What if Hulk Hogan didn't join the WWF in 1983?

The WWF was in a financial crisis with Backlund that was the problem ever since they put the title on him. Vince Jr. in 1982 had to buy the company off of his dad and other shareholders like Gorilla Monsoon (guaranteeing him with lifetime employment). Vince was likely respecting his dad's wishes for keeping the belt on Backlund for as long as he did. People were sick of "Howdy Doody", some talent came and left, people wanted change and an over five year title run was enough. If Vince went down the babyface chase route, maybe it might've helped the WWF with the Sheik (with huge heet) keeping the belt a little bit longer.


Taking the title off of Backlund was the right thing to do to keep the WWF afloat and by bringing in talent from every territory as it was "best for business".

There would be no such thing as a wrestling action figure if that was the case.

Actually, the first depiction of a wrestler as a physical plaything to be manipulated by the child playing with it was a Gorgeous George Hand Puppet, so the idea of toys depicting wrestlers has existed since the 50s, but was not capitalized on until the 1980s. Furthermore, your assumption is based on the idea that Vince Mcmahon wouldn't have attempted to capitalize on the increased expendable income of youth in the 1980s. Secondly, the success of Star Wars and He-Man and multi-million dollar franchises was relevant to the attempts of WWF to enter the Toy Market/appeal to the youth demographic.

Your claim is akin to saying that if, and only if, a certain guitarist never existed, we wouldn't have a global industry surrounding guitar hobbyists and semi-professional to professional level enthusiasts. The popularity of the medium necessitates the growth you would be attributed to any given person. The person was the first, but that does not, rarely does in any case, necessitate that that person is the only person who could have brought on such and such a change. That being said, I actually use figures that aren't wrestling figures more often than figures that do depict wrestlers, simply because said figures are better at performing wrestling moves. I mention this simply because only in the past decade have wrestling figures caught up with the rest of the figure market in terms of mobility. And as someone who used to own 300 JAKKS RA figures, I'm not saying I didn't love my RAs, of which I had two Hogans because I was 12 and loved the Classic Superstars Line.

True that Verne like many other promoters were all about tradition and the handshakes and what not, but perhaps Greg could've made an impact down the road, but probably would be too late if the JCP invade the rest of the territories. 

One of those gateway 520(?) messages? I was getting those on my phone quite a bit last week. It got to the point that I would copy my text before I hit the post button just in case it crashed.

while I actually agree with your sentiments, wrestling was bound to go national as it was a proven commodity. capitalism drove only one module to succeed, and of course that’s the method that derives the most profit for one individual.

I wanted to add that Jim Cornette believes that eventually that's where the WWE will head towards; a more "territorial" system. Seems far fetched, but you never know. WWE has to adapt, their programming is uninteresting, kids who grew up with John Cena are just that growing up and may move away from WWE, RAW has had some terrible ratings lately etc. Right now there in international expansion mode because domestically just as it was in 1992, things are going downhill. Territorial could work if they divide the WWE into a few territories in the US and Canada, and perhaps start creating "teams" much like in other teams so the Mid-Souths or the West Coast could be at each others throats something like that. 

Well seeing you guys are turning this into a modern topic I am going give you a chance to bring it back to the original topic of if not Hogan who would carry the WWE in 1983. But if I see anymore modern wrestling references here I will either lock it or to move it to the WWE board which I don’t want to have to do.

That would be up to the Admins.