The opening chords of Rick Derringer’s hard-rock guitar would play over the arena sound system. Instantly, 20,000 Hulkamaniacs — and many more as wrestling’s popularity and stadium size exploded — rose to their feet in a frenzy to catch a glimpse of Hulk Hogan storming toward the ring.
His T-shirt half-ripped, his bandanna gripped in his teeth, Hogan faced ’em all in the 1980s — the bad guys from Russia and Iran and any other wrestler from a country that seemed to pose a threat to both his WWF championship and, of course, could bring harm to the red, white and blue.
His 24-inch pythons slicked in oil, glistening under the house lights, Hogan would point to his next foe — say “Rowdy” Roddy Piper or Jake “The Snake” Roberts (rule of thumb: In the 80s, the more quote marks in a name, the meaner the wrestler) — all to the strain of Derringer’s patriotic “Real American.”
In Ronald Reagan’s 1980s slice of wishful-thinking Americana, no one embodied the vision of a “real American” like Hulk Hogan.
“We had Gorgeous George and we had Buddy Rogers and we had Bruno Sammartino,” WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter said Friday. “But nobody compared at that time compared to Hulk Hogan. His whole desire was to be a star and be somebody that nobody every forgot. He pretty much did that.”
He saw himself as an all-American hero
Hogan, who died Thursday in Florida at age 71, portrayed himself as an all-American hero, a term that itself implies a stereotype. He was Sylvester Stallone meets John Wayne in tights — only fans could actually touch him and smell the sweat if the WWF came to town.
Hogan presented as virtuous. He waved the American flag, never cheated to win, made sure “good” always triumphed over “evil.” He implored kids around the world: “Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins.”
Hogan did it all, hosting “Saturday Night Live,” making movies, granting Make-A-Wish visits, even as he often strayed far from the advice that made him a 6-foot-8, 300-plus pound cash cow and one of the world’s most recognizable entertainers.
His muscles looked like basketballs, his promos electrified audiences — why was he yelling!?! — and he fabricated and embellished stories from his personal life all as he morphed into the personification of the 80s and 80s culture and excess.
In the not-so-real world of professional wrestling, Hulk Hogan banked on fans believing in his authenticity. That belief made him the biggest star the genre has ever known.
Outside the ring, the man born Terry Gene Bollea wrestled with his own good guy/bad guy dynamic, a messy life that eventually bled beyond the curtain, spilled into tabloid fodder and polluted the final years of his life. Hogan — who teamed with actor Mr. T in the first WrestleMania — was branded a racist. He was embroiled in a sex-tape scandal. He claimed he once contemplated suicide. All this came well after he admitted he burst into wrestling stardom not on a strict diet of workouts and vitamins, but of performance-enhancing drugs, notably steroids.
The punches, the training, the grueling around-the-world travel were all real (the outcomes, of course, were not). So was the pain that followed Hogan as he was temporarily banished from WWE in his later years. He was the flawed hero of a flawed sport, and eventually not even wrestling fans, like a bad referee, could turn a blind eye to Hogan’s discretions.
His last appearance fizzled
Hogan’s final WWE appearance came this past January at the company’s debut episode on Netflix.
Hogan arrived months after he appeared at the Republican National Convention and gave a rousing speech — not unlike his best 1980s promos — in support of Donald Trump. Just a pair of the 1980s icons, who used tough talk and the perceived notion they could both “tell it like it is,” to rise to the top. Only wrestling fans, especially one in the home of the Los Angeles event, had enough of Hogan.
“He was full-throated, it wasn’t subtle, his support for Donald Trump,” said ESPN writer Marc Raimondi, who wrote the wrestling book “Say Hello to the Bad Guys.”
“I think that absolutely hurt him.”
He didn’t appear for an exercise in nostalgia or a vow that if he could just lace up the boots one more time, he could take down today’s heels. No, Hogan came to promote his beer. Beer loosely coded as right-wing beer.
No song was going to save him this time. Fed up with his perceived MAGA ties and divisive views, his racist past and a string of bad decisions that made some of today’s stars also publicly turn on him, Hogan was about booed out of the building. This wasn’t the good kind of wrestling booing, like what he wanted to hear when he got a second act in the 1990s as “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan when controversy equaled cash. This was go-away heat.
“I think the politics had a whole lot to do with it,” Hogan said on “The Pat McAfee Show” in February.
Hogan always envisioned himself as the Babe Ruth of wrestling. On the back of Vince McMahon, now entangled in his own sordid sex scandal, Hogan turned a staid one-hour Saturday morning show into the land of NFL arenas, cable TV, pay-per-view blockbusters, and eventually, billon-dollar streaming deals.
Once raised to the loftiest perch in sports and entertainment by fans who ate up everything the Hulkster had to say, his final, dismal appearance showed that even Hulk Hogan could take a loss.
“The guy who had been the master at getting what he wanted from the crowd for decades, he lost his touch,” Raimondi said. “Very likely because of the things he did in his personal and professional life.”
But there was a time when Hogan had it all. The fame. The championships. Riches and endorsements. All of it not from being himself, but by being Hulk Hogan.
“There’s people in this business that become legends,” Sgt. Slaughter said. “But Hulk became legendary.”
