Credit: WWE.com
Ever since WWE aired the Firefly Funhouse "match" I have been digesting what we saw. That thing was wrestling porn to all the fans who actually lived through all the eras alluded to. I don't really go back to the Saturday Night Main Event era but I grew up a Hogan fan and fondly remember the old steel cage with the blue bars. If you were paying attention, that segment was homage to the GOAT. Egomania and Hulkamania went hand in hand, brother. The nWo killed the wrestling business and I'm not sure how anything can bring it back. The part that showed Cena playing Hollywood Hogan? If you're woke like me, you realize that Cena turning heel mid career like most of us wanted him to would have likely made him the coolest heel that sold the most merch. Kinda like The Fiend.
The wrestling business was a different animal back in the 90s. Smart fans existed then. You can read the newsletters from then and also find old forums and such where fans made their opinions known. Back then, it took fans a good decade to tire of Hogan's babyface character. John Cena did not get to work on top a full year before fans saw through it and started turning on him. I still insist: if Daniel Bryan did not get hurt before the big SummerSlam beatdown at the hands of Brock Lesnar that Cena took in his place, marks would have rejoiced at the sight. Roman Reigns couldn't even win the Rumble and get his coronation before marks turned on him. Honestly, I have no idea why fans hate whoever the top guy is. It feels like fans like when no one really stands out and the belt changes hands every few months as opposed to when people hold it for a year or more. (With the exception of CM Punk.)
As I was saying: it wasn't just WCW fans that were starting to reject Hulkamania. It was not the loud boos Roman got, or the half boos Cena got, but rather, people started cheering loudly when people got one over on Hogan. It was jarring to see. It was like Metropolis cheering Lex Luthor poisoning Superman with kryptonite. People have pointed to Hogan's heel turn as why Cena should have turned and Roman should have turned BUT the fans are different now. When Hogan turned, the fans who were starting to turn on him were mad he turned his back on them. They filled the ring with trash and marks hit the ring. I look back on that time and wonder how things would be different if they had actually done it right. That sentence might have upset your sensibilities as a fan. A smart observer could say Hogan was directly responsible for the two biggest boom periods in wrestling history. A cynic could also say his first one killed babyfaces as top guys and the second one killed all the babyfaces at the time. See, the nWo was like an invading force that was never actually stopped or beaten... They would just get bored with it and go away from it for a while or people would get hurt. They did not use the hot heel faction to get any WCW wrestlers over or make them look cool. Nothing was or is cooler than nWo.
Back when Hogan turned, that was them leaning into the growing negative feeling towards him. Now, marks suggest that if you turn a guy getting booed heel, then we will like him. That is literally the opposite of how heel turns are supposed to work. They also tout The Rock getting his personality over as a heel as why you should turn people. Again: the ideal heel does not have people chanting his name or saying all his catchphrases and popping at his every utterance. Seth Rollins. I knew immediately when The Shield first turned babyface that he could not work as a face. He has the moveset but not the promo or the voice. He sounds so hateable when he talks. And the more he has done interviews and used social media, the more he proves how naturally unlikeable he is. Marks appreciate his athleticism and thought he was preferable to Roman. Bray Wyatt once coined the phrase "Anyone but you, Roman." and welp.
The hardest thing to do is be a true babyface and stay over as that. It's easy to be edgy and dark and cut corners and be a merch selling heel. I'm not trying to take anything away from The Fiend BUT he has never been anything but the cool heel since he debuted the Bray Wyatt character. I think that if he tried to be a white meat babyface fans would hate him and then once he turns back heel, we will still remember the failure of the face turn. (Looks at Seth Rollins.) John Cena got over because he was edgy. He was tossing bags of nuts at people and alluding to them being homosexual. Even if he kept doing that gimmick going forward it would have gotten old fast. But the clean cut Cena character aged like milk and bananas.
As much as Hollywood Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin advanced the wrestling industry in terms of interest and revenue, they set it back because no one can follow it. Hollywood Hogan played air guitar on the world championship as Jimi Hendrix played. That shit was iconic. He had Dennis Rodman skipping practice because he would rather hang with the nWo DURING A CHAMPIONSHIP RUN. Again I say: nothing and no one was cooler than those dudes. On the other program, you had a guy pouring cases of beer on himself and others, cursing up a storm and flipping birds and hitting his finish on any and everyone. In any other era Stone Cold Steve Austin would have been a heel that needed to be reined in. Post Monday Night War how are you supposed to get over as a babyface and you're not as cool as Hollywood Hogan or Stone Cold?
My short answer: I don't know.