TJR WrestleMania’s Greatest Matches: Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan @ WrestleMania 6

The main event of WWE WrestleMania 6 was a huge match that saw the WWE Champion Hulk Hogan defending the championship against the Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior.

For the previous six years, Hogan was the unquestionable top guy in WWE, but Warrior was gaining a lot of steam and was very popular with the fans. It made sense for WWE to put these two guys in the main event of WrestleMania.

Who: Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania 6

When: April 1, 1990

Where: Skydome in Toronto, Ontario

The Build

There were a lack of top heels in WWE as they headed to WrestleMania 6 in 1990. Due to the lack of options on the heel side, I think Vince McMahon felt like he had to do something different at WrestleMania by having the babyface champion (Hulk Hogan) face a babyface challenger in the Ultimate Warrior.

On the excellent Bruce Prichard “Something to Wrestle With” Podcast covering WrestleMania 6, he told a story about how this really wasn’t a title vs. title match. Vince McMahon said it was “Champion vs. Champion” and that the Intercontinental Title wasn’t on the line. If Warrior won, then that meant he would be the WWE Champion while giving up the Intercontinental Championship. If Hogan won, he would still be the WWE Champion.

They set up the match by announcing it a few months before Wrestlemania. They had a memorable moment at the 1990 Royal Rumble. When they had that staredown, everybody was on their feet and the crowd was so loud. Hogan ended up eliminating Warrior during the Rumble and Hogan won the Rumble even though he was already the WWE Champion. It would have made more sense to have Warrior win the Rumble, but WWE was all about putting Hogan over at that point.

What I Thought Back Then

It was a huge match in 1990. One of the biggest matches ever. I was about nine years old and watched it with a lot of my cousins because everybody was into WWE in those days. I can remember rooting for Warrior just because I thought it was so cool with the face paint as well as the energy he had. I’m sure I dressed up like him at Halloween one of those years as well. It wasn’t that I hated Hogan. We just wanted somebody else in that spot as the WWE Champion.

Did I really believe Warrior was going to win? I’m not sure about that because we were so used to Hogan winning. All I knew is that it was a big deal back then.

Here’s my full review of the match plus the analysis, which was written in 2012.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior

Huge staredown to start the match. The crowd was screaming during all of it. They shoved eachother early, then they do a couple of lockups that each guy wins one time. Then it’s a test of strength time. Warrior won the first part of it, putting Hogan on his knees. Hulk fought back. He ended up putting Warrior on his knees, which led to a famous picture that has made its rounds over the internet through the years. That test of strength lasted a few minutes. Hogan tripped him up for a two count. Gorilla busts out his “irresistible force meeting the immovable object” line. They did the criss-cross in the ring. Hogan got a body slam. They criss-crossed again and Warrior got a slam. Warrior hit a clothesline to send Hulk out to the floor. Hogan was limping on the floor, so Warrior broke the count and kicked him in the knee a few times. Hogan tells the ref that he blew his knee out. Warrior rolls him back in. They eye rake eachother multiple teams. Hogan fought back, no longer selling the knee. Hulk hit a clothesline in the corner and then the ten punches to the head of Warrior. Hulk hit a couple of elbow drops for two. Gorilla tried to say that his knee popped back into place. Good way to say that Hulk stopped selling it. Hulk nailed him with a clothesline for two. The crowd is loud for everything. It reminds me of WrestleMania 3 in a lot of ways. Hogan with a backbreaker for two followed by a chinlock. Back up, Hogan hit a backdrop suplex. That’s the most devastating move in his arsenal. Back to the chinlock. A minute later, Warrior fought back with some elbows to the gut. They do the double clothesline spot, which put both guys down on the mat.

The ref counts both guys down in the middle of the ring. Jesse thinks it will be a double countout. Most sane people disagree. The crowd was going wild simply for the two guys laying on their back. Warrior’s face paint is pretty much gone now as he was the first one to sit up. Warrior shook the ropes to feel the power of his Warriors. Hogan attacked him, but Warrior didn’t feel any of it. Warrior with punches and a couple of clotheslines and another clothesline. Warrior whipped him into two turnbuckles, which put Hogan down. Warrior hit a vertical suplex for two. I think that’s his most impressive wrestling move. Warrior put him in the bearhug. It was a three-minute bearhug. Hulk fought out of it with punches to the face. Warrior ran the ropes, Hogan dropped down and Warrior went crashing into the ref. Warrior went to the top rope and a double ax to the head. Warrior hit another double ax to the head. Warrior charged in for his flying shoulderblock, but Hogan avoided it. Hogan covered, but there was no ref. Hogan slapped the mat three times to tell us that should have been it. Warrior got back up and hit a back suplex on Hogan. Still no ref. Warrior slaps the mat three times. Slowly, the ref gets back into it, he counts the pinfall one…two…and no…Hogan got his shoulder up. That was an awesome nearfall. Hogan hit a shot to the eye followed by a rollup for two of his own because the ref was out of position. The announcers were yelling because it’s so loud in the building. Hogan hit a back elbow to send Warrior out of the ring. Hogan gives him a headbutt. Warrior recovered first and threw Hogan into the steel post. Back in, Warrior hit a clothesline. Gorilla Press time, but Warrior didn’t have a good grip or maybe Hulk’s too big. Warrior dropped him down and follows it up with a splash onto the back of Hogan. Warrior rolled over Hogan I remember as a kid thinking this was it, but when you watch it a bunch of times you can see Hulk put his hands in position to where he can shove Warrior off easily. At the count of two, Hulk shoved him off. It’s Hulk Up time. Warrior threw punches, Hulk got back to his feet and pointed his finger in the face of the Warrior. YOU! Punches to the face are followed by the big boot. The Hogan leg drop misses. What? It missed. I can remember freaking out at that point. That leg drop never missed. Warrior hit the big splash. One…two…three. Hogan kicked out right as the hand of ref Earl Hebner hit the mat. He wasn’t going to lay down for more than three. Warrior wins at 22:47.

Winner: The Ultimate Warrior – New World Heavyweight Champion

Post match, Warrior celebrated like crazy and the crowd went wild for him. Hogan dropped to his knees and pointed up at the sky. Hogan grabbed the World Heavyweight Title. He gave it to Warrior. Then they embraced in the ring. Gorilla busted out the famous line: “The Hulkster has just taken one giant step towards immortality.” Hulk left. Warrior celebrated. The announcers put over Hulk Hogan after the match saying they believed Hulkamania would live forever. It was smart. Warrior won, but Hogan didn’t look like a loser because it was done in a way where they both looked strong.

Analysis: ***3/4 (out of five stars) I loved it when it happened. I love it today. Neither of these guys is going to be considered a great in-ring performer, but they really delivered an above average match here. They booked it in a way where it came off like an even match. Each guy had their moments of strength. Each guy was also pinned without the ref being up. Hogan went for his big move, he missed it and Warrior capitalized to win the match…barely. I like it. It felt like a heavyweight boxing match featuring two men at the top of their game going toe to toe. My complaints were that some of the spots like the test of strength and bearhug went a little too long, but it’s not like they lost the crowd. Over the years, the word came out that the mastermind behind the match was Pat Patterson, who was a key Vince McMahon associate in this era. Apparently, he intricately booked the match with both guys by planning literally every spot. This was the best WrestleMania match of Hogan’s illustrious career as the unquestionable top guy (I gave WM5 vs. Savage a rating of ***1/2). It’s only the second-best match in Warrior’s career because the best one would happen a year later. For as much as I may criticize Hogan & Warrior even to this day for a lot of questionable things they’ve said and done in their lives, I give them a lot of credit for delivering a great match on the grandest stage of them all.

(My rating for the match has gone up to four stars in the past, but I’m going to stick with just under four stars for it.)

You can read a full review of WrestleMania 6 right here.

What They Said

Ultimate Warrior to Sports Illustrated in 2014:

“At that time the typical storyline for WrestleMania was that one of Hogan’s friends would turn on him and set up a good guy-vs-bad guy scenario. But if WWE had done that with Ultimate Warrior, they would have been slicing their wrists, because merchandising was getting ready to go through the roof. So instead it became the Hulkamaniacs versus the Warriors. It was an incredible match—all the excitement, all the drama of the false finishes, and then the first time Hogan lost clean, and that really meant something. Of course, everything is choreographed, but that speaks even more strongly about what type of impact The Ultimate Warrior was going to have on the business.”

Here’s Hulk Hogan on the Steve Austin podcast in 2019:

“I had my gimmick going. All of the sudden the Ultimate Warrior comes along, and he has the neon colors on, I have a big set of arms and one big ab, he has a 12-pack. All the sudden I’m sitting in a room and seeing Vince look at him and not really look at me anymore and Vince is calculating the dollar signs. I could see Vince seeing him as a better money-making package than me because I had been along for a while.”

“When we did the WrestleMania thing, we did the build-up pretty good. Then it gets time to go over the finish, and whether I’m going over or not, I have the same two questions: Why are we doing this, and what happens next? When I was told to put the Warrior over, I asked those questions and Vince said, ‘I think the red and yellow is over, we have gotten everything we can out of it.’ And I was like, ‘Damn, Vince what if after the finish I point to God, give him the belts and leave, but I do that slow Three Stooges turn, I go back and gaff his ass and call myself Triple H, Hollywood Hulk Hogan? He said, ‘that would never work and you can’t be a heel.’ So, he squashed that.” (WrestlingINC)

Hogan also commented on the post match exchange where “stole the spotlight” a bit from Warrior:

“I knew if I slid back out there and grabbed that belt from Hebner, looked up to God and said okay and handed it to him, it would work,” Hogan exclaimed. “He is the one that pulled me in for the hug and he said, ‘I love you’. Now, when I leave, I was betting on the people to follow me going down that aisle. And when you watch, every person is watching me down that aisle, not him celebrating in the ring.”

What I Think Now

This is one of those matches where I’ll probably get feedback from people saying this match should be higher ranked. That’s because when a lot of us watched this match we were kids, we remember it as a big deal and we hold it in high regard because of that. I’m not denying its greatness by placing it in the #33 spot. If this was a list about the most important matches in WrestleMania history it would have been in the top ten. That’s not what it’s about.

To the credit of both men, as well as Pat Patterson, who helped put it together, they had a better match than most people were expecting. Neither man was really known for match quality. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s it wasn’t always about that. It was more about being larger than life characters that people paid to see, which both guys were.

I had a smile on my face watching the ending because I remember it so well. Not only did I watch it live, but I had the VHS tape a few months after it took place. It was a match that I watched so many times. As I sat here watching it again today, I found myself calling the spots before they took place. As I mentioned in the review, when Hogan missed the leg drop it was a big deal. Warrior

The Aftermath

Warrior held the WWE Title until the 1991 Royal Rumble. Business wasn’t great on top, so the decision was made for him to drop the title to heel Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter at that show (thanks to interference from Randy Savage) and Hogan won back the WWE Title at WrestleMania 7. In other words, Warrior’s run on top wasn’t that successful. Some might call it a failure because his run as a top guy lasted a lot shorter than WWE likely expected.

There was no Hogan vs. Warrior rematch in WWE. It happened in WCW at Halloween Havoc 1998. The match was awful, which is another reason why the WrestleMania 6 match is so special.

I think WWE made a mistake by not doing another Hogan vs. Warrior match. It could have been huge. The problem was that Hogan took time off at various points due to acting roles while Warrior was hired and fired a bunch of times because he of drug issues as well as complaints about money. A rematch would have drawn huge money for WWE if they did it right.

Final Thoughts

It was fun to watch the match again and reflect back on the things that made it special. Hogan may be the best wrestler ever in terms of getting a crowd to react to everything he did even when it was the most basic thing. Warrior had the crowd firmly behind him too, but he was more of a raw athlete that didn’t have a great grasp for the little things that built up a match. For this match, though, they got it right.

If you want more information about this match and WrestleMania itself I highly recommend the Bruce Prichard “Something to Wrestle With” Podcast covering WrestleMania 6. There’s a lot of great info there provided by Bruce because he was a key figure backstage in WWE during those days, so he provided us with the kind of insight that nobody else has done before. Prichard explained that even though it was a big match, it wasn’t as much of a financial success as you might have thought. WrestleMania 5 with Hogan beating a heel Randy Savage did a lot better one year earlier. Still, I think you can call Hogan-Warrior a huge success.

That’s all for me. Check out the full list of my WWE PPV Review archive right here. Thanks for reading.

John Canton

Email mrjohncanton@gmail.com