Sgt Slaughter Recalls Hulk Hogan Being Upset Over Purple WWE Title
Sgt Slaughter has recalled The Ultimate Warrior causing Hulk Hogan to get mad after not bringing the traditional black WWF Title belt with him to a show and leaving Hogan left holding a purple version instead.
Although the stipulation that the Royal Rumble winner received a world title shot at WrestleMania wasn’t established until 1993, in 1991 the Rumble winner ended up in the title match at that year’s Show Of Shows as Hulk Hogan set his sights on the WWF Championship once again.
At the 1991 Royal Rumble, The Ultimate Warrior was unseated as champion by American turncoat Sgt Slaughter with more than a little help from Macho Man Randy Savage. This put Slaughter and Hogan on a collision course for WrestleMania 7 and there wasn’t a moment too soon to start publicising the bout.
Speaking exclusively to Inside The Ropes’ own Kenny McIntosh for issue 6 of Inside The Ropes magazine, Sgt Slaughter revealed the reason that Slaughter and Hogan had to take their promo pictures for the huge bout using The Ultimate Warrior’s purple coloured title belt:
“I got backstage and I had Warrior’s purple belt— which I still have in a box here at my home. We had to do promos with Hogan because he was going to WrestleMania against the champion, but we had to do all of these promos with the purple belt. Hogan was so mad at Warrior for not bringing the other belt. He said, ‘Isn’t there some way to get the black belt?’ Vince said, ‘No, it’s not here, we’ve got to do this with the purple belt.’ Hogan said, ‘But these pictures are going to be shown a hundred years from now. Can’t we just do something to blacken it, or do something with the photos?’ Vince said, ‘No, we can’t—ain’t got time.’ So we took all these promo pictures and Hogan was just like shaking while we were taking them.”
As you can see below, the purple WWE Title was used for promo pictures of the WrestleMania 7 match.
That wasn’t the only story about Hulk Hogan that Sgt Slaughter told, as he also recalled Hogan threatening to have Warrior’s leg broken during a match after he held WWE Chairman Vince McMahon up for more money.