Hulk Hogan helped shape the wrestling landscape into what it is today when "Hulkamania" ran wild on the WWE starting in the 1980s, but his heel turn in 1996 changed professional wrestling and helped turn the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW in WCW's favor. Hogan recently opened up about that time.
Hogan turned heel at WCW Bash at the Beach 1996 for the first time since becoming the biggest babyface in professional wrestling, joining Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in the nWo. Hogan spoke to USA Today about the WCW starting an 84-week run of having Nitro beat WWE's Monday Night RAW in the ratings war.
"I was praying to God that wouldn't happen," Hogan said about the WWE potentially going under. "I prayed to God that we would become the No. 1 wrestling show, and that WWE would thrive and stay the monster that they were. WCW might become a little bit [of a] bigger monster. I never wanted anybody to go away. I wanted two different companies so talent could have a choice where they could work and make big, big money."
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The WWE eventually bounced back due to the Attitude era and Hogan was asked whether or not there was any specific moment that he noticed the WWE turn the tide.
"No, I just know that internally [in the WCW] things just started to fall apart," Hogan said. "People got overconfident. I wasn't [always] there.... When I was there every Monday, I had a really good feel for the direction and what [then WCW executive vice president] Eric [Bischoff] was doing, what the writers were doing. We got to the point where, I wasn't part-time but I was there like every other Monday, and when I'd come back from being away for a week it was almost like the lunatics were running the asylum. The whole thing changed. There was a bunch of chiefs, and there should have been just one chief. I kind of saw things starting to lose direction."
Hogan talked about the atmosphere at Nitro during those days and how they kept an eye on RAW.
"We had monitors set up, and we would start early because we were a cable show, we would start early and end late if we needed to," he said. "We were pretty much watching minute-by-minute stuff, keeping a handle on the game and making sure we stayed in control."
Hogan also discussed the formation of the original nWo on that July day in Daytona Beach, Fla.
"Diamond Dallas Page was friends with Nash and Hall, and he told Eric that their contracts were up. So Eric talked to them and brought them in and you could feel the energy of these guys coming down from the big New York promotion," he said. "It was kind of like a shot of adrenaline, so we jumped right on it."
He added: "Eric came up with the nWo idea, asked me if I wanted to join these guys, and I said 'well I've always... always, always envisioned myself as a single performer'. I never really saw myself as a group guy, but it worked out well because I was the leader of the nWo and still had the single main-event matches. The whole package worked really well."
Hogan, who is back in the WWE family after spending time working for TNA, admitted he watches a lot of the WWE Network.
Hogan, 61, has said he is hopeful to return to the ring one more time, but the wrestling world is much tamer now than in was during the Monday Night Wars.
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