(Writer’s Note: I’ll still have my usual weekly column posted on Monday, but I couldn’t ignore this. The passing of Hulk Hogan is too big to wait four full days to talk about, or to mention it with nothing more than a few sentences in a column that has nothing to do with him. Therefore, I felt I should dedicate an extra column to this “I’ll always remember where I was when…” story.)
I’ve shared my wrestling fan “origin story” on more than a few occasions in the past, but it’s worth repeating here once again.
The very first pro wrestler I ever laid eyes on was Ric Flair. I was a very young child, watching television on a random Saturday. With the remote control in my hand, I was flipping through the channels, looking for something to capture my attention and keep me entertained. Eventually, I would land on TBS, and I saw something that would change my life forever.
On an episode of World Championship Wrestling, I saw a blonde man wearing sunglasses, and he was excitedly yelling at the camera. Was he yelling at me? I had no idea, but I couldn’t turn away. After the man was done yelling, I remember thinking about how fun that looked. He looked like he was the coolest guy in the room, and I was hooked.
I will forever credit Ric Flair for being the reason I became a wrestling fan in the first place.
However, it wasn’t until I discovered Hulk Hogan that I truly fell in love with the sport.
While Ric Flair’s loquacious promo style captured my attention on that fateful Saturday afternoon, the entire presentation package of Hulk Hogan took my fandom to new heights.
From the first riffs of “Real American” to the red and yellow color scheme of his ring gear, to his mountain-of-a-human-being physique to the tearing of his shirts, to the muscleman poses to the no-nonsense approach of his matches… every bit of the Hulk Hogan presentation was designed and perfected to turn the impressionable youths of the world into pro wrestling mega fans, and it worked.
Boy, oh boy, did it work.
If you weren’t around for the tidal wave of popularity that was Hulkamania, it’s difficult to truly explain just how big a star Hulk was and what it did for the sport, as a whole. Sure, pro wrestling had big stars before Hulk. Bruno Sammartino, Gorgeous George, Jim Londos, and many other names fit the bill there. However, none of them were able to take the sport to the unheard of heights that Hogan took it to. Hulk was everywhere, from the cover of Sports Illustrated to hosting Saturday Night Live, to being on lunchboxes, toothbrushes, bedsheets, backpacks, and any other piece of merchandise you can think of.
Even with names like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock helping to take wrestling to another huge wave of popularity and viewership in the Attitude Era and Monday Night War, none of it would be possible without what Hulk Hogan did in the decade prior.
Hulk WAS pro wrestling, epitomized in living, breathing human form.
I know, I know… you’re not here for a career biography. It was just important for me to point out the man’s role in making me the fan I am today, and how that rings true for countless people across the world that are similar in age to myself.
I wish that was the end of it. Truly, I do.
There are plenty of celebrities that pass away, and when the news breaks, nobody has anything negative to say about them. People of all ages, races, religions, backgrounds, and so on, just mourn the loss of that person and talk about the hole they’ve created in whatever walk of life made them famous.
Unfortunately, Hulk Hogan isn’t one of those celebrities.
As fans were given more and more of a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, they began to learn more about Hulk’s infamous “backstage politics.” He was very protective of his “spot,” and he went to crazy lengths to make sure that nobody took it from him. From “creative control” in WCW to stories of him “ducking” Bret Hart in the WWF, and everything in between, we’ve all read or heard the incidents that saw the man behind the character, Terry Bollea, play people like a fiddle.
If I’m being honest, I don’t really fault the man for that. While it might not be an ideal way to go through life, it’s not his fault. He had that “creative control” in his WCW contract, but it was placed there by someone else, who allowed him to use it. How much he used it is up for debate, but he definitely used it, and that was because it was allowed.
You’re kidding yourself if you say you wouldn’t do something similar if you were in his position. No matter what you do for a living, it probably isn’t as cutthroat as the pro wrestling business is, but you would still go to crazy lengths if it meant you could hold on and keep your “spot” and make sure you’re not passed up for someone younger.
While I can say that I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of his backstage decision making, I absolutely understand his thought process, and again, I don’t blame him for taking advantage of the paths and avenues that have been placed in front of him.
Then… there’s the stuff that has taken place outside of the business.
I know you can’t see it, but I literally exhaled deeply and rolled my eyes as I typed that out. It’s crazy to think that, with everything Hulk Hogan accomplished in the wrestling business, that almost all anyone cares about in recent years is whether or not he was a racist piece of shit human being, and who he was friends with in the world of politics.
I’m not here to debate with any of you about Terry Bollea being a racist. He was. In the man’s own words, he admitted to being a racist, although he would later take that back and say that he wasn’t one. You can love everything that he did in his career, but that’s something that will not be erased.
I’m also not here to speak with a holier-than-thou attitude. I’ve said and done some terrible things in my life. We all have, to varying degrees. Unfortunately for Terry Bollea, his celebrity status means that everything he said and did was magnified a million times over. If you or I said what he said in those recorded phone conversations, we’d be in trouble, but nowhere near the level of trouble that he found himself in.
I wish Terry Bollea would’ve taken a more direct approach when he apologized for what he said. I’d have to imagine that his legacy could’ve been saved, at least a little bit, if he had done so. Instead of just saying “I’m sorry,” he immediately went to “I’m sorry, but that’s how people are where I come from.” That led to people who grew up with him coming out to say that, no, it was not how people were when he was coming up. A handful of WWE wrestlers have said they felt his apologies, both public and private, lacked sincerity. During his infamous locker room apology, he spent a large chunk of his speaking time talking about how the wrestlers of today should be careful about what they do and say because there are cell phones and cameras everywhere these days. Not “don’t do it,” but “don’t do it where you can be caught.” It was an apology that wasn’t an apology in the eyes, ears, minds, and hearts of many. If he focused more on owning what he did, instead of trying to find excuses for it, I think the WWE locker room would’ve been quicker to accept his apology, and therefore, the general public would’ve been quicker to do so, as well.
Hulk is the latest celebrity in a long, long, long line of them that have made people scramble to try and figure out where the line between supporting an artist and supporting their art lies. It seems like it’s happening on a weekly basis, where some celebrity is being outed as some sort of terrible human being. It’s certainly not new to the wrestling business, either. Fans still have debates on whether or not they can/should be fans of guys like Chris Benoit, Ultimate Warrior, New Jack, and many others for things that they said and did before they died.
For many people, separating Hulk Hogan from Terry Bollea is an impossibility, even all these years later. I think I’m in an interesting position when it comes to that because of my columns. A lot of what I do here involves me watching wrestling. The current AEW and WWE product, yes, but also stuff from eras gone by. If I’m writing about, say, the Monday Night War, I can’t just avoid everything involving Hulk Hogan because I’m upset over something he said. That allows me the ability to make the proper separations. I can watch Hulk Hogan’s work, Chris Benoit’s work, Warrior’s work, New Jack’s work, and so on. Maybe I won’t find myself firing up their matches on a random basis as I eat lunch or something, but this writing thing is a different animal entirely.
When I was going through the planning stage of this column, I realized that the life I currently have today wouldn’t be possible without Hulk Hogan. Without Hulk causing me to fall in love with wrestling, I wouldn’t have had a lifelong fandom of the sport. That lifelong fandom of the sport caused me to become more interested in the ins and outs of wrestling during the early stages of the internet. My interest in the ins and outs of wrestling led me to discover this very website, back when it was known as Lords Of Pain. The discovery of Lords Of Pain led to me discovering the site’s message board, LoP Forums. Posting on the LoP Forums led me to meet a bunch of people, and one of those people led directly to me meeting the woman who would go on to become my wife and the mother of my child. I have no idea where I would be in my life without Hulk Hogan, but it literally wouldn’t be as the man I am today, which only makes my emotions over this whole thing even more confusing.
The last few chapters in the book of Hulk Hogan/Terry Bollea have really muddied the waters, altering the way that people receive the rest of the story forever. Above all else, I think that’s sad. I also think that the most damning “punishment” that Terry/Hulk could receive is that, for the rest of time, his career achievements will always come with an asterisk. When people speak about Hulkamania, the nWo, the Rock N Wrestling Connection, or anything else he did, the last decade of his life will inevitably come up. Deep down, I think Terry Bollea knew that. Whether or not he cared is up to you to interpret, but I think he knew what he did to his own legacy.
I’m sorry if this column wasn’t as much of a “Hulk Hogan was amazing” piece as some of you may have been looking for after his death. I am also sorry that this column wasn’t as much of a “Hulk Hogan is rotting in hell” piece as some of you may have been looking for after his death. It just isn’t that simple for me, on either side of that fence. If it’s that simple for you, congratulations, but it isn’t for me.
Before I wrap this up, I do have one more thing to say. It’s a crying shame that it needs to be said, but I’ve seen it a million times, especially in the wake of Hulk’s death, so yes, it does need to be said…
If you are anything other than black, you don’t get to tell black people how they should or shouldn’t feel about Hulk Hogan/Terry Bollea. At all. You don’t get to tell them to “get over” what he said, that it was “a long time ago,” that “black people use those words all the time,” or that they should be “sadder” because of his passing.
That’s not how this works. It’s not how any of this works.
Can you be disgusted with Terry Bollea’s language in those recorded conversations if you’re not black?
Yes. You SHOULD be disgusted with Terry Bollea’s language in those recorded conversations, no matter what your ethnic background is.
However, it isn’t up for debate that his comments hit the black community harder. Almost every wrestling fan of a certain age looked up to Hulk Hogan as a hero and an icon, but for black people to hear the things that he said, and apparently how he felt, about them… it was a repeated punch to the gut. It was a different kind of pain. A different kind of sadness, and a different kind of anger.
We’re talking about the difference between “sympathy” and “empathy” here, folks.
We need a little more empathy in this situation. Hell, we need a little more empathy in the world, period. In this instance, non-black fans need to try and connect with black fans, in an attempt to truly understand WHY they feel the way they do about Hulk/Terry. WHY are they so hurt? WHY are they so upset? Just acknowledging that they ARE hurt and upset isn’t enough. That type of humanity is sorely lacking these days.
Let me climb down from my soapbox.
My Favorite Hulk Hogan Matches
– vs Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania 6
– with Junkyard Dog vs Terry Funk & Hoss Funk at Saturday Night’s Main Event 6
– vs The Great Muta at New Japan’s Wrestling Dontaku 1993
– vs Ric Flair at WCW Bash At The Beach 1994
– vs The Rock at WrestleMania 18
My Favorite Hulk Hogan Moments
– The formation of the nWo
– Montreal showing Hulk love on the Raw after WrestleMania 18, and again two months later on an episode of Smackdown with two of the longest crowd reactions in wrestling history
– Hulkamania is born in 1984
– Bodyslamming Andre The Giant
– His cameo appearance in Gremlins 2: The New Batch
