Hulk Hogan Claims He Wanted To Turn Heel At WrestleMania VI

The WWE WrestleMania VI main event between Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior at Toronto's Skydome is one of the most iconic matches in professional wrestling history.

According to Hulk Hogan during an appearance on Steve Austin's podcast, that match could have had a much different flavor. Hogan claims during the recent interview that he wanted to turn heel at the show, which would have been over six years before Hogan's eventual iconic heel turn at WCW Bash at the Beach 1996.

"I had my gimmick going," Hogan said. "All the sudden the Ultimate Warrior comes along, and he has the neon colors on, I have a big set of arms and one big ab, he has a 12-pack. All the sudden I'm sitting in a room and seeing Vince look at him and not really look at me anymore and Vince is calculating the dollar signs. I could see Vince seeing him as a better money-making package than me because I had been along for a while.

"When we did the WrestleMania thing, we did the build-up pretty good. Then it gets time to go over the finish, and whether I'm going over or not, I have the same two questions: Why are we doing this, and what happens next? When I was told to put the Warrior over, I asked those questions and Vince said, 'I think the red and yellow is over, we have gotten everything we can out of it.' And I was like, 'Damn, Vince what if after the finish I point to God, give him the belts and leave, but I do that slow Three Stooges turn, I go back and gaff his ass and call myself Triple H, Hollywood Hulk Hogan? He said, 'that would never work and you can't be a heel.' So, he squashed that."

Again, this proposed story is years before Hogan eventually took up the moniker of "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, which makes the story quite interesting, not to mention the use of the name "Triple H." Hogan also claims that he had another idea after the heel turn was shot down by McMahon.

"I knew if I slid back out there and grabbed that belt from Hebner, looked up to God and said okay and handed it to him, it would work," Hogan exclaimed. "He is the one that pulled me in for the hug and he said, 'I love you'. Now, when I leave, I was betting on the people to follow me going down that aisle. And when you watch, every person is watching me down that aisle, not him celebrating in the ring."

That move, which is how it played out, has long been criticized in the wrestling world as Hogan stealing the spotlight from Warrior. A political maneuvering of sorts. Hogan claims otherwise.

"A lot of people don't understand you have to take care of the other guy, more than yourself," Hogan explained. "When I first went to New York and beat the Sheik, because to me it was a shoot. Anytime a man makes more money than me, that's a shoot because I want your spot. When I came back in '84, Vince always paid the champion more money, I tried to hold him to that as long as a could.

"The other thing I fought for is whoever I worked with, whether they beat me, it was a DQ, a Job, whatever. They were worth more money going out then they were coming in. I could go into a building and face Piper or Orndorff and say, 'Vince wants me to go over tonight.' And they could say I'm not doing a job.' There was no control like there is today. So I had to sit down with these guys and if they didn't want to put me over talk with them and say 'How can we work this out? Because I do not want someone else coming in here, taking your spot and making this main event money. Because we can come back for 2 and 3."

[H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcript.]