What if Hogan had died in 1998?

[Swiss Ultimate]

Specifically, what would WCW have looked like if he had died April 19th, 1998 the day Randy Savage won the Heavyweight Title from Sting?

23 Randy Savage 3 April 19, 1998 1 Denver, CO Spring Stampede [35][36]
24 Hollywood Hogan 4 April 20, 1998 77 Colorado Springs, CO Nitro Won a no-disqualification match.[37]
25 Goldberg 1 July 6, 1998 174 Atlanta, GA Nitro [38]
26 Kevin Nash 1 December 27, 1998 8 Washington, D.C. Starrcade [39][40]
27 Hollywood Hogan 5 January 4, 1999 69 Atlanta, GA Nitro Nash lay down for Hogan.[41]
28 Ric Flair 6 March 14, 1999 28 Louisville, KY Uncensored Flair pinned Hogan in a First Blood Steel Cage match.[42][43]
29 Diamond Dallas Page 1 April 11, 1999 15 Tacoma, WA Spring Stampede Defeated Flair, Sting, and Hollywood Hogan in a four-way match. Randy Savage was the special guest referee[44][45]
30 Sting 5 April 26, 1999 <1 Fargo, ND Nitro [46]
31 Diamond Dallas Page 2 13 Defeated Sting, Kevin Nash, and Goldberg in a No Disqualification Fatal Four-Way match.[47]
32 Kevin Nash 2 May 9, 1999 63 St. Louis, MO Slamboree [48][49]
33 Randy Savage 4 July 11, 1999 1 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Bash at the Beach Savage pinned Nash in a tag team match also featuring Sid Vicious and Sting; if Nash was pinned or if he had to submit he would lose the championship.[50]
34 Hollywood Hogan 6 July 12, 1999 62 Jacksonville, FL Nitro [51]
35 Sting 6 September 12, 1999 43 Winston-Salem, NC Fall Brawl [52][53]

So no Goldberg VS. Hogan, and the backstage power structure is shifted to Nash, Flair, Savage, Sting. Plus, the biggest money drain on WCW is gone. Does it save WCW, prolong the inevitable, or does it send them into an early demise?

[Bad News Gertner]

The biggest money drain in WCW was WCW

[Ruien]

Nothing really..WCW would still been about paying d wrestlers a shit ton of money and making them the focal point of the show forever.

[Simple Fan]

The Hulk Hogan Memorial Show on Nitro would have seen the highest ratings ever for a wrestling show while Raw has its lowest ever. WCW would benefit financially as they would have all kinds of RIP Hulk merchandise and people would buy it up. I'm assuming Hogan is murdered so the Hogan murder trial is a national headline.

WWF would probably struggle to keep up with Nitro in the ratings following his death but I think they would survive. I could see the NWO ending and Hall and Nash returning to the WWF eventually to have a fresh start. I really think that WCW would have lasted a bit longer has this happened and would have benefited from the tragedy in the short term but once everything settled back in to normal WWF would regain the advantage and WCW would be in the same situation. It would have maybe bought them a year or two more in my opinion.

[Swiss Ultimate]

Feel like Hogan was the reason for keeping so many guys down. Feel like Rey Mysterio would have been champ by 99.

[Shisen Kopf]

Hulk hogan is immortal. Dumb question.

[Swiss Ultimate]

The WWE seems to have Benoit'd him.

[Emperor Smeat]

Savage probably gets a longer reign as champion but money wise still would have serious problems in the end. Too many huge contracts on the books and a few had special terms that let them grow whenever others got a raise.

Nash probably becomes the new main bad guy till Goldberg's rise assuming things staid the same. Doubt WCW would suddenly start to push more towards the younger stars so no drastic changes backstage.

[Swiss Ultimate]

Savage probably gets a longer reign as champion but money wise still would have serious problems in the end. Too many huge contracts on the books and a few had special terms that let them grow whenever others got a raise.

Nash probably becomes the new main bad guy till Goldberg's rise assuming things staid the same. Doubt WCW would suddenly start to push more towards the younger stars so no drastic changes backstage.

Goldberg was already on his way if I remember correctly. I bet Giant stays longer too and the nWo breaks up earlier.

Moneywise they were fucked, but Hogan's death might have saved them in the department to some extent. He was a huge money suck.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Hogan never makes peace with Vince and become champ again. :n:

But he also doesn't make a racist asshat of himself. :y:

[DAMN iNATOR]

I bet he never would've become best friends with Mr. America and given his blessing for the mysterious and patriotic masked man to use "Real American".

And for those of you who still think Hogan and America were the same person, here's PROOF to the contrary:

HburE7g_tMg

[James Steele]

Damn it, I laughed my ass off watching that video. Vince McMahon is an amazing and entertaining son of a bitch.

[DAMN iNATOR]

Yeah. Too bad Hogan v. McMahon @ WM XIX sucked so horribly, though. But we did get a couple of great matches with Rock v. Hogan, first at WM x8 and then @ No Way Out 2003. Didn't really care for the ending of their second match, but Hogan's 2002 return proved that at least at that particular point in time, he damned sure still had it.

[Tom Guycott]

The biggest money drain in WCW was WCW

Nothing really..WCW would still been about paying d wrestlers a shit ton of money and making them the focal point of the show forever.

Yeah, they still would have did shit like hype Glacier, The Demon, The No Limit Soliders... Hogan's death would have had a more 'cultural' significance on fans, but someone else would have filled that political vaccum and gone on to become a pivotal scapegoat on "holding people down" and "wasting money". Most prob'ly Flair.

[Lock Jaw]

Not just WCW, but the world would have ended in 2001.

[Swiss Ultimate]

Yeah, they still would have did shit like hype Glacier, The Demon, The No Limit Soliders... Hogan's death would have had a more 'cultural' significance on fans, but someone else would have filled that political vaccum and gone on to become a pivotal scapegoat on "holding people down" and "wasting money". Most prob'ly Flair.

What was the reason Glacier never seemed to have actual matches?

[Tom Guycott]

What was the reason Glacier never seemed to have actual matches?

Because his entrance got more time than Undertaker, and nobody gave a collective fuck when he climbed in the ring to face Jerry Flynn for the umpteenth time, so the match itself could be shortened for time.

[Swiss Ultimate]

It was a really fun entrance.

[Lock Jaw]

I remember enjoying seeing Glacier fight Mortis every week

[Swiss Ultimate]

Feel like I missed all the Glacier matches.

[Tom Guycott]

Glacier was one of this interesting cases in that he seemed to be one of WCW's "top tier" jobbers. He and the likes of Konnan would always beat lesser opponents, but always put over "the next hot thing" they tried to push.

What bothered me most about the whole Glacier experience is exactly that: why the fuck would you put so much extravagance into a guy just to have him lose to someone like, say, Alex Wright? Why not just give Alex, the guy the were LOOKING to push, the elaborate entrance and "look at me" attire?!

[Tom Guycott]

I remember enjoying seeing Glacier fight Mortis every week

Who better?