On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff looked back at Hog Wild 1996 — Hulk Hogan’s first pay-per-view appearance as a heel in his career — and credited the Outsiders with getting Hogan comfortable in the role. You can check out his comments below:
On whether Hogan was nervous:
“No, he didn’t say anything like that, and I didn’t get the impression that he was uncomfortable in any way with his role. I’m sure once he got out there, though, it was different. His reactions all had to be different. He had to carry himself differently. He had to walk to the ring differently.”
On talent who turn without changing anything:
“One thing I will say about some characters that I’ve seen in WWE is they’ll go from heel to babyface or vice versa, but nothing really changes. The entrance stays the same. Triple H is a perfect example. His entrance as a heel was really not that much different than his entrance as a babyface. He entered the ring the same way. It’s awkward to make that change, and I don’t think that you do it all at once. I think it happens maybe over the course of a couple weeks or a couple months, where you have to get comfortable with it and react differently than you do as a babyface.”
On watching it back:
“Hulk never talked about it. We didn’t talk about it before the match. We didn’t talk about it after the match. But I think going back and looking at it, it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t quite in that heel groove yet. He wasn’t sure who that character really was yet.”
On who actually got him there:
“And that I feel pretty confident in saying, because I know that Scott and Kevin really worked with Hulk to get him comfortable. I think if Hulk would have just gone out by himself — if he wouldn’t have been part of the nWo, if it would have been just Hulk Hogan turning heel — that heel Hulk Hogan would have been whatever it would have been. But because Hulk turned heel and Kevin and Scott were such a big part of the story as well as the ongoing presentation, they had a lot of influence. They helped Hulk become the kind of cool heel that they were. That was a bit of a transition. That didn’t happen naturally. That happened as a result of a little bit of subtle coaching, and a lot of it not from me, but from Scott and Kevin, and probably Kevin Sullivan to a degree too. But I think Kevin Nash probably had more influence. Scott had a lot of influence on him, but Scott was inconsistent. Kevin was pretty consistent. I’m sure it just took a little time for Hulk to really get comfortable with that heel presentation.”
