Have no fear WWF/E fans I’m not talking about the WCW incarnation of Hulk Hogan, no I’m talking about 1993 and Hulk Hogan leaving for the big screens and big scenes in Hollywood. If you remember Hogan came back in 1993 to defeat Yokozuna at Wrestlemania after Hart loss the title. He then had a rematch with Yokozuna at King of the Ring in which Yokozuna dropped the title to him. He left WWF to go pursue his acting career in which he ended up trading in to go work for WCW in 1994. So what if he stayed around in 1993 after a brief hiatus and the King of the Ring? You still have the Lex Express experiment that would have failed and Yokozuna would have still been a dominant champion. However what if we have our first real surprise in Royal Rumble history? Hulk Hogan returns at number 30 and WWF in 1994 is changed forever.
So the backstory we would still have had most of 1993 happened just the way it did. We would have had the failed Lex Luger experiment, the rise of Yokozuna and of course the ascension of Bret Hart. If WWF knew Hulk Hogan were coming back around I think you would have had Bret Hart’s team take on Yokozuna’s team at Survivor Series though. You could have had Bret Hart, Lex Luger, and the Steiner Brothers. This would lead to Bret Hart finally getting a victory over Yokozuna at the PPV and establish him as the number one contender for the title at Royal Rumble 1994.
At the Royal Rumble Bret Hart would finally recapture the title that escaped him nearly a year prior. He would defeat Yokozuna on his own and solidify himself as the guy with the crowd going crazy for him. Later that night we would see the final few superstars left in the Royal Rumble before number 30’s music would hit and Real American would blast over the loud speakers, with the crowd going bonkers he would hit the boot on many superstars. He would go on to win the Royal Rumble and by eliminating Bam Bam Bigelow. This would set up a monster main event for Wrestlemania X.
Wrestlemania would like quite different than we saw it in real life. Lex Luger would take on Bam Bam Bigelow, Razor Ramon would still take on Shawn Michaels, and Yokozuna would take on the Undertaker. This would lead to the first real opportunity for the Undertaker to lose the streak. The show would be focused almost in its entirety however on Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan for the WWF title. They would play into the year prior where Bret Hart would say he didn’t need Hulk Hogan to fight his battles for him and that he is the superstar of the new generation. Hogan would still represent the older generation and say that he didn’t mean it as disrespect but instead to defeat a cheater.
The question here would become does Vince McMahon pull the trigger on the younger superstar that the crowd is completely behind or does he have Hogan hit the boot and drop the leg brother. With Hogan returning and Hart having a title reign that would last a couple months under his belt, I believe Hogan would recapture the title and pose to close Wrestlemania X. This would ultimately lead to Hart asking for one more match against Hogan at King of the Ring as he feels that he was so close to defeating him.
At King of the Ring we would have Hart and Hogan once again for the title. However this time we would have Owen Hart cost his brother the title out of jealousy. Hogan of course wouldn’t see the interference but he would drop the leg and pin Hart. Bret would go on to feud with his brother at Summerslam. Hogan however would end up facing the winner of the King of the Ring at Summerslam. Again a lot different however I believe the winner of the King of the Ring would have been Roddy Piper who had just made his return around this time. Piper would have come back a heel of course and would have defeated Razor Ramon in the finals of the King of the Ring tournament.
At Summerslam we would have had a one on one PPV match that we had all dreamt of with Roddy Piper taking on Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship. This would be a one off match and Hogan would defeat Piper. Earlier in the night Diesel would drop the IC title to Razor Ramon however big things would be coming for the Big Man. Diesel would win a number one contenders match leading up to Survivor Series and would be the next challenger for Hulk Hogan and the WWF Title. This would see Diesel defeat Hulk Hogan with interference from Shawn Michaels to become the WWF Champion.
Of course this would lead to a rematch between Diesel and Hulk Hogan at the Royal Rumble. Hulk Hogan would win the match via disqualification when Bob Backlund would interfere and cost Hogan the championship. In the actual Royal Rumble match we would see Bret Hart eliminate Shawn Michaels after Michaels eliminates Owen Hart to win the Royal Rumble. This would lead to Shawn Michaels and Owen Hart, Bret Hart and Diesel for the title and of course Bob Backlund and Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania.
At Wrestlemania I believe that Bret Hart defeats Diesel to become the WWF Champion and lead to a few matches with the two of them. We would have Shawn Michaels and Owen Hart steal the show and elevate Michaels to the next level. Also of course Hogan would defeat Bob Backlund in the co-main event of the night. This match would not go on last however it would go on second to last and the buildup would be around an unstable Bob Backlund wanting to erase Hogan from the record books. He would be jealous of how Hogan is looked at by everyone and forgotten by the crowd of today. From here I could honestly see Hogan taking some more time off and becoming more of a part time talent in WWF.
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Those are my closing thoughts to the Hulk Hogan 1993-1994 chapter of Re-Writing the Book, what do you think? Do you think Hogan would have held the title for as long as I do? Do you think he would have fought Piper and Backlund in matches and drop the title to Diesel? What would you like to see next? Thank you so much for reading this and of course please share, comment and hit me up on Twitter @awesomephinatic. Until next time be awesome.
