The “NWO” group becomes a hit in the fanommunity that changes over these years. The fans suddenly cheer antiheroes and charismatic fies. From then on, Hogan will always switch between his two characters “Real American” and “Hollywood” for the rest of his career, both when he returned to the WWE 2002 and beyond later appearances for smaller organizers. With them he can be the big star again, when the WWE no longer wanted to portray him, the mid -fifties in the ring, with a athlete, sometimes 30 years younger.
But with increasing age, the hero’s public image changes: In 2012, a sex video will be put on the Internet that shows Hogan with the wife of a friend of a friend – and who says to her at the end of the secretly filmed clips: “If we want to retire at some point – this is our ticket.” And it is precisely from this video that the racist excesses that Hogan are supposed to do to do with years later also come.
Hogan reacts dismayed at the time. “I’ve never been injured so much,” he explains to the popular US talker Howard Stern. His almost 25-year marriage has long been broken, wife Linda already applied for divorce in 2007 due to numerous affairs of her husband. He sued the media blog “Gawker”, which had published a section of the video, curiously supported him by conservative German-American entrepreneur Peter Thiel (PayPal). Four years later, both sides reach an agreement that Hogan receives $ 3,late compensation.
And just when the “Hulkster” with his role as a wrestling star in retirement, who is celebrated and cheered in the event of guest appearances, seems to be made by the same video, the racism incident becomes public.
In January 2023, his former WCW boss Eric Bischoff to defend Hogan that the racism scandal is “not an image of the real Hulk Hogan, but the image of a broken, pumped, dusted, desperate person at the low point of his life.”
The idol so many in the 80s and early 90s is no longer inviolable. There have been doubts about his integrity. For years it has been known in specialist and fan circles that Hogan was a difficult partner in the ring, which was primarily about looking as strong and indomitable at active times. “Doesn’t Work for Me, Brother!” (Dt. “It doesn’t work for me, buddy!”) Should have been his preferred answer if an opponent wanted to incorporate one of his own important handles or throws into the match. Defeats? At his best times there was a veto of Hogan in Traute regularity.
In an interview in 2018 he admits: “Everyone says Hulk Hogan was a backstage politician. Thank God I was! That’s why I earned more money than everyone else, so I kept the champion title longer than everyone else, so I have been at the top for 35 years.”
With a closer look at statements of the “immortal” over the years, it is striking: they can hardly be beaten in bizarre. There are also the countless, brazen, historical lies of the “Hulkster”. Wrestling connoisseur Alan Blackstock has compiled the most absurd volts of Hogans in a long thread. A few examples:
- Elvis Presley was a great Hulk Hogan fan, Hogan once claimed. Problem with this: Elvis died in 1977-in the same year Hogan only started wrestling training. So there was no “Hulk Hogan”.
- After “Wrestlemania 2” he celebrated together with Hollywood star John Belushi in 1986. Problem with this: The star from “Blues Brothers” was dead for four years, died of an overdose drug in 1982.
- In 1992, as part of an appointment of the “Make A Wish” foundation, the sick children fulfilled wishes, a seriously ill boy in England in England for the “Summer Slam 1992” in London-so that he could see Hogan in the main match. Problem with this: Hogan was not active in the World Wrestling Federation at this point and therefore not with the “Summer Slam”.
“You have never heard of Hulk Hogan’s lies – unless you heard everything he ever said in his life,” says Jim Cornette, once as a “manager” in the wrestling. He is now a successful podcaster with encyclopedic knowledge of the industry.
It may hardly be surprised that the notorious liar Hogan is looking for the company of another notorious liar: at the party congress of the Republicans in Milwaukee in mid -July, on which Donald Trump is finally being chosen as a presidential candidate, Hogan also appears in a bizarre speech for the Republican, with thunderous applause of the vertical audience that feels most comfortable.
In August, Hogan caused a stir with statements about Trump’s democratic opposite candidate Kamala Harris. “Should I give her a bodyslam?” He asks a huge audience at an advertising event for his beer. And then gets in a racist whine: “Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?” He asks, alluding to Harris’ multicultural background. “That was not me, that was the beer that spoke there,” he says apologetically.
So it was probably the sum of these misconduct and derailments, which ultimately resulted in this dramatic rejection by the fans. But the current wrestling stars also continued to distance.
“I am very in favor of getting people what they earn,” said Seth Rollins, one of the most popular wrestlers of the WWE, recently on US television. “So if you are booed by so many people, there must be a reason for it, right?” He is actually happy “very much to see it all. I even love to see it that way.” But: “I don’t know if Hulk really understands the scope. But if he gets behind it at some point, he may also be able to reconcile with our fans.”
This will no longer happen.