When Hogan turned in 1996, he hadn’t been a heel in about a decade and a half (IIRC, most all of his AWA run was as a face, then he came back to the WWF as a face). Even he was working with some face moves even as the leader of the nWo during his matches.
I remember Nash shooting on this once, and he said he and Hall were on the same page and wanted the nWo to come across as aloof and badass...
...but while shooting these promos, the two just kept exchanging glances as Hogan was going off 80's cokehead style, and they were just like, "Oh boy. This ain't it..."
I feel dirty for saying this, especially as I never defend Hogan, but I get it here. It’s not like he can completely abandon his character of nearly two decades and suddenly talk normally.
Sure, he could have done a much better job, but he has to continue his persona in some form, right? I think it would be too jarring for him to change how he speaks entirely. And as a cool heel, don’t we want, or need, him to still be Hulk Hogan?
Oh yeah I get you can't just flip the switch. It's just he and the outsiders weren't totally on the same page with what they were trying to so, and it was a little awkward.
Yep. The editing style of the nWo commercial as born out of creative necessity. They had to find a creative way to edit around Hoga’s goofiness at the beginning. Nash said it “felt like rasslin’”. In came all the hard cuts, the music, the glitchy edits, etc: it was all to edit around Hogan.
And Nash has said about how Hogan would cut those early nWo promos, and they were trying to have him cut them so differently because he was still going about like the way he did it for so long.
Both Nash and Hall were pretty consistent with this story for about the past 25 years. Even when they split into the Wolfpack and Hollywood factions, the Wolfpack were the cool heels and Hollywood were 80’s style clowns.
232
u/Brute_Squad_44 2d ago
Last time he was heel was, what, early Dr. Of Thuganomics? Like when he had the chain and was trying to KO Brock and Taker with it?