While the news of Hulk Hogan’s passing already has made the rounds for a few days now, I’ve been trying to figure out how to process the situation as well as come up with an adequate write up. I saw Friday night Smackdown’s tribute video, which admittedly got me a little choke up. At the same time, I’ve read various articles, tributes from wrestlers, etc. and gathered my thoughts on the subject to finally feel that I have something worth writing.
For those growing up in the 80s, especially during the mid 80s, Hulk Hogan most likely was the average kids’ entry into pro-wrestling. In my case, I think Sgt. Slaughter might’ve been my first exposure to any pro-wrestler because of GI Joe but Hulk Hogan would soon follow. Coming home from school or watching Saturday and Sunday morning cartoons, you’d suddenly see this LJN commercial where Jimmy Snuka made a bombastic entrance on some kid’s home from the stairway, launching himself with his signature Superfly Splash. After that, I believe the Iron Shiek barged in and finally the hero Hulk Hogan. This commercial instantly captured ones young imagination if you’ve never seen pro-wrestling before because it complimented the crazy 80s in terms of the excitement and novelty. If you’d go to the local toy store, you might see variations of wrestling figures, whether it was some rubbery thumb figure, a WWF knock off (the AWA got theirs in around the same time) and finally the main attraction.
But at that point, the wrestlers for me were still this odd presentation as a toy, which seemed to be just another thing to collect (and trust me there were A LOT of great toys back then). It didn’t take that much longer before I got my first taste of the actual personalities of the pro-wrestlers through the (now infamous) Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n Wrestling cartoon. Most people probably will pan the cartoon because of how it was targeted towards kids. For me though, I was the perfect demographic (much like a Happy Meal at McDs). It came on every Saturday morning on CBS alongside ABC and NBC cartoons that were all part of any 80s kids’ staple of diet on top of some heavily processed sugary cereal. In seeing these cartoons, you immediately knew the main characters/heroes/babyfaces with Hulk being the star alongside his crew of Tito Santana, Jimmy Snuka, Andre the Giant, Captain Lou Albino, Hillbilly Jim, Wendy Richter and the Junkyard Dog in opposition to the villain faction of Roddy Piper leading the group of Big John Studd, Iron Shiek, Nikolai Volkoff and the Fabulous Moolah (with the occasional cameo from Bobby Heenan and Mr Fuji) and Mean Gene showing up at inopportune times for more comic relief situations. Sadly, only three of the people from that cartoon are still around, but I slightly digress.
Nonetheless, the cartoon intrigued me because not just because it was a cartoon but the little side vignettes that the WWF would produce for their normal programming. So that would give one a sense of these characters who were also real people. Eventually, I wandered across the WWF Superstars TV show one morning on Fox channel 11 as I scanned through the TV to see my first pro-wrestling show. The first match involved Cpl. Kirschner facing some other military character (not Sgt Slaughter) which made me think this program was the real deal (i.e. having contests between people in the military which seemed like something that could happen). All I remember besides the two entrances was the crowd going nuts. Perhaps, on the same program, Hulk Hogan made an appearance to do an in ring interview. Likewise, Hogan exuded this presence that electrified this crowd to the point where you wanted to be part of this energy. And for me I came from a situation where I wasn’t a big sports fan. My dad was and he would watch baseball (his favorite), occasionally football and sometimes basketball. But I hated watching baseball because it was so boring, quiet and dull. This pro-wrestling thing though was colorful, energetic and full of personality so I almost became hooked immediately.
Fast forward a little bit where I got to see my first Saturday Night’s Main Event. I remember the lead up where Hogan would come on during Saturday Night Live to hype SNME (maybe even with Mr. T) as this show was going to be on late but have Hogan and Andre the Giant vs King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd with Bobby Heenan in the corner in a match they labeled “The Battle of the Beef” (because you had about a ton of humanity in the ring. The match was awful by today’s standards but for a little kid with a wild imagination, you finally got to see your heroes that you were watching from the cartoon take on the mega villains at the time. And it was the standard Hogan affair around that period where the heels got Andre in the ropes with Hogan down for a moment as chaos broke out in the ring, the referee got tossed or knocked unconscious and eventually Hogan coming back to save his buddy. Afterwards, Andre and Hogan gave a live interview with Mean Gene as the feud between Bundy/Studd vs Andre was continuing but the seeds would be planted of the eventual Wrestlemania 2 main event.
From there, I had to watch pro-wrestling every week. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to catch Hogan and didn’t understand why at the time. You’d see a lot of “job” matches interspersed with the interviews and get a taste of all the characters. And because my family didn’t have cable TV for a long time, my only way of seeing the better stuff was SNL. To get my burgeoning wrestling fix, I started buying the mark mags (Pro-Wrestling Illustrated) at the grocery stores (or wherever they had them). Then you learned about other wrestlers like Ric Flair or Rick Martel because these magazines had various rankings. I remember the first one I purchased, I saw Ric Flair ranked #1 and Martel #2 over Hogan and thinking, “Who the hell are these two?” And it was weird because Flair and Martel weren’t listed as physically big as Hogan (where weight and height were key factors back then)
Soon though, I started discover other pro-wrestling programming. The first non-WWF show was some crappy promotion in California called CCW (California Championship Wrestling). This thing was an abomination because I had no idea who anyone was. The matches were god awful with these small looking people in dark arenas (one looked like some cocktail lounge with a bunch of old people confused at what they were seeing). This thing didn’t have the same energy as the WWF, the production was small time (cable access level), the arenas were smaller and poorly lit, the camera shots were terrible and the wrestlers themselves looked cheap. Probably, one of the cheesiest things I’ve ever seen was seeing this wannabe punk guy called the Ripper bite off the head from a Hogan figure. Then the interviews were dead boring with almost non personalities involved. I remember this god awful interview with some guy named Victor Rivera who said in the most simplistic of interview methods, “I gonna get you” in reference to his feud with Steve Strong and some other guy I barely remember. I wish I could find that video just because it’s a how-to in terms of how basic and boring you can be not to sell a feud and is almost laughable even compared to the classic John Farmer interview.
Either way, all that simply solidified in my head that the WWF was #1 with Hogan behind them. My friends at the time would talk about pro-wrestling and all the people they liked. For instance, JYD was the popular one with a lot of my buds. I’d hang out at my cousin’s home in Gardena and they would get channels we weren’t getting. There was one interview with Mean Gene where he had Hogan, the Hillbillies and Andre and my aunt commenting, “Man, those are HUGE people” (which is why McMahon wanted big people back then just to get those first impressions). Then my cousins would come down from Hawaii and my local cousin put my smaller cousin in a variety of holds (including a standing full nelson and a fucking camel clutch where my poor smaller cousin started crying!) But you can see how pro-wrestling was really resonating for people.
Eventually, Wrestlemania 2 came about and I couldn’t go sadly. However, two friends at school “supposedly” managed to see it and the next day they’d brag to me how Hogan grabbed them after the match from the crowd, put them on his shoulders and took them to the back. I’m sure that’s all verifiable these days but it really sounded like BS with two jackasses conspiring to make me feel small and poor. But they would say stupid things like “Oh, we hung out with Hillbilly Jim and Uncle Elmer and we were given a bucket of fried chicken.” Um, yeah. But again wild imaginations of kids who wanted to impress people.
Not long after, the infamous Horowitz “Fight Back” show came around to effectively break kayfabe or at least the mysticism of pro-wrestling as being “fake.” From there everyone in school and my cousin would make fun of me and try to convince me it was fake. People would still get me in headlocks and stomp their feet on the ground to make the pretend sounds of hitting someone in the head. But by this point, pro-wrestling was now “fake” and no longer cool because it wasn’t a real sport. So once again, I was the super geek because I didn’t care whether wrestling was scripted or fake and just enjoyed it because I liked the energy and people.
Around ’86 though, I continued to branch out my interests in pro-wrestling by discovering/exploring other federations. I found the WCCW by accident in seeing Kerry/Kevin Von Erich vs Gino Hernandez/Chris Adams in a hair vs hair match that was electric. Then I would find my first pro-wrestling female love with Missy Hyatt (I felt sympathetic for the poor lady when the Fantastics dumped a ketchup and other condiments all over her during a match against John Tatum and one other). Then finally I found the NWA. The NWA in ’86 probably was the hottest promotion around. Maybe not as main stream as the WWF was at that time but they had the best angles with a much harder edge. Seeing the Four Horsemen weekly beat down of Dusty Rhodes or Jim Cornette thrust his tennis racket into Babydoll’s abdomen really put you on the edge of your seat to the relatively tame WWF (although before they did have Piper and Orton shave a midget’s hair).
But for me the real story was quickly becoming tired of Hogan. Around that time, Orndorff was face and teamed up with Hogan to face Bundy/Studd. There were tensions between the two with the story being that Hogan’s ego was out of control while Orndorff was getting the shaft. Eventually, Orndorff had enough and turned on Hogan, then allowing Bundy/Studd to come in to try and do more damage. Unfortunately for them, the babyface locker came out to prevent anything serious from occurring while Orndorff walked back with his new friends. The whole heel locker room came out to congratulate Orndorff and in a way I was too. In general though, the combination effects from the slow stagnation of the Hulk Hogan act, the growing awareness of Hogan’s obvious ego, the harder edge promotions and angles/characters especially from the NWA, the subconscious feeling of betrayal that wrestling is “fake” with the more cartoony direction the WWF had been going in and the gradual appeal of heel characters within the WWF such as Bobby Heenan, Roddy Piper, etc. I think were wearing out Hogan’s welcome for me.
Now, one thing to note is that I didn’t see Rocky III at that point whereas my friends would talk about it during the rise of the WWF and pro-wrestling as a mainstream culture thing. But I do recall my friends talking about how Rocky (Stallone) picked Hogan up and tossed him out into the crowd (whereas I heard he needed a double because Hogan was such a huge person). And if we go back to late ’83 (whereas I discovered wrestling in ’85), I do remember seeing Captain Lou, even though I had no idea whom this guy was at the time in Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun video. But the whole rock-n-wrestling connection had started, although I wasn’t caught up just yet.
Anyway, sometime in late ’86, I had an incident with my mom and pro-wrestling which turned me off for a few years (it was stupid but my mom got mad at me for some reason and I ended up blaming pro-wrestling, tearing up my mark mags, throwing them away and swearing pro-wrestling off). It wasn’t until I’d say mid to late 1990 when I started to pick pro-wrestling back up. It might’ve been by accident where I started watching the NWA (soon to become WCW) late at night and got fascinated once again. Between ’86 and this point though, I’d still keep up with figures in pro-wrestling. Of course, Jesse Ventura would go into do Predator, Piper would do They Live (although I didn’t watch it until mid high school) and Hogan did a load of awful movies, including No Holds Barred. I think my friends talked about No Holds Barred because it had Zeus, who would be one of Hogan’s opponents at some PPV later but everyone commented how huge he was and crazy he looked (these days, the only reason I’d watch that movie was to see Joan Severance but that’s a different topic altogether) Either way, pro-wrestling was continuing to grow in the mainstream.
Gradually, I made my way back to the WWF at least by 1991 because I remember going to my high school friend’s home one day for a gaming session and watching WWF commericals on their TV for one of the upcoming PPVs (might’ve been Summerslam or Survivor Series). I still have one magazine from that period which is my favorite because Sensation Sherri is in it when she was with the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase and Sherri looks super hot. By 1991 though, the WWF had become super kid friendly. I already had missed Demolition, Dino Bravo, the Honky Tonk Man IC era, the Mega Powers, etc. But at this stage, the gimmicks were over the top. Like Tugboat? I mean huge guy (with a tiny head) but a Tugboat? And I knew the Ultimate Warrior because I saw him back in ’86 in WCCW as the Dingo Warrior (before he went completely insane)
However, the one consistent thing was Hogan still being on top. Hogan still was physically imposing but he was losing his hair rapidly. All those bald jokes by Piper (and maybe Jesse) were really hitting home by this point. But the real deal was that my friends were calling him old. He wasn’t even 40 by this stage. However, it wasn’t the same guy I remember back ’85. The act was completely stale while fresh faces with better physiques (UW, Lex Luger, etc) easily could show this guy off. Then there was Sid Vicious in WCW who was far more physically imposing.
Around that time, Bush somehow took reigns of this country and decided we needed to go to war with Iraq. While I can’t recall the specifics on why at the time without delving into history, I can’t forget how the WWF decided t exploit the situation by turning Sgt Slaughter of everyone into an Iraqi sympathizer. It made no sense. GI Joe Sgt Slaughter, the US marine figure (kayfabe) now was aligned with the Iron Shiek (who was in awful shape by then) and some whack job called General Adnan. The metaphors of the Patriot missiles being the same as Hogan’s 24″ pythons was forced and a turn off as it was clear as day that poor Slaughter would be the one eating the pin eventually. Later, Sgt. Slaughter would rehab his character (which was stupid and made no sense) while Hogan would start to face fresh blood in the Undertaker and Sid Vicious (though not Ric Flair who in ’85/’86 would’ve been the dream match due to the mark mags with their controversial rankings)
Undertaker was still green but to a (now) teenage kid, he was bad ass with an amazing character (not to mention the greatest gimmick the WWF has ever produced). But my man was Sid Vicious. Who cared if he couldn’t work. He had that killer power bomb and occasionally the airplane spin. His squash matches are stuff of legend. He was going to be the next Hulk Hogan after the Warrior flamed out quickly. Physically, Sid and Hogan matched up. Sid had that physical charisma and an updated move set compared to Hogan. Then the Royal Rumble 1992 happened.
I remember reading and hearing the boos against Hogan when Hogan yanked Sid out. I was pissed because Hogan acted like a crybaby here. Furthermore, the story went how the WWF edited the footage to change the boos to cheers for Hogan, which made me lose faith in the WWF. From there it was a downhill slide with Hogan’s popularity, including a short lived title run when he beat Yokozuna, although I think he would take a flash from a photographer that blinded him.
Around this period Hogan’s situation became annoying because it was clear that he was on his way down. His act was really stale by this point and newer wrestlers moving up were outclassing him in the ring. Also, he kept his bud Brutus Beefcake around where they formed a nonsense tag team to face Ted Dibiase and IRS. They had that whole stupid controversy about Brutus’ face after the sailing accident where he wore a butt ugly mask to protect him against IRS’ briefcase. I mean, it’s a wrestling angle but the thing looked ridiculous and cartoonish again.
Around this time though the steroid scandal broke out which was a huge deal. I’m not going to go in depth about what happened outside of Hogan being involved here. But it put a huge damper on the WWF and I’m sure Vince wanted to wash himself clean by moving away from the usual big men types, which is why Bret probably got pushed harder (or that he came back to Bret).
At any rate, Hogan wasn’t in the WWF much longer and soon made a monstrous move by signing with WCW. This was a major deal that got a lot of headlines because Hogan had been associated with the WWF for so long that this was considered a major coup. It didn’t take long before his buddies showed up, Hogan dominated by pinning Ric Flair (especially after that incredible ’93 match against Vader) and the cartoonish stupidity went into overdrive at WCW.
Oddly, these days I get a perverse kick out of the ’95 year with the whole Dungeon of Doom (or Dungeon of Dud to us back then) just because it really was one of those so bad it’s good scenarios. Honestly, when you watch those god awful skits, you can’t help but wonder what kind of drugs everyone was on. The whole nonsensical father stuff with the various members coming out of a steam tunnel (symbolism for steaming pile of shit) to present bigger challenges against Hulkamania was laughable. Traditional NWA fans just shat all over the WCW especially as the WWF started marketing the “New Generation” and denigrated Hogan (and Randy Savage) as being old and decrepit (with the Nacho Man and Huckster skits)
Around ’96, WCW was in a weird state because things had gotten really bad but new talent started arriving with guys like some of the ECW talent, which made the undercard better. However, the top part was still ridiculous and Hogan tried to employ a harder edge with the black and white colors as the fans started to boo him (there was an infamous incident with Vader where fans shouted something like “Shoot Vader shoot!” in reference to Vader’s “shoot” days in hoping to take Hogan out of this mess permanently). Of course, the NWO thing would happen which effectively was driven by a huge part from Hogan’s controversial turn that effectively revitalized his career.
One thing that occurred to me though was how this heel turn could’ve worked earlier on in Hogan’s career. While I missed out between ’87 – ’90 or thereabouts, I did backtrack to find some of the major highlights during those periods. The big one was the Mega Powers with Hogan and Savage teaming that ultimately lead to Wrestlemania between the two. In watching that story develop in retrospect, I found more sympathy towards Savage given how Hogan seemed again to be the selfish one. It’s kinda like when Orndorff turned on Hogan and I found myself leaning towards him and the Heenan family. I read how other people felt similar at least by the time the Savage – Hogan feud started and it makes me wonder if Hogan had turned heel at this point how much different his career could have been in the WWF.
When the feud with Slaughter happened, the match itself seemed like the old guard (Slaughter) formally passing the torch to Hogan in a scenario where both guys needed to have a match but needed the right angle. The problem though was that for kids growing up with both, Slaughter probably was cooler because he had that GI Joe figure and wasn’t factored in as the top babyface with a stale gimmick. So the feud here once more felt forced especially with the WWF using jingoism in a situation more people around the country weren’t comfortable with (why go to war with Iraq?). This scenario just made everyone involved seem out of touch.
Then with Sid Vicious, even if Sid was better as a heel, people didn’t want that. Hogan was passe and Sid was supposedly the guy to take the spot since Warrior failed. Instead, we got a situation no one wanted to see especially where a shitty legdrop would beat Sid’s more modern powerbomb.
And Bret Hart losing the title to Yokozuna with the rice in the face so that Hogan could come down and have his moment was the breaking point. Everyone watching Bret at that time knew how hard Bret was working as a champion. He had better matches that were modern and better stories. Hogan’s character was very stale and he simply looked old.
These situations make me question if the NWO scenario was a matter of perfect timing or Hogan’s last real moment before got sick of him? Because at least for 2 years 96-98, he was the top dog again and he could still draw. There were a lot of big moments involving Hogan besides the turn in that period that made his contract seem worth it to a degree like the Luger title match, the renewed feud with Piper, the NWO vs the Horsemen, the big rating Nitros with the start of the beat downs, Sting vs Hogan at Starrcade ’97 (which was one of the biggest buyrates), Rodman, Jay Leno (which was an awful match but got buyrates) and eventually the Goldberg match.
However, he did wear out his welcome and by this point WCW was too top heavy while the undercard was getting a great deal of attention. Cracking the glass ceiling was impossible for most and once Vince Russo showed up, more chaos ensued. Later, there was the controversial shoot angle of Russo blasting Hogan then having Jeff Jarrett and Booker T wrestle for the title with Booker T finally getting a world title.
There’s more stories about other moments like Hogan’s eventual redemption in the WWE with his last really good match against The Rock where the crowd in Toronto (I think ) turned back to his side. Easily, one of the smartest worked matches that had to change the match’s direction almost spontaneously.
After all these memories, there still were controversial moments down the line with his family, the sex tapes, the racism remarks and eventually him siding with Trump. One has to think all those backstage politics and rumors about the guy being true as his private life became public that turned him IRL heel (or perhaps just reaffirmed what most people felt for a while who knew better).
I think part of the situation though is that the guy changed over time. Maybe during the height of his career when he was doing all the charity, Hogan might’ve really been that person we saw, at least for the kids. Certainly, he would have had an ego towards his peers and undoubtedly that grew as his fame and career took off. But it feels over time part of the authenticity would disappear from the character where a different person emerged. Maybe some of it was still there towards the end but how much exactly? It makes me wonder just how the earlier Hogan as his fame grew would’ve viewed the later day Hogan.
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