It’s time to look back on when Hulk Hogan turned Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone from basketball players to wrestling superstars.
The sports world is still reeling from the shock of Hogan’s passing. The legendary wrestler and entertainer was 71 years old.
Despite being known as a wrestling icon, he truly transcended the medium, becoming a pop-culture icon over the years.
But one of Hogan’s biggest passions was basketball, specifically the NBA. Hogan famously walked to the ring once with Shaquille O’Neal.
That was just a glimpse of his massive fandom, which also included striking up a friendship with controversial star Dennis Rodman. His friendship would lead to Hogan inducting Rodman into his villainous NWO faction.
They even went from friends to tag-team partners when one of Rodman’s NBA foes came down to World Championship Wrestling.
In 1998, just a month removed from their showdown in the NBA Finals, Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman faced off once again, this time in the ring.
Rodman, who joined Hogan and the NWO, was teamed with the Immortal One. On the other team, Malone was teaming with fan-favorite superstar Diamond Dallas Page (DDP).
The two had formed a rivalry during their physical clashes in the NBA Finals in both 1997 and 1998, when Rodman helped contain Malone’s offensive explosion.
When it came time to lock up, both stars didn’t hold back, putting on a show for the audience. Much like the NBA Finals, Rodman came out on top.
Of course, unlike the NBA Finals, Rodman and Hogan utilized some underhanded tactics to defeat the fan-favorite pairing of Malone and DDP.
Back then, to see two players in the prime of their careers duke it out in the ring was a sight to behold for NBA fans.
This wasn’t Rodman’s first rodeo in the world of professional wrestling. The Bulls sensation had wrestled at the previous year’s Bash at the Beach pay-per-view as well.
On that night, Rodzilla and the Hulkster couldn’t get the win, losing to Lex Luger and The Giant, better known to fans today as The Big Show.
But Rodman’s fandom for wrestling ran so deep that he even skipped practice with the Chicago Bulls during the playoffs to attend WCW Monday Nitro.
Understandably, both Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson were irate with the enforcer. But when it came to crunch time, Rodman did the business.
He would help the Bulls win two straight NBA championships against the Utah Jazz. But when he wasn’t on the court, he was occasionally creating havoc with Hulk Hogan.
