10 Times Hulk Hogan Lost Clean

There are only three certainties in life - death, taxes, and Hulk Hogan doesn’t do a job for no one, brother!

However, did you know that there’s a species of jellyfish that can essentially live forever? And as for taxes, well, certain very rich people across the globe seem to have gotten around that issue, haven’t they? So, that just leaves the Hulkster, and wouldn’t you know it, even he isn’t as immune to defeat as we thought he was.

Hogan losing a match at all is one thing, but for him to lose one clean is practically unheard of. The Pastamania mogul was notoriously protective over his image and held enough backstage pull to quash most suggestions of him eating a loss. However, even the twenty-four-inch pythons weren’t strong enough to fight these booking decisions.

Across his runs in the AWA, WWE, WCW, and TNA, Hulk Hogan did actually have his shoulders pinned to the match for the 1-2-3 on at least some occasions.

Check out 10 times Hulk Hogan lost clean below!

10. The Ultimate Warrior - WWE WrestleMania VI

Whilst Hogan had lost clean a few times in the late 70s and early 80s, once he became the poster boy for the World Wrestling Federation, these defeats dried up fast.

His first major clean defeat in WWE’s pay-per-view era took place during the main event of the biggest show of the year, WrestleMania. And not just any main event. This was the Ultimate Challenge!

Hogan was putting his WWE Championship on the line against The Ultimate Warrior’s Intercontinental Championship on April 1, 1990. Whoever won the match would walk away with both belts and all the glory.

In a shocking moment, Warrior pinned Hogan after one of his patented splashes, crowning himself the new champion and effectively usurping Hogan’s role as the number one babyface in the promotion.

That was the plan anyway. Hogan managed to get the belt back just a year later, but in the moment, it felt like the guard was changing.

9. Roddy Piper - WCW Starrcade 1996

Alongside his eight WrestleMania main events, Hogan is a three-time headliner of WCW’s equivalent to the Show of Shows - Starrcade.

The second of those main events came in 1996, when Hogan took on one of his oldest foes.

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper had shown up in WCW just a few months after Hogan had formed the New World Order alongside Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. He proved to be quite the thorn in the nWo's side, even outing Eric Bischoff as secretly being in cahoots with them.

WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hogan was forced to battle his long-time nemesis at Starrcade. Despite throwing every ounce of outside interference at Piper that he could, Hogan could not overcome the Hot Rod and passed out to his sleeper hold.

In a strange twist, though, Piper for some reason didn’t decide to challenge Hogan for the belt despite the fact he drew up the contract for his match with Hollywood, meaning his win was for nothing but pride.

Piper would eventually challenge for the belt at SuperBrawl VII but he would come up short against the Hulkster on that occasion.

8. Sting - TNA Bound For Glory 2011

Despite picking up myriad wins over Hogan in WCW, Sting had to wait until Hogan’s last ever televised match to finally score a clean pin over the Immortal One.

At TNA’s flagship show Bound for Glory, the two Hall of Famers locked horns in what was, on paper, a mouth-watering clash, however the match isn’t fondly remembered by fans of TNA, with the encounter largely consisting of punches.

It ended when the Insane Icon put Hogan in the Scorpion Deathlock. The Hulkster’s surgically-repaired spine came crashing down and hurt inside, so he tapped out.

You could argue that this win wasn’t clean, as Sting used a foreign object to cut Hogan’s forehead open. However, we would say that Sting already had the match won by this point and that the actual finish didn’t come until over a minute after the spike was used.

7. Lex Luger - WCW Nitro - August 4, 1997

Shortly after forming the nWo and going “Hollywood”, Hogan captured the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from The Giant.

Thanks to Roddy Piper’s poor contract writing skills, Hogan held onto the gold for the best part of a year, defeating everyone in his path. That was, until he ran into the perfectly-chiselled torso of Lex Luger.

At Spring Stampede 1997, Luger won a four corners match to become number one contender to Hogan’s world title. He and The Giant then teamed up at Bash at the Beach to defeat the champion and basketball star Dennis Rodman in a tag team match.

Hogan technically lost this match clean too, tapping out to the Torture Rack, and Luger followed up this victory by facing Hogan for the title on the August 4th episode of Nitro.

After overcoming a shedload of nWo interference, Luger once again hoisted Terrible Terry up and made him submit to end his reign of terror.

This was a great win for Luger and produced one of the biggest crowd reactions in WCW history. Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last for Lex, as Hogan won the belt back just five days later.

6. Goldberg - WCW Nitro - July 6, 1998

Another episode of Nitro, another huge title change involving Hulk Hogan.

Bill Goldberg was one of the hottest properties in all of pro wrestling in 1998. He was on an undefeated streak so impressive, it really didn’t matter that it was ludicrously inflated. His short, explosive matches had made him a megastar and had thrust him directly into the main event scene.

He squared off against Hogan for the WCW Championship in the main event of the 6th of July episode of Monday Nitro. With an absolutely rabid crowd at his back in the Georgia Dome, Goldberg crushed Hogan with the classic one-two of a Spear and a Jackhammer to pin the champion and claim his prize.

Despite Goldberg’s undefeated streak, Hogan wouldn’t be without the WCW World Heavyweight Title for long, regaining it from Kevin Nash (who ended the streak) on the January 4, 1999 episode of Nitro with the infamous Fingerpoke of Doom.

5. Triple H - WWE SmackDown - June 4, 2002

2002 as a whole was an odd year for WWE, as the old vestiges of the Attitude Era crashed headfirst into the oncoming Ruthless Aggression period of the company.

Hogan's return to the company in that year meant he mixed it up with a bunch of names we’d never have expected to see him work with, including when he tangled with The Game on an episode of SmackDown.

It was a number one contender’s match for the Undisputed Championship and both men had a reputation for busting out the golden shovel, so who would be left covered in dirt when this encounter was said and done?

Trips proved that his spade was the biggest, as he pinned Hogan after a Pedigree. This would be the last time these two legends ever met in the ring, so Hogan never got to have his revenge.

However, considering he was the man who ended Triple H’s WWE title reign just a few months earlier, I’d say Hogan still managed to come out on top.

4. Kurt Angle - WWE King of the Ring 2002

Despite embodying two very different wrestling philosophies, Hulk Hogan and Kurt Angle actually have a lot in common. They’re both American icons, WWE Hall of Famers, and six-time WWE world champions. Still, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that these two had a match with each other, let alone one on pay-per-view.

The match stemmed from Hogan’s partnership with Edge, another weird, alternate reality thing that happened in 2002. After weeks of assaulting each other and interfering in each other’s matches, Hogan vs Angle was on for King of the Ring.

Not only did Kurt defeat Mr. Bollea on this show, but he did so in history-making fashion. He forced him to submit to the Ankle Lock, making him the first WWE wrestler in history to beat Hogan by submission.

Also, considering that Hogan’s only clean wins over Angle came at house shows, Angle is one of the very few wrestlers never to get their receipt from the Hulkster when cameras were rolling.

Even in TNA, Hogan's only wins over Angle came in non-televised tag team matches.

3. Brock Lesnar - WWE SmackDown - August 8, 2002

Our final bizarro world 2002 matchup comes courtesy of another number-one contender bout (from the August 8 episode of SmackDown).

Hogan was facing a man whose own run of dominance and backstage power would rival his own in the decades to come - ‘The Next Big Thing’ Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar had been on a tear since his debut earlier that year and was fresh off winning the King of the Ring tournament. He now had his sights set on The Rock and his Undisputed Championship, but he needed to get through Hogan first.

The Suburban Commando could have been made of jelly because Brock cut through him like a hungry kid at a birthday party, eventually winning the match with a bear hug so powerful it made the Hulkster pass out.

Like with Goldberg four years earlier, Hogan knew that Brock Lesnar was the future of the business. In giving him such a dominant victory, he helped affirm Lesnar’s status as a monster and made the upcoming championship battle with The Rock even more exciting.

However, Hogan baulked at doing a second job to the Beast Incarnate, forcing WWE to scrap a planned rematch for Survivor Series.

2. Jacques Rougeau - WCW House Show - April 11, 1997

Easily the weirdest name on the list of wrestlers who have beaten Hogan clean is Jacques Rougeau, a man who was primarily known for competing in tag teams for the WWE. He was also The Mountie, who won the Intercontinental Title because Bret Hart had a storyline case of the flu.

Whilst he was working for WCW, Rougeau faced off against Hogan at a house show on April 11, 1997. To everyone's surprise, the Canadian actually beat Hogan clean as a whistle, whilst he was still WCW Champion!

Many theories have circulated as to how and why this happened. The Mountie himself said it was because Hogan had a lot of respect for his family, so did the job as a sign of goodwill. However, if you believe Kevin Owens (who broke into the business training under Rougeau), it was because he paid Hogan an extra $10,000 to lie down for him.

1. The Rock - WWE WrestleMania X-8

Let’s end our list where we started it, at WrestleMania, in the Skydome in Toronto, Canada.

After eight-and-a-half years away from WWE, Hulk Hogan returned to the promotion in which he made his name at No Way Out 2002.

Alongside Hall and Nash, Hogan was part of a rebooted version of the original nWo, who promptly set their sights on the two biggest names in WWE at the time - Steve Austin and The Rock.

This led to a match dubbed Icon vs Icon at WrestleMania 18, when Hogan and The Rock met one-on-one for the first time ever.

Hogan was supposed to be the heel, but even him trying to murder The Great One with a truck didn’t stop the crowd from cheering him. This inverted dynamic led to one of the most fascinating spectacles to ever go down in a WWE ring, which ended when The Rock pinned his adversary with a People’s Elbow.

The end result of the match isn’t what was important, because people remember the feeling and the experience, not that the Hulkster did the honours.