If there’s one moment from Hogan’s career that is guaranteed to be among the first things one thinks about when Hogan springs to mind, it’s this one. In fact, Hogan’s heel turn at WCW Bash at the Beach 1996 may be the one moment of his that can escape the cloud of his real life flaws and controversies. Perhaps its because there’s still never been anything quite like what happened on July 6, 1996. There have been heel turns like Andre’s, there have been feel good moments like Warrior and Hogan embracing after their match, there’s been crowds turning on wrestlers mid-match, like when fans rejected Rock and supported Hogan at WrestleMania X-8. But as John Cena’s polarizing heel turn this year proves, it may not be possible to achieve what WCW did that night, when Hogan dropped the leg on Randy Savage and revealed himself to be the third man, alongside Kevin Nash and Scott Hall of The Outsiders.

As it turns out, the turn was merely an appetizer for Hogan’s post-match interview with a heartbroken “Mean” Gene Okerlund. While always a capable promo, nothing Hogan had said before or after resonated quite like this speech, one where he was pelted with garbage by the irate Daytona Beach fans. In just four minutes, Hogan laid it out everything, from his reasons for turning to the nWo’s goals, while taking his character’s new found arrogance out for a test drive. Sure, in the end, that same arrogance would lead to real life Hogan neutering the nWo angle and steering WCW towards its demise. But then again, it also led to a near two year period of WCW dominance over WWE, all kicked off by this turn and speech that launched the New World Order.