Today is the anniversary of the greatest heel turn in professional wrestling history. It is hard for young people to understand how big Hulk Hogan was in the 80s and early 90s. He was a sport icon, everyone knew who he was and he was a role model to millions of kids.
Those kids started to get older by mid 90s, so his popularity was waning a bit, but similar to John Cena now, no one ever expected in a million years that he would turn into a heel.
Then this happened.
Two things that are interesting about that video. First, Hogan calls it the New World Organization, not the New World Order to start. Second, is Mean Jean saying he has a “fleet of lawyers”, that always makes me laugh.
What does this have to do with Bo Jackson?
Well, the NWO had the potential to be a great if not the greatest heel faction of all time, similar to the Four Horseman, but random events cut their reign short.
For Bo Jackson it was a hip injury, if Bo doesn’t get hurt the sky was the limit in both baseball and football. If Hogan, Nash, Bischoff and Hall’s egos weren’t out of control, they literally could have run the WWE out of the business and controlled professional wrestling like the WWE does now.
What could have been.