As one of this website’s proud (?) curators of embarrassing Hulk Hogan-related moments, it pains (??) me to announce that we have made it to another infamous anniversary. Yes, I once made a thread about a notable Hulk Hogan tweet.
It’s the 30th anniversary of WCW Uncensored ’96, a show featuring the Doomsday Cage as its main event. A match with Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage facing off against the Alliance to End Hulkamania in a triple-decker steel cage. A 2 on 8 matchup. If you are familiar with Hulk Hogan matches from this era (and earlier), you probably know where this is going. This moment, however, features some of Hulk Hogan’s greatest excesses put together in a single match.
Kevin Sullivan, WCW’s booker/creative around this time, did everything he could in this period to satisfy Hogan’s whims. Sullivan, in storyline as the Taskmaster, ran the Dungeon of Doom – full of evil cartoon characters poised to destroy Hulkamania. And to keep Hogan happy, WCW would hire many of his friends to play the roles of those big bads. (And amongst hiring all these people, getting rid of other, more valuable performers. This Steve Austin guy WCW just got rid of sure won’t amount to much in the business! Nope!)
And who, you may ask, is in the Alliance to End Hulkamania? Let’s break it down.
- Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, representing the Four Horsemen. They united with the Dungeon over their shared hatred of Hulk Hogan.
- Lex Luger, kind of maybe sorta associated with the Dungeon of Doom via manager Jimmy Hart.
- Kevin Sullivan, as his Taskmaster character.
- The Faces of Fear, aka Meng and The Barbarian.
- Z-Gangsta, played by Tommy “Tiny” Lister, who had already been a Hogan nemesis in the film No Holds Barred, plus very briefly feuded with Hogan in the WWF after the movie underperformed.
- …and Jeep Swenson, who would later play Bane in Batman & Robin, as THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION. He was originally named The Final Solution, but um, yikes. Yeah. You know why this was changed.
(Hey, you can watch the match right here! The introductions start roughly at 2:07:25.)
This is a match where no one cares/understands the rules, the cage is so poorly constructed the participants are scared it will collapse, and everyone eventually leaves the cage to go to the ring (???), but later return. The match is also so poorly shot that even if you cared what was going on, you surely couldn’t see it.
Never mind the appearance of THE BOOTY MAN, aka Hogan toady Ed Leslie, the man of roughly 18 gimmicks! He saves the day by attacking the villains with FRYING PANS. Because why the hell not? The match then has to end somehow, so Macho Man jumps in the cage, pins Flair, and that’s it? Okay. The Mega Powers have defeated/survived the Alliance to End Hulkamania.
So yes, no one came out of this match looking great. The WCW faithful, who were never on board with Hogan since he came in and toppled all the company’s stars with little resistance, remained especially sour about him.
Eventually, Hulk Hogan faced a crossroads in his career, and he had to make a choice or possibly go away. That choice? Helping form the New World Order at Bash at the Beach ’96, only a few short months later. That not only saved his career, it helped kickstart what would become the Monday Night War between the WWF and WCW.