Hulk Hogan's Original WrestleMania IX Would Have Ruined Goldust

TheSportster

By Josh Coulson

Published Dec 29, 2017

Hulk Hogan was known to throw around his backstage clout to influence matches, and it turns out, that ability saved a future iconic gimmick—Goldust.

The initial plans for Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania IX were very different to the ones that ended up coming to fruition.

Hulk Hogan has wrestled an awful lot of WrestleManias. In fact, he is currently the only man to headline four consecutive Manias, although that record is very much under threat with Roman Reigns currently sitting on three and counting. During Hogan's heyday though there weren't as many Superstars on the roster for The Immortal One to run through like there are for The Big Dog today.

In fact in the build to WrestleMania IX Vince McMahon and others in charge of putting together the cards at the time weren't entirely sure who they had for Hogan at The Showcase of the Immortals. That is pretty evident by what The Hulkster wound up doing at the event. Firstly, he competed in a tag match alongside Brutus The Barber Beefcake before inserting himself into a WWE Title match against Yokozuna at the end of the night.

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Those odd and thrown together bookings weren't what some had in mind for Hogan, however. On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, co-host Bruce Prichard revealed that he was lobbying for Goldust to take on WWE's crown jewel. At the time Goldust was still simply Dustin Rhodes as he hadn't yet donned the gold and black paint and wasn't even with WWE at the time.

Goldust wrestled for WWE previously before leaving with his father, but it occurred to Prichard that he might be a suitable opponent for Hogan when watching him wrestle for WCW. Prichard suggested the idea to Mr. McMahon and then they proceeded to call Hogan. Turns out The Hulkster was less than enamored with the idea, citing that he had seen him before and was less than impressed with his look at the time.

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Prichard said after telling the anecdote that despite it being a potentially great step for Dustin Rhodes at the time, he's glad it didn't happen. If it had Rhodes may never have become Goldust. While Goldust is perhaps one of the most underutilized Superstars in WWE history, he has still had an incredible career and continues to compete on Raw well over 20 years later.