Dark Pegasus Video Review: Hulk Hogan's Unreleased Collector's Series (Disc Two)

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 11.16.2009

Maximum clonage!

Hulk Hogan: Unreleased Collector's Series (Disc Two)

by J.D. Dunn
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WWF Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan vs. The One Man Gang (w/Slick — 12/5/87).
The very definition of Hogan formula. Hogan finds a way to overcome the Gang's size advantage and is well on his way to finishing OMG off. Slick grabs his foot to block the legdrop, though, allowing the Gang to attack from behind. Gang controls with a nerve hold and then tries to pin Hogan with an overhand knucklelock. Shyeaah. Right. That leads to a bearhug. The 747 misses, and Hogan makes the big comeback. Bodyslam. Legdrop. We're out at 11:14. Hogan was on autopilot until… well, until the nWo really. *1/2

WWF Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Rick Rude (w/Bobby Heenan — 01/09/88).
Heenan throws out a challenge to Hogan – face Rude in an arm-wrestling contest. Hogan agrees and defeats Rude in an unofficial contest. Rude gets flustered and charges blindly into the corner. Fortunately for Rude, he's able to recover and get Hogan down into an armbar. Hogan fights back but goes after Bobby and gets blindsided. Rude smashes him with a wooden folding chair behind the ref's back. That sets up the bodyvise, and Rude thinks he's won. The ref assures him that's not the case, however, so Rude drops a fist from the top that wakes Hogan up. Legdrop and we're out at 11:41. As green as Rude was at this point, it was nice to see Hogan facing guys who could move around the ring after a year of facing big slugs. **1/2

Hulk Hogan & Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Oliver Humperdink) vs. Ted Dibiase & Virgil (w/Andre the Giant — 03/12/88).
The Toronto venue looks very NWAish in a good way. Dibiase sends Virgil to attack early, and that goes as well as you'd expect. Hogan and Bigelow dominate until Andre sticks his big paw in and chokes Hogan out. Hogan plays face-in-peril with Virgil doing the bulk of the working over, of course. Bigelow gets the hot tag and cleans house. Andre trips him up from the floor, but it's Bigelow vs. Virgil, so Bigelow is able to recover and squash Virgil with the press slam and elbowdrop. Hogan adds a legdrop, and Bigelow gets the pin at 10:06. If Hogan wasn't already involved in a big angle with Andre, Dibiase and Savage, this was just begging for Bigelow to turn on him. In fact, if it took place today, Bigelow probably would reveal himself to be a mercenary hired to take out Hogan before WrestleMania. Bigelow just had the look of a monster heel. **1/2

Hulk Hogan vs. King Haku (w/Bobby Heenan — 10/16/88).
From L.A.. Hogan comes with a red-and-yellow Roman soldier's helmet (or "war bonnet") that just makes him look like a special kid. Heenan distracts Hogan long enough for Haku to attack from behind. Hogan shrugs off his offense and destroys Haku pretty easily. Heenan trips him up to block the legdrop, though. Haku slaps on the nerve hold. Hogan powers up and blocks the thrust kick. Big boot. Heenan gets on the apron with the helmet on, but Hogan slams Haku into him and finishes with the legdrop at 10:00. VINTAGE HOGAN! The match was about average thanks to formula, but Hogan looks like Evad Sullivan in that helmet. **

Hulk Hogan vs. The Big Boss Man (w/Slick — 12/17/88).
Hogan attacks Boss Man on the outside and steals his club. Slick hops on Hogan's back and gets squashed in the corner. A little DYK: Some wrestlers objected to having Slick manage them because he was 6'3" and would make them look less impressive. Some guy in the crowd who looks a lot like Eric Bischoff is actively rooting for the Boss Man. Hogan handcuffs Slick to the post and slaps him around, but Boss Man recovers and jumps Hogan. Boss Man frees Slick, who drags Hogan to the floor. Hogan gives chase but runs right into the Boss Man Slam (or "they clotheslined each other" according to the announcers). Of course, that leads to the hulk-up and legdrop at 9:12. It's a Hogan match. Can't really say any more about it. I did like the effort Slick gave, though. **

Hogan cuts a promo on Randy Savage for being a paranoid myopic Chihuahua. He also claims to have known Savage was going to turn on him.

WWF Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage (w/Sensational Sherri — 06/03/89).
Savage gets pretty craven here, ducking away from Hogan and then blindsiding him when Sherri provides a distraction. Hogan makes the quickie comeback and knocks Savage through the ropes with a punch. Sherri gets on the apron and dares Hogan to hit her. That gives Savage a chance to recover and knee him from behind. See, the difference between Savage and most of Hogan's opponents is Savage actually has interesting offense that he unloads when Hogan is down. Sure, he does grab a sleeper for a while, but it doesn't constitute the entire heat segment. Hogan hulks up but gets tripped by Sherri. Hogan goes out after her but gets kneed into the railing from behind. Savage hops back in for the countout victory at 12:56. Sherri and Savage try to take the title, but Hogan recovers and slaps them both around to take the title back. This was one of the last good Hogan vs. Savage matches before Savage dropped off on the workrate front. ***

Hogan cuts a promo before passing the torch to the Ultimate Warrior. He decided he wanted that torch back, though, so he decided to climb back into contention…

Hulk Hogan vs. The Earthquake (w/Jimmy Hart — 04/30/90).
Quake and Jimmy attack early, but Hogan fights them off. Hogan goes after Jimmy, so Quake jumps him from behind and powerslams him. Quake used to move pretty well when he first debuted. He misses an avalanche, though, and gets pummeled in the corner. Hogan goes for a slam twice but can't get him over. Quake kills the match with a bearhug. Hogan fights out but gets squatted on with the Earthquake splash. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Hogan kicks out. Quelle surprise. Punch, punch, punch, big boot, leg drop. Jimmy Hart saves Earthquake from taking the pinfall, but that's a DQ at 8:40. Hogan slams Earthquake after the match anyway. Fairly typical Hogan vs. Big Man match (see also, John Studd, King Kong Budy, Andre the Giant, Kamala, the Big Boss Man, Akeem). **1/4

But not all was right with the world. Sgt. Slaughter had turned his back on America and joined with Saddam Hussein. Hogan cuts a promo criticizing this decision. Hogan says Slaughter would shoot him out of the sky with a SCUD missile to keep him from getting to Hulkamania. Hogan also says that when Slaughter burned a Hulkamania t-shirt, it angered him, God, and all the Hulkamaniacs. Yeah, God is all about the graven images. 1988-92 Hogan promos are magnificent in their delusion.

WWF Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter (w/Gen. Adnan — 04/24/91)
If nothing else, this match is a testament to the bumping ability of Sgt. Slaughter. Adnan and Slaughter attack before the bell but get beaten back. Piper calls him "Mustafa" and then apologizes for the misidentification by saying, "They all look the same." They're not even from the same… nevermind. Slaughter set off a fireball in Hulk's face a few weeks earlier, so he rips at that "permanent scar" throughout the match. Hogan powers up out of the "dreaded" Camel Clutch. Slaughter drops a knee off the top, but that triggers the hulk-up. The ref gets bumped during the hulking up part, though, and Slaughter grabs a chair. Hogan avoids it and goes after Adnan. They try the old powder trick, but that backfires. Hogan drops the leg for the win at 16:26. I never got into Slaughter as a realistic challenger. He just looked too old, fat and goofy. I admire his bumping ability, though. **1/4

Everyone wanted to see Hogan vs. Flair, and when Flair showed up in the WWE, they got their wish.

Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair (w/Mr. Perfect — 12/29/91).
This is not to be confused with their first MSG match a month earlier. This is Flair formula, baby! Flair gets beat from pillar to post early and makes the mistake of chopping Hogan. Hogan tosses him into the post. Flair gets NOTHING early. Finally, Perfect picks a fight with Hogan, allowing Flair to clip Hogan's knee. Perfect adds a chairshot. Hogan blocks the figure-four and slams Flair off the top. Now Hogan has the figure-four on Flair. Oh, the irony! Perfect apparently blinds the ref (off camera) and jumps in to interfere. Hogan small packages him while still holding the figure-four. Perfect tosses Flair a foreign object, but that just makes Hogan mad. Hogan knocks Flair to the floor and takes a quick countout victory at 10:08. A nice mesh of Flair and Hogan formula matches. Flair's goofy selling worked perfectly with Hogan's over-the-top antics. ***1/4

The 411: Oy. If a smart mark wanted to make a case for why they started hating Hogan, this would be a good Exhibit A. It's not that any of the matches are necessarily bad; they're just carbon copies of one another and without the added benefit of making the opponent look good like Flair's carbon copies. There's just no creativity here. I need a Dragon Gate colonic just to cleanse myself. Thankfully, Hogan would be reborn in the mid-1990s.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]