huge shor anyway. On the other hand Dibiase was the biggest heel of WWF at that time and pinning the biggest face of WWF which was not seen much often at that time. Could it have been one of the most unforgettable moments in wrestling history ? Could it have made such huge impact as WrestleMania III ? Or could it not work ?

So the question is this what if Ted Dibiase pinned Hogan in the finals of WrestleMania IV instead of Randy Savage's title win. Could it create a huge impact in wrestling business ?

 

[tripleh42]

i read somewhere that the original plan was to have the MDM beat hogan in the finals at wrestlemania 4 and savage would get the belt at summerslam...whether this is true or not i dont know. but if u look at wwf champions in history you really have to go all the way to maybe even 97 when HBK beat Bret Hart to find a Heel who kept the belt for more than 3 months who actually had personality. This does not include Yokozuna who I still dont understand why he had the belt for basically a year...my only thought was that mcmahon wanted to have 93 be all about USA vs Japan. Flair had the belt for two months, Slaughter had the belt for two months, Sid had the belt for 2 months just so HBK could win it back in his home town at royal rumble 97. There were others but what I'm basically saying is McMahon really didnt give any heels long meaningful title runs other than Yokozuna until the attitude era came around. So going back to Wrestlemania 4, whether it was planned originally or not...it was the best thing to do to set up "Hogan vs Andre..then Hogan's best buddy Savage wins the belt against the top heel, and a year later the best buddy becomes the top heel and Hogan has to prove his #1 face status again". I loved Wrestlemania 4 so I dont think the MDM winning the belt would have been smart.

 

[Pedigree1]

I thought at the very least amd yes im going to be in the minority here MDM most certainly deserved a win over hogan at WM4!! That could have really helped out MDM as an even bigger heel than he already was. I think its bs that he never really got a major title to his resume!! Everyone old and young know who MDM is!! Imagine him being the champion and that sinister laugh he had!

 

[silrock316]

Some of you guys are all over the place.


Savage won the belt at WM4. Hogan was filming movies all over the place at this time and they pushed Savage pretty good. Dibease was in no way the top heel at the time. That went to Andre and to me Bobby the brain. Anyone that Brain was paired with was extremely hated.

Anyways, to me what made WM4 so great was that we didnt see Andre and Hogan in the main event for like the 9th time in a row.

As a huge fan of the Madness back then and a Hogan hater BACK THEN I was SOOOO happy Savage won but was SOOO pissed off they couldnt let him to it on his own. Liz just HAD to go to the back and bring out the tomato with mustard all over him.

The only difference for me if it was Hogan vs. Dibease is I wouldnt love WM4 as much as I do.

 

[silrock316]

For the ones that couldn't understand my topic. I was talking about WM IV. Sorry for my poor grammer english is not my main language. So the question is this what if Ted Dibiase pinned Hogan in the finals of WrestleMania IV instead of Randy Savage's title win. Could it create a huge impact in wrestling business ?

You do realize that because it was Savage winning the title it set up the WWF for the whole next year right? The Mega Powers dominated the WWF storylines leading up to the explosion. What if Ted won? Do we have another full year of Hogan vs. Ted and Andre? Come on people. Savage/Hogan was one of the biggest main events of WM history. What would WM5 have been without it? The rest of the card was average at best.

While I do agree big time with the fact Ted should have been a WHC at one time, he did not deserve the belt at WM4, especially with how huge Savage was for the company the next 4 years. Outside of Savages fued with Saphire and Dusty Rhodes, Savage had some big moments for the WWF then piggybanked off of his title run.

 

[closet_fan]

You do realize that because it was Savage winning the title it set up the WWF for the whole next year right? The Mega Powers dominated the WWF storylines leading up to the explosion. What if Ted won? Do we have another full year of Hogan vs. Ted and Andre? Come on people. Savage/Hogan was one of the biggest main events of WM history. What would WM5 have been without it? The rest of the card was average at best.

While I do agree big time with the fact Ted should have been a WHC at one time, he did not deserve the belt at WM4, especially with how huge Savage was for the company the next 4 years. Outside of Savages fued with Saphire and Dusty Rhodes, Savage had some big moments for the WWF then piggybanked off of his title run.

I agree with you. If DiBiasi had won instead, I don't even think we would have seen the Flair/Savage storyline later on after the Mega Powers angle. IMO, a DiBiasi win would have deflated Savage's push. Everyone would have wanted to see Hogan/DiBiasi instead in the months to follow WM4.

Andre wouldn't have been in the angle anymore either if DiBiasi won. His body had already started breaking down WM3. I think this is why they didn't have him advance in WM4. Because he just couldn't take the pain of being in the ring.

 

[FlairFan2003]

To the OP:

The Million Dollar Man angle didn't come into fruition until after Wrestlemania 3.

Hulk beat Andre at WM3

Then MDM bought Andre's services to try and win him the belt on a Friday night Main Event match because MDM couldn't beat Hogan himself. This was when there were 2 Earl Hebners, which ended up being Earl's twin brother.

That's when the title became vacated because Andre won, with the twin, and he then gave the belt to DiBiasi.

Wrestlemania 3 had nothing to do with this because all this came afterwards. The DiBiasi stuff came after WM3 and before WM4. In fact, I don't even know if DiBiasi was in the WWF during WM3. If he was, it was at the very beginning of his time and wasn't big enough to be on the card.

And as far as WM4, giving the belt to Savage was the right thing to do because it accelerated the Hogan/Savage angle that involved Elizabeth.

There were two big reasons Savage got the belt at WM 4 - One, he had been with the company, a major draw, and done his fair share of jobs so you knew he'd be a company guy and follow the story no matter what. 2nd was the fact that Vince didn't want to mess up the marketing aspect of having a mega face champion pursued by heels, same formula with Hogan, plus the NWA had a major heel (Flair) as champ so it made sense to set yourself apart from the competition.

Remember, when Hogan took his next lengthy sabataical in 1990 the chose Ultimate Warrior to bo champ, not because of his great skill or teamwork mentality but because McMahon saw the Face Champ vs Heel Challenger dynamic as working. Certainly a heel Savage, DiBiase, or Rick Rude would have been good choices to hold the belt till Hogan's next return but Vince didn't want to change the formula.

Now Savage proved to be a better champion and draw than Warrior, his character lost a lot of its edge after being named champion and having to tone down a bit as the top guy of a very corporate kid friendly company. Warrior was also a losuy wrestler and the novelty of his squash matches wore off after a while. Say what you will about Hogan but he coud work pretty hard and put a solid match, albeit for only 15-20 minutes, when he faced good workers like Savage, Flair, Piper, etc. Warrior really couldn't.

DiBiase could have had a nice run as champ but as long as the NWA was selling with Flair McMahon wasn't going long term with a heel champ of his own. Certainly DiBiase couldn't have stolen the title at the big Prime Time NBC TV Special because Hogan wanted time off after WM, he couldnt regain the title at the big show.

 

[TheLoneCharles]

I think this topic veered so far off from the original point it's not even funny.

What if DiBiase pinned Hogan? It wouldn't be known as the Hogan era and Hogan probably wouldn't be viewed as such a selfish guy. That area had the MOST worthy world champion contenders I ever seen. Guys like DiBiase, Rick Rude, and even Andre could have been so much larger had they had the opportunity to run with the belt.

 

[legendkiller1979]

Let me address the topic first What if Dibiase PINNED Hogan? There was no chance of that happening. It is possible that Dibiase wins by DQ or countout thereby screwing the hulkster. They didn't have have Andre pin Hogan. They could have easily had outside interference cause Andre to get the pin. This would have made Hogan look somewhat weak. With the twin referee situation, Hogan's shoulders were down for a one count. This allowed him to keep his invincibility while getting the belt off of him.

I have heard both Dibiase and Savage both say that Dibiase was indeed supposed the win the belt at wrestlemania IV. Even after having this confirmed twice I still have a hard time believing this. I can not see a heel leaving the biggest show of the year with the belt. That just wasn't the WWF way in the 80's

the reason that Savage ended up with the belt was to appease him because the Honky Tonk Man refused to drop the IC belt to him at The Main Event. I'd say that's a pretty good consolation prize. The story goes that after losing the belt, Vince wanted to repackage HTM. After hearing this, HTM threatened to leave for the NWA with the belt.
Vince had no choice but to give in. Again, I find this hard to believe because HTM used the gimmick until the end.

Bottom line, there was never really a chance of things going any other way than they did.

 

[closet_fan]

Let me address the topic first What if Dibiase PINNED Hogan? There was no chance of that happening. It is possible that Dibiase wins by DQ or countout thereby screwing the hulkster. They didn't have have Andre pin Hogan. They could have easily had outside interference cause Andre to get the pin. This would have made Hogan look somewhat weak. With the twin referee situation, Hogan's shoulders were down for a one count. This allowed him to keep his invincibility while getting the belt off of him.

I have heard both Dibiase and Savage both say that Dibiase was indeed supposed the win the belt at wrestlemania IV. Even after having this confirmed twice I still have a hard time believing this. I can not see a heel leaving the biggest show of the year with the belt. That just wasn't the WWF way in the 80's

the reason that Savage ended up with the belt was to appease him because the Honky Tonk Man refused to drop the IC belt to him at The Main Event. I'd say that's a pretty good consolation prize. The story goes that after losing the belt, Vince wanted to repackage HTM. After hearing this, HTM threatened to leave for the NWA with the belt.
Vince had no choice but to give in. Again, I find this hard to believe because HTM used the gimmick until the end.

Bottom line, there was never really a chance of things going any other way than they did.

I'm surprised HTM had so much clout back then over a guy like Savage. Losing the belt to Savage wouldn't have been that bad. It's not like Savage was a, what today would be, a mid-carder. I considered Savage a borderline main eventer who just happened to be stuck in IC title land.

I wonder what Vince had in mind for HTM's new look.

 

[AttitudeAJM]

Hogan didn't lose to Dibiase because guys like that didn't lose to sneaky heels in big title matches. The reason for Hogan getting over as big as he did was mainly because he didn't drop falls. The Incredible Hulk Hogan couldn't lose.

He was well protected because he was the biggest thing wrestling had ever seen in the mid 80's. You can't think of this in terms of 2011. These days I'd say that Dibiase definitely should get a title run. However, that's because there are 12 or more PPV's in a year with 52 Raw's in a year. Back then there were less TV shows and PPV events. Hogan was the man on top because they needed to establish him as THE GUY.

 

[EastCoastFan]

The way I was always heard it, DiBiase was supposed to win the tournament. In fact, if you look at the original bracketing, it would have been Hogan vs. DiBiase in the finals, then they changed it so it was Savage vs. DiBiase in the finals.

Another thing I heard was that Savage was initially supposed to face the Honky Tonk Man and beat him for the I-C title at WM 4. Problem was HTM in negotiations with WCW and refused to drop the title. So, they had Savage win the tournament instead.

If things had gone as planned, DiBiase would have been WWF Champ and probably would have faced Hogan in a rematch at SummerSlam, with Hogan winning the title back.

Savage would have had a good second reign as I-C champion. Maybe he would have turned on Hogan anyway to get a shot at the WWF World title at WM 5. Would he have won? Who knows?