Author's note: I have no expectation that I can roast this as well as the Lapsed Fan guys did, and their podcast on this event did inspire a lot of this.
The scene was the inaugural (should have been only) World War 3. The WCW Title is vacant, because of course Hulk Hogan has found a way to not job it away - to be disqualified as a result of the actions of his traitorous manager, and for a hidden contract clause to cause him to lose the belt as a result. The powers that be at WCW decided to hold it up for the winner of this battle royal. Obviously, like with WrestleMania IV, this setup means that Hogan isn't coming away with the belt, but he's going to make sure to get through it as unscathed as humanly possible, playing the creative card to the hilt.
The event starts, and before the opening match, they throw it to an interview segment with Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Sting. Hulk Hogan, in that "dark side" babyface phase I mentioned in the earlier Hogan/Giant clip (which again means black clothing and no character changes, unless you count trying to legit murder dudes by throwing them off buildings I guess), has decided to dial this segment up as an opportunity to get one over on Dave ****ing Meltzer, who in 2017 parlance was apparently publishing fake news about him or something. Also like in 2017, the so-called fake news was real and accompanied by incontrovertible evidence. Don't Sting and Savage look excited to be doing this segment?
Hogan starts cutting the standard babyface promo. Says he took a walk on the dark side, and that if he had taken that final step, maybe he wouldn't have been here with his two best friends tonight. (
Note: his best friends clearly hate him.) He takes this moment to make a big reveal and shed his black bandana and black tanktop. As the camera zooms wider, we also see that he's had the red-and-yellow pants on in plain view of the crowd from the beginning of the segment, so for some reason he spoiled his dumb surprise for them up front anyway.
Sting tosses Hogan's black tanktop in a nearby canister, seemingly dormant, that suddenly shoots out an unexpectedly large burst of flame. After startling, Savage sort of tries to coolly scurry away, and as the fire's level of control is questionable, Sting keeps looking down at it with increasingly obvious nerves.
Savage, in response to Hogan shedding the black, delivers the nauseating line, "When you're wrong you're wrong, and I was wrong, and I just wanted to say I'm sorry.
You're the coolest dude in the world." Eventually Mean Gene has had enough of this worrisome fire. He speaks up and says, "Uhh, I think we got a little fire going here, can somebody get this out? Hulk, I get the point!"
Now it's time for Hogan to passive-aggressively swipe at Dave Meltzer without ever naming him. "You know what, Mean Gene? Something that's really funny, that we've been laughing about in the back, is the fact that everybody said that the Macho Man has a legitimate injury, brother! What a joke! The Macho Man's arm is perfect! That was just a plan!" [i]So the actual skinny on this: Savage's injury WAS legitimate. And was being acknowledged in storyline. Hogan decided to give this promo to say "HA HA, this injury is a work, brother!" Mind you, in kayfabe it makes zero sense to just announce that the whole thing was a trap THAT HASN'T ****ING BEEN SPRUNG YET. So in kayfabe Savage is faking an injury, and before he can use it to his advantage, Hogan just blows up his spot in a random promo?
As Hogan is doing this crap, Sting's concern with the fire situation is growing, as he first tries to wave it down and then grabs a nearby water bottle to try to do something to get things under control.
Hogan holds up a piece of paper. "
Observe this, brother! This is what we call a rag sheet, brother! They say The Giant is gonna win the match! They said Macho Man was hurt! This is like a dinosaur compared to the Internet, brother! The Internet's got the scoops! We're gonna steal the belt, Stinger, the Macho Man, and Hulk Hogan together. The Macho Man's not hurt! What are you Hulkamaniacs gonna do when the Stinger, the Macho Man, and Hulk Hogan run wild on you guys, brother?!" Gene: "I have no idea what they're gonna do!"
From the unexpectedly uncontrollable fire to Hogan blowing up Savage's legit injury as a work, in a way that makes zero kayfabe sense and now forces Savage to work as if his legit injury is totally fine when he previously had a storyline excuse to favor it, all in the service of firing back at a dirt sheet writer who only reached a niche fanbase back in the mid-90s…I love this segment so much, but its absurdity also earns it a place in this draft.