The crowd is looking up the ramp at the entrance wondering when a management character or something will come out and change things. Hogan isn’t actually about to fight a diva is he? This is weird it’s not about to happen. Paul is going to come out and talk about how he’d like another shot a Hogan himself and Rhea’s supposed to just tuck her tail and fuck off. We’re not about to attract old wrestling fans to come watch a pay-per-view so that Hogan can annihilate a diva none of them care to even research. The bell rings, no surprise there we’ve watched enough wrestling to know that means nothing. Hogan and Rhea circle the ring, okay. They lock up, that’s nothing, we know this is fake, Hogan isn’t hurting her arms. Hogan pushes her down. Everyone’s watching the entrance because this is all basic safe stuff. Rhea gets up and locks up with him again. She gets pushed off and down and she shows slight kayfabe frustration.
She gets up and continues trying basic wrestling encounters to get a small victory over him. The crowd is just waiting patiently for this bizarre sight to end and convert into something more expected. Maybe Reigns is going to come out to sabotage the fight and Paul will come out and end the whole thing I don’t know man there’s a rocker chick trying to headlock the Hulk. This basic arts of wrestling go on for about 3 minutes when finally Hogans quits pretending pain from a wristlock and irishwhips her to the ropes into the infamous middle of the ring Boot to the face. Now! Someone’s going to come out now, or at least once Hogan runs to the ropes to go for his finisher. Rhea eventually starts to get up and holds her face looking menacing and humiliated at the scripted mercy of Hogan standing around grinning. The basic hold stuff continues with now a bit more female assault sprinkled in and the crowd can’t figure out what they’re seeing.
Hogan throws Rhea over the top-rope and she lands near a trash can filled with kendo sticks. She feels humiliated that she needs to use a weapon on this man but she can’t stand it; she grabs one and runs in unkicked. Hogan stands tall and catches the kendo mid swing. Takes it and rips it in two. Rhea runs out and grabs another to swing again with the same result. She runs out grabs another and swings at one of the spanish casters, right in his head, immediate knock-out. Hogan runs after her as she prepares to swing at his co-caster with immediate success- Rhea succeeded, not Hogan. Two bleeding, unconscious mexicans in this 2023 Hogan match. The American audience all become curious as to not only what the hell is going on but what the spanish dub is like now. Only those that know how to switch it get to find out and there are now kayfabe “spanish-studying” crewmates from backstage doing their best to provide for the spanish community.
“Rhea Rhipley se se muy mmad. Pur loosear con Hulk Hogan suo much se pego innocente! Dios Mio!”
Vince knew how to switch the dub and he’s maniacally hurting his ribs with laughter. Hogan finally reaches Rhea before she could get to the French and in reaching beyond her for the stick she kicks behind her landing a good low blow. She turns and smacks the stick right on his shoulder, his back, his back 5 more times. The kendo breaks and she checks her arsenal. The no-DQ weapon-beating of Hogan goes on for 5 minutes. Rhea looks around and misunderstands and sees that the crowd is un-entertained. She’s feeling sad at being boring and it angers her that Hogan had to come back. She’s angry for caring about what these losers think but it’s actually affecting her because she doesn’t believe in this storyline.
What happens next is supposed to lead into an anticipation of Rhea’s flying drop kick that gets cancelled by being punched into an off-ring ladder set up like a table by 2 chairs, breaking the ladder the infamous way tables in wrestling break: with a chair Rhea’s to hit Hogan’s stomach with the part of the chair that she’s holding (so with the back of her hand u see? o,<), she’s supposed to then swing the chair at his back causing Hogan to stand fully upright again where she’s now to open the chair and place Hogan’s head through it, leaving him standing there rattled. What she did in impulsive anger was hit him with the actual chair causing him to genuinely bend over in pain, then when she hit him in the back he stood bent over. She went to put the chair on this bent over Hulk anyways but focused on the pain Hogan isn’t cooperating which doesn’t help a frustrated, angry Rhea from gently placing a solid chair on him. She finds a way through which struck aluminum to his ear. She goes to the rope and waits for him to come and aggressively jab her so she can jump to the table-like ladder.
Hogan runs at her with a receipt in his fist and along with a little shove from the chair necklace resulted in an awkward slip that caused Rhea to land sideways on the end of the ladder that was right under the chair, so that no significant break occurred to half the impact. It wasn’t that bad since she was able to consciously play unconscious but it was visually bad enough for the crowd to finally react. Even if an authority character walks in to interrupt the match the woman of the match just took a violent, very violent, bump. This is now the real deal. Everyone is now watching what is definitely Hulk Hogan against some young tomboy. Why and how is this going to lead to Roman Reigns?
Everyone stops thinking about that as they now wonder what kind of bump she’s going to take next as Hogan is holding her kneeling body by the scalp. He raises her by said scalp… The ladder has to break- he powerslams her through the ladder. We now have 5 minutes of back and forth spots between the two. Hogan’s spots being his towering limbs harming her and Rhea’s spots being some of the same stuff from the earlier weapon assault except for one moment.
She’s proud that she can do it but it hurts that it wont end the match, and that it’s also going to lead to clown theatrics. She’s on her knees. Hogan has a chair on his hands. He raises it in the air and stares at her and having some mercy left in him he turns around to tell the ref he doesn’t want to do this anymore, stop the m- low blow, he drops the chair, Rhea still with her right arm between his legs reaches for his left arm grabs it, goes under his right arm with her left and delivers the Riptide on the dropped chair. She did it, she actually carried him properly despite the fact that he had to jump a bit but it’s still a feat anyways. Now she’s on her knees trying not to cry as this clown stiffens his arms and gets up shacking his head running around the ring.
She tried to convince the creative team to at least let her go for a 2 1/2-count pin, and with Hogan being so strong he can even stop the pin by throwing her across the ring. It was implied that even on a chair it’s still a women-delivered finisher and that she should be grateful to even push Hogan to a Hulk Up. Hogan finishes shitting and pissing himself. He picks up Rhea, who forgot to get up and swing at him with a billy club, irishwhips her to the ropes and delivers the big fucking boot. The crowd is cheering with glee. Men are wrapping their arms around their son’s and saying, “Look.” Women are shaking in their dresses, nearly fainting. Rhea’s stops looking and just stares at the stadium roof. She thinks back to how she was told that putting a chair on her neck or at least on the back of her head was too much for the finish. The classic, bare leg drop for the street fight is a perfect end. Suddenly she sees the back of Hogan’s leg and then nothing.
SMACK>1, wrestling politics is fucking dumb SMACK>2, why am i taking this seriously? Rhea lifts her hand. The referee has no way of pretending not to notice, and at least cause a whoopsie Hogan victory, to try to salvage execution of realism because he’s shocked looking right at her whole arm.
“¡¿QUÉ DIABLOS ACABA DE PASAR, MORRO, COMO QUE SIGUE EL PINCHE COMBATE!?”, the kayfabe spanish-studying announcer.
The crowd unaware of the exact ending is less shocked and more entertained and excited. They’re cheering even louder than before. Hogan is still laying above her wondering what is happening and what he should do now. He has an idea but he can’t get up to do it until he thinks about what’s just happened to his legacy. A modern-wrestling woman just kicked out of a Hulked Up Leg Drop. The audience will ignore it when it’s revealed she was just rebelling, right? Whatever- he notices he’s taking too long and he gets up to go for a second Leg Drop. Rhea rolls out of the way and Hogan sells the pain but is internally intensely analyzing everything that’s happening to his legacy and how it’s still controllable yet overwhelmingly complicated and… actually uncontrollable. Should he go for the mic and cut a promo? Rhea you’re on drugs and can’t feel anything? Why did he even accept this match, this thought is a waste of time right now what’s the solution? Luckily for Hogan Rhea stopped his analysis by striking him in the back with a stiff chair shot. She then struck the referee behind her. Knowing Hogan wouldn’t allow even a 1-count at this point she quickly decided to act as if the match was beneath her and to walk off without an official victor.
This match happened at one of the more boring parts of a suicidal point in life so the best description I can give on what happened before and after is: absolutely expected garbage. The build up sucked, the follow up sucked, the video essays fucking sucked, but the match itself will always be a strangely happy memory of my life. I wasn’t suppose to be able to enjoy anything, my fate was sealed and the clock was running for my End purchases. Admittedly, as you can tell, I wasn’t fully suicidal but watching this match convinced me to not kill myself.
The best explanation I can give on what this match did to me is realize enjoyable moments can definitely come out of nowhere. There are all sorts of negative arguments to give against that but because I lived that moment I know that despite everything I still enjoyed a sudden and random experience in my bland life. The gold nugget coal mine of Hogan vs Rhea lead the way for me to start bird watching in my city and not feel like a drifting faggot about it.