The “NWO” group becomes a hit in the fanommunity that is changing in these years. She suddenly cheered antiheroes and charismatic fieses, instead of the previously strictly one -dimensional in good and bad wrestling world. 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. He can be the big star again when the WWE did not want to portray the mid -fifties in the ring with athletes, who is 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, which are supposed to be doomed to Hogan years later.
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 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, which is celebrated and cheered during guest appearances, seems to make friends, the racism incident becomes public from the same video.
In January 2023, his former WCW boss Eric Bischoff in Defense Hogan explains that the racism scandal was “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 an at least difficult partner in the ring, which was primarily about looking as strong and invaluable 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? There was a veto of Hogan, especially at his best times.
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 once compiled the most absurd volts of Hogans in a long thread. A few examples:
- Elvis Presley was a big Hulk Hogan fan, he once said. 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 him in the main match. Problem with this: Hogan was not active in the WWF at that time and therefore not with the Summer Slam.
“You have never heard of Hulk Hogans lies – except when you heard everything he ever said in his life,” says Jim Cornette, once active as a “manager” in the wrestling, now a successful podcaster with an 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.