and I still like pro wrestling more than MMA. Just because something has a higher brutality rate doesn't mean it's going to be better in my mind. The best of wrestling has a sense of spectacle and pageantry to it that I'll take over MMA any day. That's just me.
I don't think Hogan is a bad person or even that callous. He's done some crappy things, and his ego is enormous, but again I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, believe he has a lot of respect for Edge and just didn't think before he spoke (or tweeted in this case).
As for his move set, it's clearly worked pretty well for him for the past thirty years. His contention has always been that American fans demanded less of him in the ring than Japanese fans. I've seen a few of those Japan matches, and he does in fact use moves I don't think I've ever seen him use in an American ring. It's too bad he didn't employ some of that style during his prime in the WWE. Some of his matches might have benefited from it.
Actually, I pretty much transitioned from a wrestling fan to an MMA fan in 2006 because I felt that MMA was starting to do things wrestling used to better than wrestling can now. This was happening despite the fact that MMA is not fixed. The brutality is not the main appeal for me. I disagree about the lack of spectacle and pageantry and I have since I noticed that in a title match, a champion gets a really reverent build-up as they come out to a more flashy entrance than their opponent. This first time I noticed this was when Matt Hughes came out to a title fight to country music and dimmed lighting...I never thought country music could make me anticipate something! It was all in the presentation.
What hooked me into it in the first place was the build-up for the Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz match. It was like a classic wrestling feud. There was this serious, humourless veteran and this arrogant, smarmy younger guy and they had this perfect face/heel dynamic. The actual result was a nothing match, but the superb 'story' leading into it tricked me into really believing it was going to be something great.
I think UFC has since toned down the volume of pro wrestling-like speeches and supposed feuding going on as there are no longer as many fighters 'talking trash' about their opponents (although I appreciate exceptions like Josh Koscheck). Even when there is trash talk, the fighters tend to confess that they were just hyping up the match and really have no animosity (i.e. GSP and Matt Serra) after the match is over, but I still think MMA has surpassed pro wrestling in many ways.
One thing they do better is keep delivering fresh matches. In WWE, you get the same matches over and over again, for free on TV (i.e. Cena vs. Orton, Cena vs. Edge), so by the time a pay per view rolls around, it's hard to care that the same guys are against each other again. They usually try to make it seem more significant with gimmicks like ladders, but I don't think it really matters.
In addition to more novelty to matches in MMA, wins and losses seem to mean more, because you know that with a certain number of consecutive losses, a person's career could be in serious jeopardy (no phony retirement angles) and it takes several wins to become a title contender. There's no reason wins couldn't be made to matter again in pro wrestling, as they did, for example, when Bill Goldberg earned his title shots through many, many wins. Samoa Joe's undefeated streak is to date probably the best angle TNA ever did (and fucked up).
As for Hogan, I don't think he was ever very impressive as a wrestler from a technical standpoint. I saw some of his Japan work and it wasn't that great. Of course he was an excellent talker and good at making his matches into an exciting spectacle, but that was like, 20 years ago. I don't think he had a single good match in WCW and he's only been successful in the last 20 years for the following reasons:
1) The originality and clever execution of the nWo angle (at least in its first few months)
2) The novelty of an iconic 80s pro wrestling star being in the ring with modern big name wrestlers (i.e. his Wrestlemania match with The Rock, which sucked just like all his other matches since the 90s, but had an incredible atmosphere),
and
3) Wrestlers in their prime carrying him to good matches.
One thing I agree with you about is Lesnar. Like many pro wrestling fans, I was very excited by the 'crossover' appeal of him being in UFC, but interviews he's done in recent years have really soured me on him. A friend of mine who is a big MMA fan has been annoyed that Lesnar got a title shot obviously before getting a good grasp of many of the sport's fundamentals (i.e. more than just sitting on his opponent, ground and pound, and take down defense), but I used to cheer him anyway due to nostalgia for his wrestling days.
I'm sick of him badmouthing wrestling so much, though. When people ask him about it, he says stuff like
"it wasn't for me, because I'm 100% real". When asked if he cared that fans booed him in his last match because they knew he was leaving, he said he didn't care because he got paid. What an ungrateful douchebag. Pro wrestling gave him so much name value that contributed to him being in a privileged position in the UFC. If not for that, he would have had to earn his title shot the way others do - through many wins and displaying a lot of talent (which he clearly doesn't have, at least not yet).
