Kevin Sullivan Says Hulk Hogan Used Creative Control To Put The WCW Title On Randy Savage
WCW had their World Title on the line at their 3-ring 60-man battle royal match at the 1995 World War 3 pay per view. The end result had Randy Savage walking out victorious as the new champion, last eliminating One Man Gang.
The title had been held up after The Giant (now known as The Big Show) defeated Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc, winning it after a stipulation allowed the title to change hands on a DQ when Jimmy Hart turned on Hulk Hogan to cause a DQ and cost him the title. Eventually the ruse was found out that Jimmy Hart slipped in the stipulation and because of the controversy, WCW stipped Giant of the title and put it up at World War 3.
This pay per view was the topic of conversation on the recent episode of Taskmaster Talks, a podcast with Kevin Sullivan. Kevin Sullivan was one of the head bookers in 1995 and talked about how Hulk Hogan exercised creative control to put the WCW Title on Randy Savage in the World War 3 battle royal. Sullivan says The Giant was supposed to win the title back in that match, but Hogan exercised his creative control to put the belt on Savage to allow him multiple people to work with after returning from some time off.
“You know the thing is there was always that love/hate relationship with Hogan and Macho. One thing is, they drew money together. Just think about this. Doesn’t this solidify Hogan’s work rate better with Macho than with a big green kid? People can say what they want about Hulk, but Hulk’s a smart guy and with Randy, has there ever been a better match at WrestleMania than him and Steamboat? Randy is a super intense guy. With Hogan, he gave more than 110%. I think looking back at it, it was a hard way to get there. It’s not the cleanest way to get there, but for this time, for Hulk, it worked. Knowing he (Hogan) was not going to be on some PPVs, he thought, and I did too, that Randy was the best choice to keep it rolling. Then when he came back, he had two opponents to work with, The Giant and Randy. So he was stacking up opponents for him to work with. I look at it and think, yea, you can’t go wrong with Randy Savage as your World Champion.”
Savage’s reign wouldn’t last long, as he dropped the title to Ric Flair at Starrcade the following month. The two would then trade the belt again when Savage won the belt back on an episode of Nitro in January of 1996, with Flair regaining the title at SuperBrawl VI in a steel cage match that saw Miss Elizabeth turn on Savage.
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