Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior (Jan 1990 – Aug 1991)

Background

By the spring of 1990, Hulk Hogan had been the WWF's top attraction for six years, holding the WWF Championship through two long reigns and headlining every WrestleMania to that point.[1] He had beaten Andre the Giant, Randy Savage, and every credible villain the company could put in front of him, and by his own later admission the run had worn him down. "Seven years of carrying the load as the main event guy had taken its toll on me," he said of the period.[4]

Only one other performer in the company was drawing money and selling merchandise at a rate close to Hogan's: Ultimate Warrior. Jim Hellwig broke in as a bodybuilder turned wrestler in 1985, working with a bodybuilding troupe called Powerteam USA before wrestling as part of the Freedom Fighters tag team with a young Sting in Memphis's CWA, then as Blade Runner Rock in Bill Watts's Mid-South territory and Dingo Warrior in World Class.[2] He joined the WWF in June 1987, and Vince McMahon, unhappy with "Dingo," rebranded him Ultimate Warrior.[2]

Warrior's rise was fast after that. He won the Intercontinental Championship from Honky Tonk Man in 27 seconds at the first SummerSlam in 1988, lost it to Rick Rude, then won it back at SummerSlam 1989.[2] By late 1989 he had also worked house-show main events against Andre the Giant, the kind of spot the company reserved for a performer it already trusted at the top of a card.[2] Hogan was privately dismissive of Warrior's in-ring polish, saying years later that Warrior was "the most chiseled bodybuilder to come into the wrestling business" but had "no wrestling psychology." Warrior's t-shirt and poster sales told a different story regardless.[4]

With two top babyfaces at a similar altitude and nothing left to prove against anyone else, the company had one card left to play: put both of them, and both of their titles, in the same match.

Build-up

The story began, almost by accident, inside the Royal Rumble match itself. At the January 21, 1990 Royal Rumble in Orlando, Hogan and Warrior were both still in the ring late in the 30-man match, and the crowd started reacting to the two of them looking at each other rather than to whoever else was in the ring.[3] They traded shoulder tackles that neither man budged from, ran the ropes into a double clothesline that put both of them down, and by the time they got back up the moment had done its job. Warrior was eliminated soon after; Hogan went on to win the Rumble.[3]

Six days later, on the January 27 Saturday Night's Main Event in Chattanooga, Hogan and Warrior teamed against Mr. Perfect and The Genius, with Perfect and Poffo absorbing most of the offense to make the two stars look strong.[6] After the bell, Perfect attacked Hogan from behind; Warrior, still celebrating and not looking, threw a clothesline that caught Hogan instead of Perfect.[6] Hogan shoved Warrior, Warrior shoved back, and the two stood chest to chest until officials separated them, with Jesse Ventura telling the audience at ringside that the two men's egos were too big for them to share a tag team.[6]

On February 3, Hogan turned the tension into a direct challenge, telling the WWF's television audience it was time to find out once and for all whether Hulkamania or "the power of the Warrior" was the strongest force in the company.[1] WWF President Jack Tunney made the match official for WrestleMania VI on February 10, and on February 24 the promotion announced the stipulation that gave the show its tagline: both men's championships, the WWF Championship and the Intercontinental Championship, would be on the line in the same match, champion versus champion.[1]

The two had never had a singles match against each other, and the company kept it that way in the weeks before WrestleMania: no measuring-stick tag matches, no more crossovers, just the challenge and the title stakes doing the selling.

WrestleMania VI landed at the SkyDome in Toronto on April 1, 1990, the first WrestleMania held outside the United States, with "The Ultimate Challenge" as the show's full-card headline.[1] The building itself was untested for an event this size: it was hosting its first major entertainment show, and its Jumbotron alone ran on 420,000 light bulbs.[5]

The card nearly lost its power supply entirely that week. A labor dispute between the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Ontario Hydro raised the real possibility of a blackout across Toronto, and on March 30 the utility warned residents to stock up on candles and flashlights because generators were already sold out locally.[5] Show producer Nelson Sweglar later said the SkyDome had nowhere near enough backup power to keep WrestleMania running through an outage. "It wasn't practical to have enough standby power to just continue the show if the power would have failed, because the building itself would have asked the audience to leave," he said, adding that he kept the risk from Vince McMahon until after the event had gone off safely, since there was nothing McMahon could have done about it beforehand anyway.[5]

The Matches

WrestleMania VI drew an announced 67,678 fans to the SkyDome, a building record at the time, though the Wrestling Observer's contemporaneous count, based on box-office accounting rather than the promoted figure, put the paid crowd closer to 64,287 for a live gate of $3.4 million.[1][12] Between the arena, pay-per-view, and closed-circuit screens, the show grossed an estimated $19 million, the second-largest gross in the sport's history to that point, even though the PPV buyrate came in around 3.8 percent, down from the six-to-ten percent range of the four previous WrestleManias.[12]

Referee Earl Hebner opened the match with a test of strength between the two men, and it settled into a long, physical grind rather than a fast-paced sprint. Commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura called a match built on rest holds and power spots more than mat wrestling, with both men visibly gassing early, Hogan working over Warrior's knee and back and leaning on chinlocks to control the pace, and Warrior firing back with clotheslines and shoulder tackles of his own.[14][15]

The match ran 22 minutes and 47 seconds.[15] Late in the bout, Warrior connected with his running splash but was slow getting to the cover, and Hogan kicked out.[14][15] Hogan hulked up, absorbed more punishment, and set up his boot-to-the-face-into-legdrop finishing sequence; Warrior read it, ducked the legdrop, and connected with a second big splash for the three count.[15] Even as the referee's hand hit the mat for three, Hogan sold one last defiant twitch, a wrestler unwilling to look fully finished even in the moment he lost.[15]

Warrior celebrated wildly once his hand was raised, and the SkyDome, split between two of its biggest heroes for the better part of twenty minutes, roared through the finish and again moments later when Hogan handed over the belt.[15]

It was Hogan's first clean pinfall loss in the WWF since 1981.[1] Rather than let Hebner hand over the title, Hogan retrieved the WWF Championship belt himself, placed it in Warrior's hands, and raised his arm before leaving him alone in the ring.[1][4] Warrior became the first wrestler to hold the WWF Championship and Intercontinental Championship at the same time, though the promotion's rule against one wrestler holding two singles titles forced him to vacate the Intercontinental belt the next day.[1] Pro Wrestling Illustrated's readers later voted it 1990's Match of the Year.[1]

Aftermath

The vacant Intercontinental title kicked off an eight-man tournament that ran through the spring, with Mr. Perfect beating Tito Santana in the final, aired on the May 19, 1990 Superstars, to become champion.[13] Perfect held the belt into the fall before losing it to Kerry Von Erich at SummerSlam 1990, continuing the same title's chain of custody just months after Warrior had to give it up.

Hogan's loss came with a built-in injury angle. In May 1990, Earthquake attacked Hogan during an appearance on The Brother Love Show, using a steel chair and an Earthquake Splash that WWF television sold as a legitimate rib injury, with Hogan stretchered out and his career status left in doubt for weeks.[1] The angle rebuilt sympathy for Hogan and launched a feud with Earthquake that ran through SummerSlam 1990 and into 1991.

Warrior's reign as WWF Champion, intended to establish him as the company's new top babyface, lasted about nine months.[1] Through 1990 he successfully defended the title against Ted DiBiase, Mr. Perfect, Haku, and Rick Rude, before losing it to Sgt. Slaughter at the January 19, 1991 Royal Rumble, with Randy Savage and Sensational Sherri interfering to cost him the match.[2] That loss pulled Warrior into a program with Savage that closed with Savage's career-on-the-line loss at WrestleMania VII.[2]

Hogan and Warrior shared a ring one more time as a team, at SummerSlam 1991 in Madison Square Garden, beating Sgt. Slaughter, Col. Mustafa, and General Adnan in a tag match built around the Gulf War storyline; it was their final televised match as partners.[4] The same night carried the beginning of the end of Warrior's WWF run. Hours before the show, Warrior told Vince McMahon he would not perform unless he was paid immediately; McMahon paid him to save the card, then handed Warrior a termination letter right after the match, calling the demand a breach of contract.[11]

Behind the Scenes

The match happened because the company had run out of alternatives. Hogan had beaten every credible top villain the WWF could produce, and only Warrior was drawing money and selling merchandise at a comparable rate.[4] By Hogan's own account, he was also running low: "my mind wasn't focused on wrestling the way it should have been," he said of the period, framing the loss less as a fight he'd lost and more as a moment he'd more or less accepted.[4]

What happened backstage that night is where the story gets less tidy. In interviews given over the following decades, Hogan has repeatedly said that he asked Vince McMahon, around the time he was handing over the title, whether he could turn on Warrior instead. "I wanted to turn into a bad guy after the Ultimate Warrior beat me... I went to Vince. I said, 'Well, I don't mind putting the Warrior over, but what's next?'"[8] McMahon, in Hogan's telling, shut the idea down flatly, telling him his "red and yellow run's over" and rejecting Hogan's pitch to become "Hollywood Hulk Hogan" on the spot, five years before that persona actually existed.[8]

The tension between the two had already surfaced on camera once before the big match. During the January 27 tag match against Mr. Perfect and The Genius, the post-match clothesline and shoving match between Hogan and Warrior was physical enough that Ventura's in-match commentary, framing their egos as too big to share a team, read as much like an observation as a scripted tease.[6]

The real friction, though, was about money, and it surfaced within a year. By July 1991, Warrior was refusing to accept his WrestleMania VII payoff as fair, writing McMahon a handwritten letter demanding parity with Hogan: "I demand the same pay cuts as Hulk Hogan… I demand the same video cuts as Hulk Hogan," and telling him, "I meant as much or more to that show as Hulk."[9][11] McMahon agreed to Warrior's terms in writing rather than lose him before SummerSlam. Then, hours before the show, Warrior told McMahon he would not perform without the money in hand immediately. McMahon paid him to protect the sold-out card, then handed him a termination letter right after the match, characterizing the ultimatum as a breach of contract.[11]

Warrior's reputation for friction wasn't limited to Hogan. Bret Hart later wrote that Warrior once failed to show up for a scheduled Make-A-Wish visit backstage, an episode Hart said cost Warrior his respect, and Sting, Warrior's old tag partner from his Freedom Fighters days, has described him as high-strung and paranoid even by wrestling locker room standards.[10]

The public war of words outlived both men's active careers. WWE's 2005 DVD The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior featured Hogan criticizing Warrior at length, including blaming him for the failure of their 1998 WCW rematch, and Warrior answered back in his own shoot interviews and website posts for years afterward.[9]

The two men's last moment together came during WrestleMania XXX weekend in April 2014. Hogan has said the two talked, forgave each other, hugged, and told each other "I love you" backstage. Warrior's widow, Dana, later publicly questioned how genuine the moment was, noting that Hogan never reached out to her after Warrior's death.[9]

Legacy

Pro Wrestling Illustrated's readers named the WrestleMania VI main event 1990's Match of the Year, and retrospectives still return to it among WrestleMania's greatest matches, precisely because so little of the usual heel-versus-face machinery was in it: two undefeated action figures settling an argument in one match instead of building to it over months of angles.[1][15]

Some retrospective analysis is less kind to what came after. One assessment argued that "the money was in Warrior chasing the title, not being the one to hold it," pointing to how quickly Warrior's reign ended and how little direction the company had for him once he actually had the belt.[7] Warrior's nine-month reign, ended by Sgt. Slaughter with Savage's help, supports that reading: the show built an enormous moment and then had comparatively little use for the champion it created.[2]

Warrior died on April 8, 2014, three days after his WWE Hall of Fame induction and his final on-camera appearance on Raw that same WrestleMania XXX week.[2] Hogan wrote on social media afterward: "RIP WARRIOR. Only love... We talked, both forgave each other, we hugged, we shook hands as we told each other I love you."[9] WWE has since established the annual Warrior Award, given to individuals the company says embody perseverance and the "Warrior Spirit."[4]

Hogan went on to headline four more WrestleManias over the following decade. Warrior's WWF career, by contrast, ended up defined as much by the contract disputes that followed WrestleMania VI as by the match itself. Decades later, the SkyDome main event remains the reference point fans and historians reach for whenever two protected, undefeated top babyfaces are put in the same match: proof it can be an enormous one-night spectacle, and a cautionary tale about what tends to come after.

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. WrestleMania VI — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_VI
2. The Ultimate Warrior — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Warrior
3. Royal Rumble (1990) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rumble_(1990)
4. Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior | The True Story of WrestleMania 6 — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/hulk-hogan-ultimate-warrior/
5. WrestleMania's Iconic Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior Match Almost Never Happened — Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wrestlemanias-iconic-hulk-hogan-ultimate-warrior-match-almost-never-happened/
6. WWF Saturday Night's Main Event, January 27th 1990 — Blog of Doom. https://www.blogofdoom.com/2017/06/17/wwf-saturday-nights-main-event-january-27th-1990/
7. WrestleMania VI: Hogan Passes The Torch (Sort Of) — Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/137333-wrestlemania-vi-hogan-passes-the-torch-sort-of
8. Hulk Hogan Claims He Pitched Heel Turn And 'Triple H Hollywood Hulk Hogan' Persona After WrestleMania VI — Yahoo Entertainment. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hulk-hogan-claims-pitched-heel-142248416.html
9. Ultimate Warrior & Hulk Hogan's Complicated Real Life Relationship — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/ultimate-warrior-hulk-hogan-complicated-real-life-relationship/
10. 10 Backstage Stories About The Ultimate Warrior We Can't Believe — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/backstage-stories-ultimate-warrior/
11. The Ultimate Warrior: The Ransom Note That Held SummerSlam 1991 Hostage — Wrestling News. https://wrestlingnews.co/stories/ultimate-warrior-ransom-note-held-summerslam-1991-hostage/
12. 1990 Wrestling Observer Yearbook (contemporaneous buyrate and gate figures) — Archive.org. https://archive.org/stream/1990wrestlingobserveryearbook/1990%20Wrestling%20Observer%20Yearbook_djvu.txt
13. Tito Santana vs. Mr. Perfect - Intercontinental Championship Tournament Finals, Superstars, May 19, 1990 — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/tito-santana-vs-mr-perfect-intercontinental-championship-tournament-finals-superstars-may-19-1990
14. Wrestling Recap: Hogan vs. Warrior (WrestleMania VI) — Dr. K's Waiting Room. https://drkwaitingroom.com/2025/03/27/wrestling-recap-wm6/
15. TJR WrestleMania's Greatest Matches: Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan @ WrestleMania 6 — TJR Wrestling. https://tjrwrestling.net/review/wrestlemania-6-ultimate-warrior-hulk-hogan/

Further Listening

• Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard — WrestleMania VI episode
• The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior (2005) — WWE Home Video
• Ultimate Warrior shoot interviews (various, 1990s–2000s) — Warrior's own retrospective accounts of WrestleMania VI and his WWF exit