So what was the deal with Hogan? Why did he turn into a bad guy? How did his story get resolved?
The story in brief:
Hogan leaves the WWF in 1993, seemingly for good. Goes to Japan, where he was popular even before he was big in the US for a bit before signing the largest contract in wrestling history with WCW, the WWF's rival, in 1994. He has unheard of creative control over his character and a portion of the live gate and PPV fees of any show he is on.
Now WCW epitomizes southern wrestling and Hogan is the big star from the New York City based WWF, but he's also still the largest name in pro wrestling history and they have a lot of new potential fights for him in WCW. He wins their world championship in his first fight and keeps it for most of the next two years. While business does go noticeably up during the early days of his run he also ends up convincing management to bring in or give favorable treatment to his friends, usually via his creative control. By the end of 1995 though the crowds have really started to turn on Hogan though some still love him and the stories they can tell with a guy who refuses to lose to up and comers at all makes it hard to refresh the situation.
At the same time this is happening the WWF is going through their own troubles. 1995 is largely considered their worst year, mainly the hangover from the steroid and sex abuse scandals of the early 90's and WCW spending money and competing with them on Monday Nights and by 1996 they end up poaching two of their biggest names, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (who also gets creative control and an even more insidious pay raise whenever anyone elses contract gets higher than his) Hogan, who is just about done with his original contract is worried that WCW will just get rid of him and decides that he will actually become the bad guy with these two other invaders from the north, forming the NWO. I'm sure you remember their shirts from the 90's.
This storyline is genius because Hogan turns on the stars of WCW and joins up with "two guys from up North" and they run roughshod over the company for...well, basically the rest of its life. It should have ended earlier than that but well, two of those fellows had veto powers, the merchandise did incredibly well and the ratings, while steadily decreasing near the end were still better than anything else on TNT outside of Basketball games.
So anyways, when WWE buys WCW and after the invasion fails largely because Vince didn't want to upset the payscale by bringing in names like Hogan and Goldberg (who all had contracts through Turner and were not part of the WCW sale) he eventually caves a year later and brings in the NWO. The other two members get injured pretty much right away but they set up a program where Hogan fights the Rock, just at the beginning of his hollywood career and basically a part time wrestler at that point...and the fans start cheering for Hogan! Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, he's a good guy again and remains so for the rest of his WWF career...which isn't too long.
His most recent role with the company was as a goodwill ambassador and MC for Wrestlemania.
