I wasn't around on-line back in 1995, but was there the same hoopla from people back then with Nash? This is really, really, silly stuff here folks. Diesel was "cool", he had "charisma", he was "big", he got the ladies, he was incredibly limited in the ring, he had a cocky heel foil in HBK... he was not a good champion. Guys like this aren't good champions. Kudos to the WWE for doing such a great job with Batista, but I can't help but feel that wrestling fans are so desperate these days that they'll latch on to anything remotely good and blow it up way beyond what it is.
Hogan was a great dramatist and Rock had great timing,but even then Rock couldn't sustain face popularity. Plus Rock had incredible workrate, and Hogan was able to draw sympathy from the crowd even though he was huge physically, _and_ the standards for wrestling were different back then _and_ they fed Hogan huge guy after huge guy that the WWE doesn't have.