The Name on the Marquee: Hulkamania I

Posted by Adam Nedeff on 05.14.2008

You're a pro-wrestler and you have TWO best-of tapes about yourself released in less than a year? You're doing pretty well, apparently.

-This is the first installment of the WWF’s annual love letter to Hulk Hogan, which got me to thinking…instead of doing these three-disc “Ultimate Collections,” do you think there would be a market in modern wrestling if they did, say, a best-of-whoever in 2008, and then a best-of for that same wrestler in 2009, etc.?

-Your host is Vince McMahon.

-WORLD TITLE: HULK HOGAN vs. GREG “The Hammer” VALENTINE
-This is from the Philadelphia Spectrum, where they usually had live commentary, but for whatever reason, Gorilla is dubbing new commentary in post-production. When learning his commentary would be left out of this video, Spectrum commentator Dick Graham shrugged and said, “Woooooooooo.” Ring announcer Mel Phillips is decked out in a pink & brown tuxedo, as if we didn’t already have a reason to hate him. A voiceover from Hogan done after the fact notes that he was worried about the figure-four leglock and that his strategy was to avoid that at all costs, because if Valentine got the hold, it was over.

-Valentine with an early series of forearms, but Hogan comes back with a turnbuckle and a few punches. Integrity preservation takes us to a test of strength, but Greg suckers Hogan with a knee and the Hulkster is sucking wind. Valentine stomps away and then knees him in the back. Chinlock by Valentine gives me a chance to do a totally unrelated tangent. Gorilla notes, as he often does, that to win, Valentine will “have to pull out all the stops,” and I only learned this week what the hell that means. Apparently, old-timey organs had these things in them called “stops” and you controlled the sound and volume of your output by removing and/or reinserting stops. If you really wanted to show off and impress the hell out of people, you would literally pull out all the stops. You’re a richer person for reading this, I assure you.

-Hogan powers out and sends Valentine into the corner. Headbutt followed by an Irish whip and an elbow in the corner, and that’s enough for Valentine to bail out. Hogan follows him and takes it to the floor. Hogan throws him back in the ring but Valentine is ready for him and stomps away when Hogan re-enters and then heads right for the top rope. He follows up with an elbow and punches away. I have NEVER seen Greg Valentine move this quickly, what got into him tonight? Bodyslam by Valentine, and a double toehold to work the legs. Valentine rams the leg into the edge of the ring, then takes a chair to it in full view of the referee. The outside of the ring was always rather nebulous in terms of what was legal. Manager interference outside the ring: illegal. Use of a chair outside the ring: legal. Or not, depending on what booking required. This whole match has a Saturday Night's Main Event feel to it; no psychology, just a fast-moving seesaw match.

-Hogan hulks up and comes back with a clothesline. Valentine tries to escape from the ring but Hulk suplexes him back into the ring and punches away. Atomic drop and chops from Hogan, but Valentine blocks a backdrop attempt with elbows and chokes away. Integrity preservation takes us to more Valentine elbows. Valentine goes to the top, but Hogan bodyslams him off in a moment captured forever in the “It began more than 5,000 Years ago…” sequence. Valentine comes back and goes for a figure-four, but Hogan fights away from it before he ever has it applied, and a clothesline & legdrop finish. 1 for 1. Not a classic, but here’s why this was awesome: Hogan goes over clean as a sheet, but in the process, we hear him put over the figure-four leglock as the most dangerous thing that could ever happen to him. Then, instead of fighting his way out of the hold heroically, he cagily went about dodging the move altogether and got the pin without giving us a chance to see what might have happened if Valentine had secured the hold on him. So Hogan wins, but he wins in a way that actually sort of made Valentine look good.

WORLD TITLE: HULK HOGAN vs. BIG JOHN STUDD (with Bobby Heenan)
-This is from the Meadowlands Arena. Specifically, it’s the Meadowlands Arena on Earth-2, where Howard Finkel is the color commentator for this match while WCW mainstay Gary Michael Capetta serves as ring announcer. Weird. How is Gary’s book, by the way? I saw it at an out-of-print store over the weekend and thought about picking it up.

-Bobby Heenan verifies that the $15,000 is up for grabs if Hogan slams him in the ring. Lock-up, which Monsoon compares to “two big bull mooses.” That’s it, I’m flying to Canada and I’m going on a nature walk. I have to see what it looks like when two moose engage in a collar-and-elbow. Studd with a shoulderblock, but Hogan doesn’t move. Hogan goes for a slam but Studd stops it. Studd tries to take advantage but Hogan punches away and goes for another slam. Studd stops it again. Forearms to the chest from Studd, but Hogan blocks an Irish whip and catches him with a clothesline. Hogan goes for the slam again and Studd blocks him. I think we’ve firmly established the psychology for this one. Studd goes for an Irish whip, but Hogan reverses and goes for a slam, but Studd is too close to the ropes. Studd takes it to the floor and rams Hogan’s face into the post for the exclamation point, and Hogan is bleeding. Studd rams him into the guard rail for some laceration exacerbation, and Hogan, as Gorilla notes, is bleeding from the “face area,” or, in layman’s terms, face. Back in the ring, Studd goes off the top rope(!) with an axehandle. Studd with a forearm off the ropes, but it only gets 2. Integrity is preserved all the way to a bodyslam by Studd, and when Hogan teases a hulk-up, Studd boots him out to the floor, then stomps him to block re-entry. Studd eventually decides, “Ah, what the hell” and goes out to the floor, and that’s a mistake because NOW Hogan hulks up and slams him on the concrete floor. Funny bit, as Gorilla clarifies that he doesn’t win the $15,000 because Heenan said the slam had to be in the ring. So Hogan defeats Studd by count-out but jobs to semantics. 1 for 2. I always appreciate psychology in a match, but “one guy goes for a slam and the other guy blocks it” just isn’t enough to carry the whole thing.

HOGAN IS A GUEST ON TUESDAY NIGHT TITANS
-Hulk is giving a lecture about nutrition for training. He makes a special dietary shake. The first ingredient is natural spring water (because “milk is for babies”). Follow that with three tablespoons of Hulk Hogan’s Patent-Pending Python Power Protein Powder, which would have been a million times funnier if the other guest on this episode happened to be Pat Patterson. Hogan notes that the powder will be available on the market as soon as it’s tested for safety because “it might be dangerous for the little Hulksters” and it might damage the blender. After they let Hogan’s one jar of this stuff age for seven years, they eventually added Johnson’s baby powder to the mixture and marketed it under the name ICOPRO. It’s true! It’s true! Next ingredients: berries, bananas, and peaches. Follow that with three whole raw eggs (shell and all) and more powder & water. In the moment that makes it surreal, Hogan’s next ingredient is a Ziploc bag filled with pills. No shit. Hogan says that the pills are some kryptonite, plus “every vitamin from A to Z.” Why bother with the Vitamin R pill when he could simply have a glass of Malk? Hogan advises us to take 12 of the pills each day(!) for the simple reason that “You might be shrinking up a little when you’re living in the mirror,” and I’d pay to see that as the answer to a puzzle on “Wheel of Fortune.” Vince has a drink and likes it, Hogan bends over and inserts his shake, and Lord Alfred Hayes takes a drink and runs off stage to vomit. Wow, Hogan is a pill-popper and he just made a British guy vomit…we need to buy 12 tickets the next time he comes to our area, Martha! 2 for 3, just because I sincerely laughed when Hulk said he wouldn’t be held responsible “for any clothing destroyed when your muscles start bulging and tearing the shirts.”

WORLD TITLE: HULK HOGAN vs. “Dr. D” DAVID SCHULTZ
-This is another one of the “homecoming”-themed house shows they did in Minneapolis to taunt Verne Gagne. Schultz, if you don’t know, did a batshit-insane redneck act that, if backstage anecdotes are to be believed, really wasn’t an act. He was blackballed from wrestling after attacking John Stossel of “20/20” and that’s probably the best thing that could have happened to Steve Austin because if this guy had lasted in the WWF, people would have just shook their heads at “Stone Cold” and dismissed him as a Dr. D ripoff. Schultz retreats to his corner to warm up, but when Hogan does likewise, he attacks from behind. That’s pretty clever, actually. He chokes Hogan out with his headband and sends him off the ropes for a clothesline. Schultz chokes away at him again, and when the referee demands he stops, Schultz just drops it to his feet. Forearm gets two. Forearm off the ropes and an Irish whip. A forearm sends Hogan to the floor, and Schultz follows him out and cracks him with a chair to bust him open. Dr. Gene Okerlund tells us that “his facial area” is “hemorrhaging.” Hogan gets back into the ring and Schultz bites him. Schultz, who Okerlund calls “40 miles of bad traffic”(???) goes off the top rope, but only gets 2. Hogan hulks up and punches away, then chokes him. Integrity preservation takes us to a clothesline off the ropes by Hogan, but he stops the referee’s pin to dish out more punishment and continues punching away. Bodyslam by Hogan followed by a legdrop, but Hogan blocks the pin again and launches Schultz outside the ring. Hogan javelins him into the post, and we jump to a bloody Hogan Irish whipping a bloody Schultz, but Schultz bounces off with a clothesline. Elbow, and Schultz goes for a flying elbow. Hogan moves. He makes it to his feet and gets a clothesline and finishes with that. It was the typical Hogan formula plus blood, but Schultz was a good worker. What the hell, it’s worth a point. 3 for 4.

STEEL CAGE, WORLD TITLE: HULK HOGAN vs. BIG JOHN STUDD
-From St. Louis. The ring looks really small here. Bell rings and we immediately skip to Big John with a nerve hold on a bloody Hogan. Well, why waste time, after all? Studd rams Hogan into the cage and for God knows what reason, he crawls to the door. Hogan stops him easily, of course, and we skip ahead to Hogan doing that javelin spot into the cage again. Man, Hogan loved that spot…can’t say I blame him, it’s looked cool every time. We skip again to Studd trying to escape and Hogan stopping him, and I gotta rant about the logic of picking a match and editing the hell out of it like this. If you have to hack a match down to the point of just being a highlight reel, there’s probably something better that we could do with the space on this tape. Especially when we’ve already seen these guys go at it in the same compilation. Or how about we just figure out how much time total these highlights are running and show that many of the final minutes of the match. We’d miss a lot but at least what’s left would have continuity to it. Anyway, Hogan rams Studd into the cage and gets the legdrop, and that leaves Studd comatose long enough for Hogan to crawl at the door, but Studd stops him…and Hogan fights him off and gets out the cage anyway. What is WITH that finish? Just let Hogan leave. 3 for 5.

VINCE MCMAHON INTERVIEWS HULK HOGAN
-It’s a Coliseum Video exclusive! Hogan notes that he idolizes Andre the Giant for his “sporting heart and sense of fair play.” Right, that’s why you bludgeoned him with a loaded elbowpad five years earlier, Hulk, because you admire fair play. 3 for 6.

WORLD TITLE: IRON SHEIK (with Ayatollah Blassie) vs. HULK HOGAN
I just reviewed this, didn’t I? Cliff notes version if you missed the last review, Hogan squashes Sheik, holy crap is this crowd amped, Hogan wins the title. 4 for 7.

Quick question, does anybody out there actually know the name of the classical music piece they used for the credits on these Coliseum Video releases? As classical music goes, it’s pretty catchy.

That's about it. And as always, go to Game Show Utopia to humor my other sick obsession.

The 411: Well, it's a Hogan compilation, so if you're planning on seeing it, you had to already know that you were diving headfirst into samples of a repetitive formula. That said, Hogan tended to mix it up a lot more in his first year as champion so the matches have some more variety to them; not MUCH more, but some...and the two Hogan interviews here aren't piles of Hoganisms, so that's nice. Thumbs in the middle, thumbs up if you're a Hogan fan anyway.

Final Score:  5.8   [ Not So Good ]