Remember When. . .Hulk Hogan Was the Third Man?

Over the years, mystery partners have been a very common and often successful idea. Someone needs help teaming up against opponents, but if you want to know who they’ve picked, you have to watch the show. Of all the times this has been done over the years, none of them will ever top this:

At Bash at the Beach 1996, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (who were revealed for the first time at the show) made their in ring debuts against a WCW all star team made up of Sting, Lex Luger and Randy Savage. The question, though, was who would team with Hall and Nash as the third man. That was the whole appeal of the match and the show itself: Who else do they have?

The match ran for nearly fifteen minutes, with Hall and Nash fighting on their own. At one point, Luger was injured when Sting missed a splash in the corner. With WCW in trouble, Hulk Hogan himself came down the ramp and was here to save the day — again. But then, in the most famous surprise of all time, Hogan turned his back on the fans and attacked Savage, ending the match and an era in professional wrestling. The following speech made it even better:

Hogan’s turn at Bash at the Beach, and the ensuing New World Order angle, is never going to be topped for a turn leading into a major story. This one story spearheaded WCW’s launch to the top of the wrestling world and basically invented the cool heel character that dominates wrestling to this day. It’s one of the only occasions where a mystery partner lived up to the hype, and it still works to perfection twenty years later.