Today In Wrestling History 8/6: Hulk Hogan Leaves The WWF, Bad WCW Clash Special, & More

* 22 years ago in 1993, the WWF ended the European tour with a card at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England.It signified the end f an era because it was the last match Hulk Hogan worked as part of the decade-long run that changed the WWF forever. He won the main event, defeating WWF Champion Yokozuna by disqualification when Mr. Fuji interfered.

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This stemmed from the way everything went sideways with the WWF Championship, Hogan, and Bret Hart. When Hart got the title on Canadian Thanksgiving Night in October 1992, he was told he was going to keep the belt for about a year. When Hogan came back, Vince McMahon told Bret not to worry: Hogan was just doing a tag team feud as a favor for WrestleMania season. Then, at WrestleMania IX, we got the famous weird ending where Yokozuna beat Hart for the title thanks to Mr. Fuji's interference, Hogan went to the ring to protest, Fuji issued a challenge, and Hogan won the title from Yokozuna. After the match, Hogan told Hart he'd be glad to return the favor.

You should read Bret Hart's book for the whole story, as he explains it better than anyone else, but he became a pawn in some sort of weird head game between Hogan and McMahon. Hart was booked as Hogan's challenger for a torch-passing moment at SummerSlam, and it got to the point that they did a photo shoot engaged in a tug o' war over the belt. McMahon told Hart that Hogan balked, saying he would put over or even work with Hart, so he told Hogan off at King of the Ring. The next night day, Hogan explained that Vince changed the match to a non-title one, so he balked at the stupidity of it, When confronted, Vince said " "I never, ever said it would be a title match."

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So Hogan finished up. Brutus Beefcake went with him, also finishing up on this show (he defeated Terry Taylor) and never wrestled in the WWF again. He had finally returned that year with a great promo and angle after almost three years out (dealing with facial injuries suffered he suffered in an accident https://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2015/0704/597964/today-in-wrestling-history-74-the-july-4th-curse/), but his loyalties were with Hogan.

* 21 years ago in 1994, WCW aired a live "interactive" episode of WCW Saturday Night from Disney/MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, which was the home of WCW Worldwide at the time. The interactive shows consisted of fans voting for matches by paying to call WCW's 1-900 number hotline, and the match WCW wanted was always pushed heavily at the expense of anything else. This time, it was Dustin Rhodes (with Dusty in his corner) vs. Bunkhouse Buck. This was all part of the build for Dustin and Dusty vs. Buck and Terry Funk at the next Clash of the Champions special (the match built up by Dusty's "the view never changes"/"I neglected you" promo." Here, Dustin won after Dusty elbowed Buck behind the referee's back, leading to a wild brawl that closed the show.

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While Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair on free TV deserves most of the credit for the huge rating that Clash show drew, Dusty's return was a big deal and should probably get some props in that regard, too. The famous promo was one of Dusty's very best (think of the ground that covers) plus it was his first match in WCW/on TBS in over five and a half years.

* 20 years ago in 1995, WCW ran Clash of the Champions XXXI, which aired live on TBS. The first hour was an episode of WCW Main Event, while the last two hours were the Clash special proper.

It was a pretty spectacularly awful show by Clash standards, tpe the point that arguably, the most memorable moment was the worst. You may remember that a few weeks earlier, The Taskmaster had somehow transported Hulk Hogan into the Dungeon of Doom, and then The Giant jumped through a wall to attack him, and then he killed Hogan or something, and then Hogan was fine the next time we saw him. Well, Hogan decided to head back to the Dungeon to confront The Taskmaster live on the Clash, and this time he casually walked in the front door. The Giant wandered over and attacked him, Shark and Kamala joined in, then Vader ran in from behind the camera which was facing the door) to make the saved. Randy Savage and Jimmy Hart somehow appeared to help Hogan up. At one point, the camera showed a side where there was no Dungeon set. It was awful.

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The main event saw Vader defeating Ric Flair and Arn Anderson in a handicap match. For some reason, perhaps Vader adjusting to working as the babyface they had the most disappointing match possible, with a lot of mistimed moves. It was all a backdrop for the start of the Flair-Anderson feud, which didn't turn out as expected for a number of reasons, including the big angle not airing on WCW Saturday Night due to satellite transmission issues.

Only one match felt like it had any life in it: "California" Brian Pillman defeating Marcus Bagwell on Main Event. It was only a few minutes long and wasn't exactly a great match, but Pillman was super motivated and trying out everything he was watching on tapes from Japan, Mexico, and indies at the time. He was in a total dead-end spot, but he was trying to have fun with it and Bagewll did an admirable job keeping up.

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