Impact Wrestling Presents: The Best of Hulk Hogan

Remember the new levels of success Hulk Hogan brought TNA/Impact Wrestling in his run from late 2009 to late 2013? I sure do not, but TNA/Impact decided to release a DVD compiling the highlights of it in 2015 called Impact Wrestling Presents: The Best of Hulk Hogan. Now this video may have slipped through the cracks of most because Impact Wrestling released it in mid-July 2015 just over a week before the leaked tape of Hulk Hogan’s racist-fueled rants leaked. Impact Wrestling quickly pulled the video from its online store, but after some time passed it quietly relisted it.

My memories of the Hulkster’s and Eric Bishoff’s run in TNA (since they both arrived to the company right near the same time) is that they made countless promises to raise TNA’s profile and to make them more competitive to WWE. I recall the daring move of that duo being responsible for getting rid of the TNA-identifier that is the six-sided ring for a traditional four-sided one (which has since been changed back to the six-sided ring). I remember them bringing in every last big ex-WWE name to TNA in early 2010 to step up to compete with them when Impact went head-to-head with WWE on Monday nights….for all of 10 weeks of getting obliterated in the ratings before Spike moved them back to their old timeslot. None of this is covered on the DVD by the way.

What is covered in the opening scenes is highlights of Hogan’s press conference, book signings and his first backstage address to the roster hyping his run in the company and promises to take TNA to new levels of success. Eventually they get to his official on-screen TV debut in January 2010 where Hall, Nash and Pac interrupt his address but Hogan waves them off declaring it time to put the spotlight on the new stars in TNA instead (and Hogan followed this up in the proceeding weeks by bringing in his buddies the Nasty Boys to feud with Team 3D).

The DVD then highlights Hogan by teaming with Abyss and HOGAN GIVING ABYSS HIS WWE HALL OF FAME RING THAT HOGAN STATES WILL MAKE ABYSS THE ‘GOD OF WRESTLING.’ This culminates on the DVD with Abyss and Hogan teaming up to take on Ric Flair and AJ Styles in Impact’s debut head-to-head episode against RAW. The match is a bit of a vintage-TNA shmoz where interference leads to the match being thrown out, and restarted later in the night where Abyss wound up pinning AJ in a wash of a match. The rest of 2010 highlights was a bit of a cluster for Hogan as it shows highlights of Hogan interfering in matches to help Abyss, and then in the very next highlight a couple months later Abyss interrupts a Hogan promo to taunt him in their back-and-fourth rivalry, only to see Abyss join up with Hulk yet again a couple months later at Bound for Glory to form the ‘Immortal Alliance’ faction when Hulk turned villainous in TNA. I have no recollection of this as 2010 was the year I stopped watching Impact on a regular basis because of these constant turns that were happening at an absurd rate and was too much to keep up with.

The DVD then jumps ahead a year to Hulk’s sole singles match in TNA at Bound for Glory 2011 against Sting. I never saw this match before and was curious to see what Hulk was capable of in the ring in 2011, and unfortunately it was not much. Almost all of the match was basic punch/kick brawling and Hogan locking in a chinlock for awhile before Sting got Hogan to tap to the Scorpion Deathlock after eight grueling minutes! The after-match angle with Hogan turning on his Immortal allies after a prolonged beatdown on Sting was the big payoff for this main event as the crowd somehow popped big to get Hogan to bring out his inner Hulkamania once again. As limited as Hulk was here, this match is one of the few bright spots of the compilation since it told a good story and had a red-hot crowd sinking its teeth into it. It is worth noting one of the two extra features on the DVD is a 30 minute montage of the Hogan-Sting rivalry in TNA to build up the match with a ton of past Impact and PPV highlights, so I would recommend watching that before jumping into the match on the DVD.

The final collection of segments on the DVD transpire a little over a year later at the beginning of 2013 that sees Hogan clashing with the Aces n 8s faction. I completely forgot Hulk’s daughter Brooke was in TNA for awhile and had a storyline where she dated Bully Ray that climaxed in an onscreen wedding ceremony that is part of the DVD. Like all wrestling weddings, it goes terribly bad when Aces n 8s runs in and beats up the entire wedding party. The follow up shown to this is a couple months later where Bully Ray reveals he was in on the gig the entire time when he joins up with Aces n 8s and tells off the Hogans. The only appeal to this is the fans rebel to this turn by throwing trash in the ring which I rarely see nowadays in wrestling and it got me a little nostalgic for it when the crowds trashed WCW rings for nearly all nWo segments. The following Impact is shown next where Aces n 8s jumps Hogan only to see Sting come out to his rescue. The feature wraps with a short interview clip from Hogan proclaiming his love for wrestling.

There is one last extra feature on the video and that is a never-before-aired match from an England house show where Hulk Hogan teamed up with Sting and James Storm to take on Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode & Bully Ray in January 2012. Hogan only gets tagged in briefly for two moments in the match and does not do a whole lot, but the Hulkster was mad over in England, especially when his team won. So I think Hulk Hogan was officially in three matches in his four year TNA run, and they are all here!

As awful as this run went for Hogan, almost all of the promos he cuts here have his organic charisma where he is feeling what he is saying and he has the crowd primarily cheering right along with him. When Hogan came back for his last string of WWE appearances between 2014-15 that consisted primarily of legends panels, forgetting the name of the arena he was at when hosting Wrestlemania and silly segments like ‘Ho-Ho-Hogan’ it was readily apparent that Hulk was struggling to memorize a script written for him and his words no longer sounded like his own. It was cringe-inducing to watch, and the only good thing to take away from a lot of the TNA promos in this DVD is it is truly the last you see of the over-the-top, vintage ‘Watcha-gonna-do’ natural Hogan charisma that we all grew up with.

Hulk Hogan and Eric Bishoff left TNA in the fall of 2013. That was a bad year for TNA that saw them take Impact on the road live every week at the urging of Bischoff and Hogan, only to see them stop it after several months due to that experiment bleeding the company money and was a catalyst along with a lot of other decisions that resulted to TNA finally transferring ownership to its present owners at Anthem in 2017. This is not a high recommendation by any means, since most of the material is flatout bad and awful retreads of angles from the Monday Night Wars. Bad content aside, Impact Wrestling Presents: The Best of Hulk Hogan was still a fascinating curiosity because it collected the best/least worst of Hulk’s moments from his last quasi-full-time run in the business.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Clash of Champions
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
The Kliq Rules
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz
Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
TNA Lockdown 2005-2016
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28-Present
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017