Hollywood Hogan vs The Rock in 1999: the dream match debate
Hulk Hogan and The Rock did eventually wrestle. Their match at WrestleMania X8 on 17 March 2002, at the SkyDome in Toronto, is remembered for one of the strangest crowd reactions ever: a Canadian audience that was meant to boo Hogan, then leader of the returning nWo, cheered him louder and louder until the match became a celebration of his career. The Rock won with the Rock Bottom and People's Elbow, and the two shook hands afterwards. It was a great moment. But wrestling fans have long asked a different question: what if this had happened in 1999, when both men were the top heel of their company?
Where Hogan was in 1999
In 1999 Hulk Hogan was Hollywood Hogan, the black-and-white heel who had turned on the fans at Bash at the Beach in July 1996 and founded the New World Order with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. He opened 1999 by taking the WCW Championship from Kevin Nash on Nitro on 4 January at the Georgia Dome, the infamous Fingerpoke of Doom, a match that saw Nash lie down after a single poke of the finger. That same night, Mick Foley won the WWF title on a pre-taped Raw, and Nitro's announcing team gave away the result on air. Reports say many viewers changed channel to watch it, which is often cited as a turning point in the war.
By mid-1999 Hogan briefly turned back to his red-and-yellow look, then returned to the heel role later that year. He was still a big name, but WCW's audience was falling, and many fans felt the nWo story had dragged on too long.
Where The Rock was in 1999
The Rock went the other way. He had won his first WWF Championship at Survivor Series in November 1998 as the chosen champion of Vince McMahon's Corporation, then traded the title with Mankind in a series of matches into early 1999, including the I Quit match at the Royal Rumble. He lost the title to Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania XV in March 1999. By the second half of the year he had turned face, his catchphrases were everywhere, and he was arguably the most entertaining talker in the business. He was rising as fast as Hogan's character was stalling.
Why the match could not happen
In 1999 it was not possible. Hogan was under contract to WCW, The Rock to the WWF, and the two companies were trying to put each other out of business. Talent sharing simply did not happen in that environment. Even when the WWF bought WCW in 2001, Hogan stayed away until early 2002, which is how the match landed at WrestleMania X8 rather than at the height of the war.
The case for a 1999 match
From here on, this is our opinion. A 1999 Hogan against The Rock would have been the biggest match either company could have run. Both men were masters of crowd control rather than technical wrestling, so the match would have lived on character work, staredowns and big moments rather than holds. The Rock's ability to talk on the microphone with anyone would have made the build compelling, and Hogan in his Hollywood persona was a natural target for The Rock's insults.The likely crowd reaction is the most interesting bit. In 1999, a WWF crowd would probably have booed Hogan as a WCW invader and cheered The Rock as their homegrown star. A WCW crowd might have split. The tension between two heels who had both become fan favourites in spite of themselves is the kind of thing booking teams dream about.
The case against
The best argument against is that the 2002 version worked partly because it was a farewell. Hogan was 48 by then, nostalgia had built for a decade, and the Toronto crowd's reaction came from that. In 1999, Hogan was still the guy many fans blamed for WCW's problems. A 1999 match might have been more heated, but it might also have been messier. Finishes in that era were also notorious for interference and screwjobs, and it is hard to imagine either company letting its top heel lose clean on the other's turf.
Who wins?
Opinion again. In our view, The Rock wins a 1999 match, because he was on the way up and the WWF was winning the war. But a fair dream booking would probably be two matches: Hogan winning the first on a WCW pay-per-view with nWo help, and The Rock winning the rematch on WWF turf. That would also have made a lot of money, which in 1999 was the point.Try it in the game
In Invasion Draft you can draft The Rock from a WWF 1999 spin and Hollywood Hogan from a WCW 1999 heel spin, but never on the same team, because the game locks you to one brand. The only way to see them meet is to put one of them in your World Champion slot and hope the other company's card does the same.