Choice Match: Hogan vs Ted DiBiase from 12-23-1979

Tech Specs: Full Frame, Color, Dolby Digital Stereo

WWE has released a two disk set of the very best of Hulk Hogan. While I would rather it have been a Flair comp, I understand the position that Hogan occupies in the history of the (W)WW(F)E, and that he should get first crack at a major league boxed-set.

There are two problems going with Hogan first: there will always be politics affecting what gets shown, and he really sucked most of the time. Even with all of that, it's worth the time.

The first disk features a 60-minute Hogan documentary, covering his life from birth to about May of this year. If there's a problem with the documentary, it's that it moves so fast over much of his early days. They should have given at least 90 minutes to the story, so we could develop the pre-wrestling days of Mr. Bollea. The whole thing speeds through his early years, until slowing a bit when he returns to the WWF after his record-breaking run in the AWA.

There are mentions of the various early Wrestlemanias and his foils at the time, like King Kong Bundy, but then it very quickly goes over Hogan and Piper's classic feud with Hogan saying "If Piper would have made business, we could have been great."

What the hell is that? While not Hogan's best, Piper vs. Hogan is the feud that defined that period in WWF history. The WWF has never done ratings like they did for The War to Settle the Score and Wrestlevision, and seldomly gotten so much mainstream publicity. This was a hugely significant feud that got the serious cut, likely because Hogan just doesn't like Roderick anymore.

After the Piper glossing, we get the Orndorff feud review. It is a good thing that they went this in detail, since this may have been the best series of matches that Hogan ever had without Flair. Hogan says Orndorff beat the hell out of him, which sounds about right, since he would later go on to beat the hell out of Vader in '95. The highlights look brutal, until Hogan said he gave as good as he got, and then showed his lame offense. Orndorff should have been a huge superstar, but timing, and likely Paul's temper, kept it from happening.

The segment on Savage is good, since it explains how the relationship has soured more than once, and the Andre portion is decent, though it overdramatizes it, as per WWF tradition.

Then the whole thing goes whipping through about 6 years with a very brief highlight package, dropping us at the feet of WCW. We get 10 or so minutes of Hogan in WCW and the New World Order. This is probably the weakest segment, since the WWE doesn't want folks thinking about WCW anymore. Hogan talks about reinventing himself, pays Bisch his props and then it comes back to the WWE.

The 2002 stuff takes up way too much time compared to the glancing blow (or blowing glance) we got at Piper. Sure, the Rock and Triple H matches were likely the last Hogan matches that folks will ever talk about, but no need to give it so much time. The whole thing just ends, allowing us to get to the important stuff: 3 hours of matches.

The first set of matches opens with Hogan's first match in Madison Square Garden. The opponent: A 21-year old, pre-Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. This is one of the better matches in the set, with a great section where DiBiase just shows Hogan up on a ground work series. It's great to see Hogan so lost in the ring. By the way, if anyone ever asks you who the first person to kick out of a Hogan Leg Drop was, say Ted DiBiase in December of 1979.

Following the DiBiase match, there are some significant matches, like Hogan/Andre at Shea Stadium in 1981 and the SilverDome during Wrestlemania 3, some decent matches, like the Orndorff match from the Big Event in Toronto, and a bunch of very cool interviews.

Tuesday Night Titans, or TNT, was Vince McMahon's version of the Tonight Show, with wrestlers coming on for a sit down on the couch. It was a very innovative thing, as they used it as a way to present a couple of matches, do a few interviews and a skit or two. It's almost like watching RAW circa 1999. The Hogan stuff from TNT is great, good interviews and a couple of fun, but long skits with Mean Gene. These really are the roots of the modern wrestling show.

Disc Two features more of the same, but opens with Hogan versus two Puerto Rican jobbers on the January 2nd, 1980 edition of WWWF All-Star Wrestling. This is without a doubt the single worst match ever to be shown on any program anywhere. It just shows how weak a wrestler Hogan was, laughable in how bad it is. Watch this as a way of coming down off a Flair-Steamboat match. The fact that they chose this says that Hogan wanted to show himself beating two guys, even in a match that is an affront to Man and God.

The disc picks up a bit with a 1994 Flair title switch. This is an OK match, but not the best between the two. There are matches with Undertaker, Mr. Perfect and Nikolai Volkoff that are all very bad. There is a terrible match from Puerto Rico against Big John Studd that takes place during a rainstorm.

They do show the Wrestlevision Piper match, which is a bad match, but hugely important. The disc ends with a series of late-80s Hogan interviews and the great promo he cut with a cardboard cut-out of the Rock. The second disc is worse than the first one, but has some decent interviews.

The biggest problem for me was what they left out. No Hogan commentary options over the matches, which would have been great. No talk of his time in Japan. The AWA is hardly mentioned.

But these all pale in comparison to what they did to Piper. Seriously, Hogan was the biggest thing in the world due to the Piper feud, though he has always wanted to play it off that it was the Andre match that did the trick.

There were a ton of very important matches they should have used, not only because they were significant to the history of wrestling, but because they were really good matches. No mention of Hogan-Warrior from Mania 6. They should have shown the Minneapolis bloodbath with Dr. D David Schultz. What about Antonio Inoki matches in 1981 and 82, or the SWS matches from the early 90s against Muta or Hansen?

The biggest crime, in my opinion, was leaving out the MSG Boot Camp match with the turncoat Sgt. Slaughter. This may have been Hogan's best match, and they ignored it, likely to avoid the fact that the WWF presented an American who went to the Arab side as a heel.

All in all, it's not a great set, with the bad matches and rushed doc, but it tells the story of the guy who helped make the WWF glory days. If you can find it at Blockbuster, rent it and give it a watch, it'll bring back the old days when a lot of us kids got into the graps.

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Chris Garcia