The Wrestler of the Week: Hulk Hogan Part 3

This will wrap up the series of the wrestler of the week on Hulk Hogan. When I last left off I discussed about his last run in WCW. After WCW closed, He came to the WWE as Hollywood Hulk Hogan to be apart of the nWo for the last time. And it was to set up his feud with The Rock for the stage of Wrestlemania. In a great match Hogan lost to The Rock, but he earned his crowd back. Then Hollywood became Hulk again. And he was cheered 20 minutes when he came out on Raw the day after. He later on and beat HHH for the championship and lost it to The Undertaker. He was putting over talent when he came back.

He left and then came back to feud with Vince McMahon where the fought at Wrestlemania. He then later became Mr. America in the feud with Vince before he left. He came back twice more once to team with Shawn Micheals and the fight him and beat him on Summer Slam and another time to feud with Randy Orton and feud with him at Summer Slam.

He then left and resurfaced in TNA where he fought Ric Flair and Sting before retiring from wrestling do to injuries, but he stayed in it as General Manager and he became Immortal. He later feuded with Bully Ray and then Dixie Carter before he left and now his next chapter is up in the air.


                          

Wrestler of the Week: Ric Flair

This segment on the blog is Wrestler of the Week. This could be a past, present or upcoming wrestler that is trying to make it in the business. The Masked Man David Shoemaker started in his blog in the beginning charting the dead wrestler of the week. This is just the Wrestler of the week. There have been many wrestlers and although it is difficult to chronicle all of them I will try to do one a week. For this week I will do a Short Bio of Ric Flair for the Wrestler of the Week.

Ric Flair who turns 65 years old this year is still willing to fight and style and profile as the Nature Boy could. This week he gave a motivational speech for the 49ers and they won. Who better to deliver a speech then him. This is a testament of his career and a career that witnessed so much.

First, let me start off the story with a plane wreck that paralyzed a wrestler, killed the pilot and gave Ric Flair a serious back injury in where he was told he would never wrestle again. 30 years later and he wrestled.

He had an epic battle with Harley Race in 1983 and it was called The Flair for the Gold. He came back from injury and worked his way for the main event at the first Starcade and won the championship belt.

Then, he had a classic feud with Dusty Rhodes where Dusty claimed he had hard times on him and his family.

He had which could have been the best heel group in wrestling called the 4 Horseman which caused havoc on the NWA and then the WCW. Even though the later versions were watered down.

In 1991, he claimed that he was the real world champion and challenged Hulk Hogan. He eventually won the Royal Rumble to become the WWE champion.

He came back to the WCW, where he became champ again and helped launch Hulk Hogan's career at WCW at Bash at the Beach 1994

His legacy then continued as he came to the WWE as scripted as co-owner of the company. But his greatest matches and accomplishments happened in a group known as Evolution. He was giving back to the business and trying to teach Randy Orton and Batista about wrestling and he even gave back to all the young wrestlers he wrestled.

He even had epic battles with HHH, Randy Orton, and Edge. He became tag team champion and Intercontinental Champion. Out of how well he wrestled and stayed young despite his age.
He retired from the WWE with a match against Shawn Micheals at Wrestlemania.

He then went to TNA where he managed a heel group called Fortune.

Now he is enjoying he retirement only as Flair could, "A limosine riding, jet flying, wheeling dealing, son of a gun." He has proven a lot in his career and worthy enough to be The First Wrestler of the Week.
 
                          

Review of Part 2 of WWE Legends of Mid-South Wrestling

To quote Rowdy Roddy Piper in Wrestling terms, Mid-South Wrestling was ECW before ECW was ECW. It had a hard wrestling style and Cowboy Bill Watts believed in no mats. It was a tough place to work, but all the legends worked there.

First, this DVD featured the feud between Hacksaw Butch Reed and the Junk Yard Dog. As was said in the DVD Butch was more of a wrestler and didn't have much charisma and the JYD had the charisma. The DVD featured a Ghetto Street Fight. Butch was jealous that he didn't have was the JYD had. Who could argue with him on that one.

Second, it featured some of the classic feud between the Midnight Express managed by Jim Cornette and the Rock N Roll Express. This was the greatest tag team feud at the time. There was feuds in WWF but they can't match the classic rivalry of this feud that these two teams had and this DVD featured some matches from this feud.

Then, Shawn Micheals discusses how Ted Dibiase elevated his career. Shawn was saying that he is a class act and helped put him over even if he was a jobber at that time. Shawn many years later elevated himself to one of the greatest wrestlers of this time.

Finally, on Part 2 of this DVD, Terry Talyor discusses his big match with Ric Flair at the Silverdome in Lousiana. Terry was mentioning that Ric was hung over drunk when he got there. He then told him to get him a cup of coffee and wake him up in an hour. He came to the ring and looked immaculate and took him to a 45 minute match and Ric Flair won. Terry Taylor was winded and Ric could have gone all not long. It's what made Ric one of the greats.

This was a good part of the DVD. I enjoyed the rivalries and the back story behind the events. This would have been a good promotion to watch and I wish I had watched more of it at the time, but by the time I started to watch it channel 68 on TV in my town in NJ became the Home Shopping Network. More reason why I'm exciting to see the WWE Network. As for Mid South Wrestling it was a great promotion at the time, but they couldn't compete with The WWF now WWE and the NWA or WCW. A lot changed in how wrestling was run, but we could respect what they had accomplished for wrestling.