5 stupidest mistakes made by Hulk Hogan

#2 His role in WrestleMania IX

See those clouds in the background? That’s an obvious harbinger of bad things to come.

WrestleMania IX is widely considered one of the worst editions of that annual spectacle. It featured many problems and poorly-executed decisions that left fans with bad tastes in their mouths: Jim Ross wearing a toga, that abysmal Undertaker-Giant Gonzalez match…and a conclusion featuring Hulk Hogan and backstage politics.

The scheduled main-event for that show was Bret Hart defending his WWE Championship against challenger Yokozuna. After lots of ‘big-guy-vs-small-guy’ wrestling, that match ended via shenanigans thanks to Yokozuna’s manager Mr Fuji throwing salt in Hart’s eyes. Once this ended, out came Hogan to ‘check on Hart’, before being challenged to a WWE Championship match right then and there by Yokozuna himself.

Hogan then proceeded to dodge another attempt at salt-based shenanigans before pinning Yokozuna after a 22-second match. Many people that watched this were angry, and rightfully so. Hogan had basically walked down and gotten himself a free world title shot and victory, completely demolishing the credibility of both Bret Hart and Yokozuna in the process.

This was one of the first moments that led to fans speculating that Hogan had some kind of power to change match results to his benefit, which would eventually become a calling card of his, according to many of his now-ex colleagues.