Hulk Hogan was the biggest star in wrestling in the 80’s and 90’s. There’s not much left of that today – he’s made too many scandals.
Maybe he likes it best that way. But maybe it’s just the only option left to him. Karaoke nights in Clearwater Beach, Florida. This is how the once most famous wrestler in the world now spends his time. And obviously having a lot of fun when it was announced.
But the colorful videos cannot hide it: it has become lonely around Hulk Hogan, the biggest wrestling star of the 80s and early 90s. Only the most loyal of the loyal fans and a few old colleagues from back then still publicly support him. Because the not so big giant with the eternal mustache is still feeling the aftermath of a bizarre racism scandal eight years ago. He still hasn’t really recovered from it.
“I’m a racist to some degree”
July 2015: The notorious US gossip newspaper “National Enquirer” publishes a sequence from a sex video filmed with a hidden camera back in 2007, in which Hogan repeatedly made racist comments about African Americans. He was disgusted with the thought that his daughter Brooke – then a budding singer – might have a black boyfriend, and that he himself was “a racist to a certain extent”. Hogan also uses the N-word several times. The public reacted in shock at this hitherto unknown, ugly side of the former idol, who played the good guy in the ring for many years. An apology follows hastily: The language he used in the video “does not correspond to my views”. “It is unacceptable that I have used this offensive language, there is no excuse for it and I ask for your forgiveness.”
But the “mea culpa” cannot save him from falling. Not even the assurances of some Afro-American companions that he was never noticed by racist statements in their presence. “Hulk Hogan is definitely not a racist,” explains basketball legend Dennis Rodman, for example, who had a few star guest appearances at Hogan’s side in the 90s. Even Hollywood star and former Hogan opponent Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson dismisses branding Hogan as a racist: “We’ve all talked rubbish before.”
His longtime employer World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the largest and most powerful company in the industry, cut all ties to the former figurehead just a few days later. No more Hogan merchandise in the fan shop, no more Hogan mentions on the promoter’s website or shows, no more Hogan induction in the WWE Hall of Fame. Toy manufacturer Mattel is shutting down the production of Hogan action figures, and supermarket chains such as Walmart are also removing Hogan items from their ranges. Then it also comes out that Hogan also made racist remarks in a 2008 phone call to his son Nick, who was briefly imprisoned at the time. He hopes that if they are born again, they will not be born black again.
The WWE makes Hulk Hogan a world star
On August 31, he wants to explain himself on the nationally popular TV show “Good Morning America” - but the attempt fails. When he was growing up in Tampa, the neighborhood was very generous with the N-word, and that’s how he got used to it. “It was a bad area, very low incomes, and all my friends and I used that word to greet each other at the time.” However, Hogan’s former neighbors, who were born Terry Gene Bollea in Florida, quickly objected. “That wasn’t how we were treated back then, when Terry grew up here,” says a youth acquaintance. And: It wasn’t Hulk Hogan either, who was the face of show sport wrestling for many years.
In 1976, Gerald and Jack Brisco, a legendary brother team, spotted the twenty-something in a Florida bar and noticed his imposing physique. Hogan plays bass in a band and trains in his spare time at a studio in the Tampa Bay area, which is also frequented by many wrestlers. At the recommendation of the Briscos, he takes up wrestling training and a year later he makes his debut in the ring.
