10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 1994
Loads of Hulk Hogan even when there was none at all, the NEW GENERATION, and Keith Davis debuts...
It had been a full decade since WWE underwent such a sizeable philosophical shift as the one they pushed - and pushed hard - in 1994.
The formal launch of the New Generation at the King Of The Ring might have been born out of spite (more on that later), but it's exactly the same way Vince McMahon had aggressively kickstarted Hulkamania in 1984, so too then was he keen to let you know that his new crop of talent were ten times the wrestlers his old guard were.
It fell victim to the most hilariously basic scrutiny of course - in 1983, Hulk Hogan exploded back onto the scene in WWE at the expense of a figurehead in Bob Backlund that McMahon thought was too long in the tooth to lead his charge through the Reagan years. In 1994, a WCW-bound 'Hulkster' was now ancient trash, ready to be replaced in main events by two-time WWE Champion Bret Hart and his summer/winter heel foe...Bob Backlund. The aforementioned King Of The Ring pay-per-view pushed the youth narrative almost to the point of annoyance but everybody was at least on message...until main event time when Roddy Piper and Jerry Lawler worked a main event with a style even older than their combined advancing ages.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. But the real future was hiding in there somewhere...
10. Hulk Hogan...
...is going to feature all over this list, but not once did he do that for WWE.
This itself was a first since 1983, but 1994 was also the year a frankly incredible and likely never-to-be-repeated streak was broken. It was the year Hulk Hogan neither won, lost nor held the WWE Championship for the very first time since his inaugural reign kicked off a decade earlier. He defeated The Iron Sheik in January 1984 in a run that ended in 1988. He won it back in 1989, lost in 1990, won and lost in 1991, was stripped of it ahead of the Royal Rumble in 1992 and controversially scored his fifth reign in 1993 before departing from the company in the summer. He was the
By then, his time travelling days were behind him, as was a WWE legacy Vince McMahon moved fast to minimise.
Hogan wrestled just 24 matches across the year, which reflected the lightest full-time schedule he'd had since breaking into the industry in 1977. None of them were for McMahon of course - aside from the WCW dates, he also worked for NJPW at the Tokyo Dome on January 1st. Away from his prior World Wrestling Federation comfort zone, he was starting the year as he meant to go on.
As was his former employer...