During a recent episode of Something To Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard gave his thoughts on the match between Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels at Summerslam 2005. Here’s what he had to say:
There was an initial reaction of ‘Do you need to turn either guy?’ The feeling being that, in reality, there were just going to be Shawn fans and Hulk fans. The overall feeling was taking the guy from the 80s and the guy from the 90s and putting them against one another. Each had their own legion of fans and followers and what have you. It was kind of a natural. But I don’t think you really had to turn anybody. Shawn could do heelish things, and Hogan did do heelish things. Their fans forgave them, and the other person’s fans despised them for that. It was just kind of playing into both men’s personalities and not making a full-fledged ‘Oh my god, this guy’s gotta be a heel.’ Yeah, eventually we got there. But even when we got there, I think it was still divided somewhat.
Again, as I’ve said before, as far as turning heel and what people considered turning heel to their audience and fans, they weren’t turning heel. They were saying everything that was true and they were doing what they wanted them to do. Both guys in a traditional sense turned heel.
In the beginning, yeah both were very receptive to it. It was a conglomeration of the writing team in getting to this match. It might have been Michael Hayes even that first suggested the match, to the best of my recollection. It was something everybody was saying ‘If we can only get to this, shit, this could be good.’ Because again, you had the two heroes from two different eras.
You can listen below:
Credit: Something To Wrestle With. H/T 411Mania.
