Back in the early 1990s, WWE largely still relied on a formula that had worked for them for some time. Hulk Hogan was the larger than life hero. The opposite side of the ring saw an overwhelming force of a villain who, through some combination of size or a personal advantage posed a real threat.
Earthquake was one of the last great stars WWE introduced in this format. At four hundred plus pounds, he was a natural monster heel and after dominating mid-carders, got plugged into a big time rivalry with Hulk Hogan going into the summer of 1990. From a distance of three decades, this article takes a look back at ten things many fans may not have realized about the story between these two.
10 The Rivalry Included Hulk Hogan’s First Singles Match At SummerSlam
SummerSlam is a tentpole event for WWE, dating back to 1988, and quite arguably second only to WrestleMania when it comes to consistently playing host to marquee matches between WWE’s biggest stars. It’s only natural that Hulk Hogan would operate at or around the top of the card for the early SummerSlam events, but it may surprise fans to know that he didn’t work his first singles match at the event until three iterations in.
The first two years saw Hogan cast in tag team matches, first with Randy Savage opposite Ted Dibiase and Andre the Giant, and then teamed with Brutus Beefcake against Savage and Zeus. That means that The Hulkster actually made his one on one SummerSlam debut in 1990 when he clashed with Earthquake.
9 WWE Used Hogan’s Injury Angle To Boost Their Merchandise
On an episode of Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, Prichard revealed an unlikely scheme that WWE pulled off at the intersection of creative and merchandising. Earthquake attacked Hulk Hogan, putting him in the hospital with a kayfabe injury. In turn, WWE offered up an address for fans to send The Hulkster get well messages (in reality, the general consensus was that Hogan used this time to act in the movie Suburban Commando).
The twist was that WWE used the return addresses of fans who wrote to them to populate a mailing list for their merchandise catalogs. The campaign gave the company a high volume of new addresses for highly committed fans particularly likely to spend money on WWE products.
8 Tugboat Was Being Set Up As Hogan’s Next Big Rival
In the build to SummerSlam 1990, Hulk Hogan introduced Tugboat to fans as his friend. WWE marketed that the big man would be in The Hulkster’s corner to counteract Dino Bravo and Jimmy Hart backing Earthquake.
However, when SummerSlam rolled around, it was Jim Duggan positioned as Hogan’s cornerman instead. A kayfabe injury angle took Tugboat out of the picture, but Bruce Prichard suggested on his podcast that this was all a bigger plot to set up Tugboat ultimately turning on Hogan to build to WrestleMania 7. The premise was that while Tugboat visited Hogan in the hospital and rallied fans behind him when he was hurt, Hogan didn’t return the favor, thus giving the super heavyweight a justification to turn on The Hulkster.
7 They Had The Only SummerSlam Match Hulk Hogan Didn’t Win By Pin Fall
Hulk Hogan has never lost a match at SummerSlam. He has never been known as a submission grappler either, and so it’s not altogether unexpected that he won almost all of his matches via pin, dating back to his original tag team clash with the Mega Bucks and reaching as far forward as his intergenerational dream match with Randy Orton.
Hogan’s match with Earthquake in 1990 marked the one exception, as Hogan won via countout in this outing. The less than decisive finish protected Earthquake to set up future PPV confrontations as well as their run on the house show market.
6 They Only Had One PPV Singles Match
The feud between Hulk Hogan and Earthquake stretched from when the monster heel attacked Hogan in May 1990 straight through January 1991. For all that time, and for as high profile as their issue was, it’s funny to think that they only had one PPV singles match at SummerSlam.
To be fair, it was a different time, with only four annual PPVs on WWE’s calendar. However, the two did clash again as they were on opposing Survivor Series teams. Finally, they blew things off when they were the last two men in the 1991 Royal Rumble, at which point Hogan eliminated his rival to put the feud behind him.
5 Earthquake Was Only In His Twenties
To put things in perspective, The Ultimate Warrior was quite young for a WWE Champion, at only thirty years of age when Hulk Hogan put him over at WrestleMania 6. At WrestleMania 7, Hogan faced a forty-two-year-old Sgt. Slaughter. In between these rivalries, The Hulkster, himself in his mid-thirties, feuded with Earthquake, who was nearly a decade his junior.
The Canadian big man was twenty-six when he attacked Hogan, and newly twenty-seven for their SummerSlam match. Of course, the saddest part of realizing how young Earthquake was at the time is how young he was when he passed, being only forty-two at his time of death.
4 Shades Of Andre The Giant To Start The Feud
There are a number of parallels that might be drawn between Hulk Hogan’s feud with Earthquake and his earlier issue with Andre the Giant. Not least of all, these were both cases in which The Hulkster was legitimately pitted against a monster heel who legitimately outweighed him by a hundred-plus pounds.
As an additional wrinkle, both Andre and Earthquake kickstarted their rivalries with Hogan by attacking him on talk shows. For Andre, it was more of an emotional assault as he revealed his heel turn and challenged Hogan on the set of Piper’s Pit. Years later, The Brother Love Show set the stage for Earthquake to physically beat down Hogan.
3 Earthquake Had An Amateur Wrestling Background
When fans remember Earthquake, they tend to think of him first and foremost for being a super heavyweight heel, who could thus threaten faces like Hogan by virtue of his sheer size and strength. Next, they might think of his striking agility for a man of his size.
Fans might not realize, however, that Earthquake also brought a legitimate amateur wrestling pedigree to the table. Bruce Prichard discussed the matter on his podcast, citing how the combination of John Tenta’s real wrestling, football, and sumo wrestling added up to make him a uniquely talented big man.
2 Their Match Was On The First Of Only Two SummerSlams For Hogan When He Didn’t Main Event
Over the course of his career, Hulk Hogan worked six SummerSlam events. He main evented the first two iterations, as well as the fourth, in star-studded tag team match scenarios. Over a decade later, he’d return to SummerSlam and headline with Shawn Michaels.
The Hulkster’s final SummerSlam saw him work in the middle of the card, though, albeit in an intergenerational dream match with Randy Orton. That marked only the second time Hogan hadn’t main evented a SummerSlam show that he worked. The first time was in 1990 when his match with Earthquake took a backseat to a world title confrontation between The Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude.
1 Hogan Lobbied For Earthquake In WCW
On-screen, Hulk Hogan and Earthquake were never allied, but by most accounts, the two got along well backstage. As Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson have gotten into on the 83 Weeks podcast, Hogan had a tendency to like working with people he was familiar with—whom he trusted and knew could work his style of match. As such, it made sense that he lobbied for WCW to bring in Earthquake to work opposite him in the mid-1990s.
Hogan and John Tenta wouldn’t actually work one on one in any high profile matches for WCW but were on opposing sides for a number confrontations, with the big man representing first The Three Faces of Fear, and later the Dungeon of Doom faction.