For TNA? I doubt it.

It appears that he did.

The Hogan exit made perfect sense in storyline terms. Heel Dixie had gone mad with power, alienating everyone, forcing Sting to leave, trying to sideline Styles etc. She thought she could count on Hogan to back her, but he quit, calling her bluff and ruining her plans.

I never saw how Dixie begging Hogan made TNA look bad on any level. In storyline terms Dixie was the *heel* boss of the company, getting her just desserts. Even the most casual viewer would know Hogan is a bigger name than Dixie, or TNA for that matter. To pretend otherwise (either in storyline or otherwise) is ridiculous. You don't need to be a 'smark' to appreciate the visual of heel Dixie clinging onto the ankles of the biggest name ever in wrestling abandoning her.

I never bought the observer story about Hogan's exit. Hogan has never done anything he didn't want to, for any promotion. But if TNA didn't want to go with that angle they wouldn't have shot it, and Hogan would just have been written out off-screen like Foley.

Alexi, I agree that references to reality in wrestling are tiresome if they're ultra-insider stuff which only smarks would get. That stuff is self indulgent and completely alienates the more casual viewer. A good example would be the kayfabe-destroying clique reunion. Ugh. Or promos using insider terms. Horrible!

But references can be made to reality which the casual viewer will get and appreciate. For example the amazing Aces & Eights funeral, which openly acknowledged the more ridiculous aspects of the group to great comic effect. Or the current Cena / Owens feud which is firmly grounded in the ageing genexers vs younger fans reality of the WWE fanbase. Or the Bryan saga, the best thing WWE has done in years, clearly reflecting the very real reluctance of the company to make Bryan top face. Grounded in reality is maybe the best way to put it. The best way to make wrestling feel real is if there's some reality backing it up to a degree.

In storyline terms, it tells us that the owner of the company is delusional, desperate and hasn't got a clue. Now, as with that entire period it was very interesting because it was essentially a reflection of reality. So she's totally pathetic, but still goes on to drive Styles out of the promotion anyway, in real life and storyline. So by the end of a two month or so period you have two of the most recognisable names in the promotion gone and the top heel/owner displaying herself as the legitimate fool that she is. I don't see how that can be spun as anything other than damaging. Dixie's on-screen character basically pissed away the credibility she never really had in real life anyway.

Hogan is the greatest player of rasslin' politics ever- I'm sure he could have easily talked Dixie into thinking that angle was a good idea.

I take perverse enjoyment from looking back to him slapping down deluded pretender HBK in 2005. No one out-politics the Hulkster.

Then HBK gave the best overselling comedy match ever.

But Hogan even got him there. There was a point in the match when Shawn took the big boot and then Hogan made sure to pose for ages before doing the leg drop so Shawn had to lie there like a jobber.

Still the only match you can watch listening to the Benny Hill theme music

So just like in real life then?

Its a bad visual. A terrible one in fact. Regardless of whether it made sense from a storyline perspective the visual of that moment is awful for TNA and pro-wrestling is undeniably a visual medium. Also I'd just say that while in and of itself that moment might have made storyline sense in the moment when you look bigger picture it was an awful storyline decision that didn't really leave them anywhere to go and left Hogan lingering over the product and company for way too long.


The way I like to explain my feelings on all of this is to look at the Montreal screw job and then basically every attempt to recreate the screw job. The aftermath of the screw job back in '97 was loaded with insider references (or 'realism') but that worked because almost all of that made perfect sense within kayfabe as well. The audience didn't need to know the backstage goings on to understand what was happening or what was being said because it made sense within the storyline reality of WWE as well. Nor did WWE need to present the screw job aftermath as somehow more real than the rest of their product or really real whereas everything else was fake. In contrast to that basically every attempt to recreate the screw job since has basically failed to sync up the backstage insider references with the on screen storyline. So it supposes a degree of knowledge or interest from the audience that isn't necessarily there.

The even bigger issue I have with all of this though is that when you present something as 'real' you're (perhaps inadvertently) presenting everything else as fake. This is a problem that plagued WCW during Russo's time booking it. He/they were so obsessed with booking these shoot style angles that worked the internet that there was no thought given to the fact that when you have the announcers saying things like “this is real and not part of our storylines” you're just acknowledging that everything else on the show is fake and completely alienating the casual audience. And it doesn't matter if the audience already know that its fake. You're asking them to suspend disbelief every week and buy into these stories and characters and then half way through a show completely breaking that suspension by openly saying all of that is fake but this is real.

I'd also just say the reason the Cena stuff works is because that all makes sense within the kayfabe reality of WWE television. Yes there are smarky dog whistles loaded into a lot of that stuff but you can also logic it all out within kayfabe and so you aren't presupposing or forcing a degree of knowledge or interest on the audience. Undeniably and unavoidably there is a vocal section of the WWE audience that does not like John Cena so you can absolutely use that on television. The same is true of the Daniel Bryan stuff. Full of dog whistles to the smark crowd but it works within the kayfabe reality of the show which is part of the reason why you can make a compelling argument that actually the Daniel Bryan push was planned all along (even though it wasn't) because it hangs together as a storyline away from the insider references and backstage stuff.

I would suggest that rather than stories being ground in reality what needs to happen is that kayfabe needs to be presented as real. The whole wink and nod its all fake presentation doesn't work. You need to completely commit to that reality. I would suggest this is why something as ludicrous as The Undertaker gimmick has endured for so long because WWE has (basically) never wavered in presenting that as completely real so you're completely able to buy into that and go with it.

I completely disagree, I think it was a stupid move that made Dixie look like an idiot whilst letting Hogan feed his ego on his way out. It may not have made TNA look bad, it did make Dixie look bad. Like a lot of things in TNA, it served no purpose to improve TNA at all and instead made Hogan on his final night, after doing sweet FA for the company IMO, look more important than everybody else.

I don't appreciate the visual, but I agree you don't have to be a smark to do so, i think it's a desperate, sad visual to see the woman, supposedly the President of an international company, getting dragged on her knees. I think it's an awful visual.

And before the usual "YOU HATE TNA!!!!!!!!!!!!" rage begins, id think it was an awful thing to do for Stephanie, Triple H, Vince McMahon to do with John Cena.

dixie character was that of a bad boss though.

and she prob knew she would be written off at some point so it didnt hurt her character as its not like shes on tv every week being the authority now.

She was a terrible boss even after Hulk left.

Alexi, on the 'realism' thing I don't even think we disagree. If a commentator has to say "this is not part of our storylines", of course you've blown it. What is the casual fan supposed to make of that? 'Realism' to me is when the separation between kayfabe and reality is genuinely hard to determine. I love that stuff. It's the very opposite of breaking kayfabe, which I hate, and I can see you do too.

On the Hogan departure, look at it this way: Did Stone Cold humiliating Vince's onscreen character countless times diminish Vince in real life in any way? Of course not. Did it make Stone Cold look like he was bigger than WWE or damage the brand? Of course not.

So why is Hogan's final scene in TNA any different? I would argue it's only different if you apply the internet's LOLTNA lens where everything TNA does has to be hyper-criticised and everything Carter does has to be seen in the worst possible light.

To the fan who doesn't read the internet, Hogan's departure is a hated heel authority figure being dragged along the ramp begging wrestling's biggest name to stay. It's a very funny, appropriate, memorable visual.

It's only when you apply a lot of outside judgement and bias about TNA that it acquires any of this "Dixie looks bad" / "TNA looks bad" stuff. Carter's character was *supposed* to look stupid here. Is that really so hard to grasp?

The answer to this is surely in the question – it was Hogan's final TNA moment and not part of an ongoing storyline. Had Austin's final moment in WWE been making Vince McMahon piss his pants in the middle of the ring before waltzing off then we might have a comparable point here as it is I'm not sure we do.


Overlooking the fact that I think its a terrible visual that's memorable for all the wrong reasons let me ask this – what did TNA get out of that segment or moment? It didn't establish anything we didn't already know and it didn't open up a wealth of new storylines for them. So, sure, Dixie was supposed to look stupid in that moment but to what end? What did anyone not named Hulk Hogan get out of that moment?

In addition to that I have problems with this casual audience line of argument as well. Surely the message TNA is sending out to the casual audience with this segment is that Hulk Hogan is all-important and you should be interested in what he's doing and where he's going next more so than TNA because he's leaving TNA? And since he was legitimately leaving TNA that seems like an absolutely terrible message to send out even just a little bit.

Seeing Dixie piss her pants would be quite funny.

I think this is going to be another of those YMMV things isn't it?

To answer your question about what TNA got out of the Hogan departure, booked as it was, in my opinion the same as any TV show aims for: an entertaining, memorable and funny moment. It also wrote Hogan off TV in a way which made sense and which left the door open for him to return, which was a possibility at the time. I'm curious how you'd have booked it?

As for the idea that it made the audience more interested in Hogan than TNA, well, they already were! That's what I liked about it: That it candidly acknowledged exactly that point. Of course Hogan is a bigger deal than TNA! That ship has sailed - trying to pretend otherwise would just look stupid. For me that's why the moment worked, it was candid and self-aware on the part of TNA. That's what made it funny.

By the way, Austin leaving with Vince pissing his pants in the middle of the ring, while a little graphic for my tastes, would also be awesome. As a viewer I don't care about the 'WWE Brand' - I just want to be entertained. WWE (like TNA) spend most of their time portraying their company and bosses as a heel entity anyway, so I just don't buy the idea that these heel forces being humiliated harms or compromises the companies in real life.

yeah there is a line...

for e.g

as i have mentioned a million times now i am currently rewatching nitros from 99. and piper and flair join forced to beat up buff bagwell as part of a old timers stablishment keeping young talent down subtly storyline. thats realism

As a massive Hogan fan I was really excited when I first heard he had signed and I watched all of the show when he debuted and they had hall & Nash however the excitement for me fizzled out pretty quickly when all they had planned for him was a General Manager. Even WWE would have done a better storyline than this but I did try but I found it so interesting even though it sucked without his Real American theme.

I know others will disagree but if his back had been alot better so he could wrestle regulary I probably would have watched more kinda like how his 2006 short run went but man I found the TNA run so boring.

Yeah it's a shame he couldn't wrestle more. I actually saw Hogan wrestle at a TNA house show in Nottingham about five years ago. Odd that he wrestled for a random house show but only once on TV for TNA.

Although I don't think Hogan's use in TNA was perfect, it was better than his current WWE role of being wheeled out to robotically shill something occasionally. When he went back there I'd assumed they'd actually give him a storyline of some kind. But no.

I'm more than happy with Hogan's WWE role. I really have zero desire to watch Hogan in any kind of storyline in 2015. He's an ambassador for the brand, that is what Hogan should be doing at the age of 61.

General Manager would be better.