Hulk Hogan has some big opinions about the current wrestling product.
The Immortal One spoke on this topic during a recent interview on the Full Send podcast. Hogan begins by commenting on the types of wrestlers that existed in his day, which were mainly bigger guys who looked like killers. He uses that example to discuss why today’s wrestlers should actually be bagging his groceries rather than being superstars.
It wasn’t the WWE, it was the wrestling business. It was, when I got in, man, when I walked in a dressing room, there were like six guys sitting there. There all 300-pounders. I was a medium-sized guy, and I weighed 300-plus. When I got in, if you wanted to be a wrestler, okay, there’s a guy there. He’s got two big cauliflower ears, his nose is broken, his teeth are knocked out, he’s got four kids at home. This next guy over here was an NCAA Champion. He’s got a steel plate in his forearm, his name’s Harley Race. Good luck with him. Then the other two guys, they look like serial killers, and if you wanted to be a wrestler, you gotta take their job and take the food out of their family’s mouth. That’s the difference. Everybody I wrestled looked like monster-sized men. Nowadays, there’s a lot of guys that look like wrestlers, there’s a lot of guys that don’t. A lot of guys who look like wrestlers and a lot of guys who look like they should be bagging my groceries. So the difference is how athletic the guys are. Smaller guys can do all kinds of crazy stuff. They do so much stuff, so much impressive stuff in one match, I wouldn’t do that much in a year. What does it mean?
The former multi-time world champion later discusses the product as a whole, and how today’s wrestling is more about the promotion rather than a single top drawing act.
I think the main thing with the product is that it has had an attraction, like a Hulk Hogan, who you could put with this guy or that guy or him or you or One Man Gang or that guy, and just sell out anything. Instead of having that one attraction, like a Hulk Hogan or a Rock or an Andre the Giant or a Stone Cold Steve Austin, instead of having that one guy that’s really the attraction, I think the star now is the production of the show. I see the guys wrestle, and if one guys is hurt, there’s another one from the Performance Center that slides right in and takes his place, and they’re all the same size and pretty much have the same color hair and their clothes are made by the same seamstress and they learn how to wrestle from the same group of trainers. When I got in the business, we all learned from wrestling every night and being in the ring and getting your ass beat and getting hurt. We learned that way, where we weren’t doing forward rolls with helmets on and the doctors and massagers and trainers. If you hurt your thumb, they go put you in the X-ray machine and ‘You gotta take four weeks off, you broke your nail.’ It’s different now. Back in the day, it was get in the car, shut the hell up, and you’re opening the beers, I’m driving.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hogan spoke about why he always viewed the business as a shoot rather than a work. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)