Hollywood Hogan Vs. The Warrior (Halloween Havoc 1998)

It's well documented how bad this match is considered. Dave Meltzer gave it -5 stars, as well as Wrestling Observer readers voting it the worst match of 1998. This pay-per-view was the first I had ordered, as I had just become a huge wrestling fan in the fall of 1998. I was new to pro wrestling and also 12 years old so I couldn't really look at it with a critical eye, but re-watching it recently, I would have to echo the sentiments of the critics. There's no comparison to their first match at WrestleMania VI. That was the World Champ versus Intercontinental Champ @ the biggest show of the year. They should have at least saved this for Starrcade, right?

Their first match was no technical marvel by any means, but they were both white hot acts who the crowd absolutely loved and ate up every exchange between the two men. It was electric. Warrior came out of that match looking like a million bucks. Both guys came out of this match looking quite bad.

The actual match itself is pretty basic. They trade test of strenghths, criss cross rope running into bodyslams, there's intererence from N.W.O. members. Warrior gets the visual pin on Hogan at one point. Hogan whips him with his work belt. Warrior returns the favor.There's little heat and poor execution. Hogan famously botches the finish with the flash paper, which is just icing on the cake for this one. Bischoff & Horace Hogan interfere to give Hogan the pinfall after (14:18.)

There's a lot of speculation on this match being booked purely on the desire to satiate Hogan's massive ego, and the evidence points to that not only being plausible, but likely. Hogan's politicking was a major reason why WCW would lose the Monday Night Wars and die within the next 27 or so months. This not an isolated incident. Hogan has a ton of bad main events under his belt for WCW. This one is egregious, but I could cite a couple others off the top of my head, a couple against Roddy Piper and the most famous being against Sting at Starrcade 1997.

In classic WCW fashion, in parts of the country, the show cut off after this match because they had run over their time limit. Many people (myself included) missed out on the Goldberg Vs. DDP main event. This is why WCW couldn't compete with the WWF/E in the long run. A very poor match.