Top 20 worst world title changes in wrestling history

6. Hulk Hogan def. Yokozuna: WrestleMania IX

I need to start this by saying that I’m a Hulk Hogan guy and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I jumped on the Hulkamania bandwagon when I was five years old, and more than three decades later, I haven’t jumped off. But even as much as I love the guy, there’s certain times that he just shouldn’t have won the title and this is one of them.

Coming into WrestleMania IX, Hogan hadn’t wrestled in WWE in about a year. After a very poor match with Sid Justice at WrestleMania VIII, the Hulkster took a leave of absence after steroid allegations surfaced, allegations Hogan initially vehemently denied. He returned to help out Brutus Beefcake in his feud with Money, Inc. and wound up competing for the tag titles in Las Vegas on the grandest stage of them all. The Mega-Maniacs, as they called themselves, lost the match via disqualification but the night wasn’t over for Hogan.

Things had started to change in WWE at this time and Bret Hart was becoming the new face of the company. He won his first title by defeating Ric Flair on an episode of Prime Time Wrestling the previous September and actually held the title for 175 days in his initial run before losing the main event at WrestleMania IX to Yokozuna. Okay, no problem. Yokozuna was being built as the new monster in WWE at the time and that title change really wasn’t an issue. What was an issue was that following the match, a match that saw Bret Hart get cheated, Hogan, who really had no affiliation with The Hitman, came down to stick up for him and would end up getting a title match of his own right then and there. With Hart’s blessing (in storyline anyway), Hogan beat Yokozuna in 22 seconds to win his fifth WWE Championship. The understanding was that Hogan would then go on to drop the belt to Bret in a passing of the torch sort of thing but the Hulkster changed his mind and later dropped the title back to Yokozuna at King of the Ring. Hogan left the company after that and Bret was left to wonder what could have been. Not cool, Hulkster, not cool. But you would think Bret Hart would learn some sort of lesson from this.