WRESTLING NEWS
Hulk Hogan Went Nose To Nose With Mike Tyson Well Before Stone Cold
Steve Austin
By JON ALLRED
On the night that Hulk Hogan appeared on “The Arsenio Hall Show” on March 21, 1991, Mike Tyson made a surprise appearance at the start of the show. Before bringing Hogan out, Hall played a clip of comments Hogan had made about Tyson during his last appearance on the show on May 29, 1989, while promoting his movie “No Holds Barred.”
Hall brought Hogan out and invited him to talk about the clip that has just been played, and Hogan said, “This thing with me and Tyson could get intense [...] because everybody would want to see who's the real champion of the world: Hulk Hogan or Mike Tyson.” After the show returned from commercial break, viewers saw Hogan and Tyson nose-to-nose for 15 seconds.
Tyson was booked as the guest referee for the WWF Championship match between Randy Savage and Hogan on February 23, 1990, but after being knocked out by James Douglas at the Tokyo Dome, Tyson canceled all appearances. Thus, WWE replaced Tyson with Douglas in a last-minute effort, and Tyson wasn't seen on WWF until the 1998 Royal Rumble.