Wrestlers’ Court: Hulk doesn’t rule

The January 6 premiere of WWEs Monday Night Raw on Netflix was notable for many reasons. It began with a kayfabe-busting narration by Paul “Triple H” Levesque and a promo by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — two Attitude Era legends who now lead WWE from the backroom and the boardroom.

The two talked up the current roster, which proceeded to put on a series of pay-per-view worthy matches. The show added chapters to feuds like Roman Reigns vs. Solo Sikoa, Liv Morgan vs. new Women’s champion Rhea Ripley, and CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins.

Conspicuous by their relative absence were SmackDown World champion Cody Rhodes and RAW’s champion Gunther — which tells you how stacked the evening was.

Conspicuous by their presence were The Undertaker, who exchanged drive-by pleasantries with Ripley, and Hulk Hogan, who came out to shill his new beer brand to the kind of boos he could only have imagined with the nWo.

Hogan’s reception went beyond usual heel response (especially since Hogan was accompanied by an Old Glory-waving Jimmy Hart, positioned as a babyface). It was pure “go away” X Pac style heat. Considering X Pac was in attendance and drew cheers, that’s saying something.

From the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, Hulk Hogan was one of — if not the biggest — stars in professional wrestling. As Vince McMahons avatar he helped lead the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection that changed the way pro wrestling is presented. Hogan’s run upended the business as whole. With Hogan as champion, McMahon drew houses away from established territories and eventually dismantled wrestling’s regional network of promotions. Hogan helped turn American wrestling into a monopoly.

McMahon made Hogan the center of a marketing campaign to 1980s kids. They eschewed the idea of presenting wrestling as a legitimate, bone-bending contest between grizzled tough men in favor of a cartoon spectacle with music and lights and mascots and heroically built heroes turning back challenges from villainous monsters (and, at one point, an actual cartoon, which I loved).

Hogan, readily identifiable in bright primary colors, held down Saturday mornings alongside the Transformers‘ Optimus Prime, He Man and the Masters of the Universe (all of whom were body guys in pro wrestling parlance), Marvel’s Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, DC’s Super Friends lineup of heroes and the Thunder-Cats‘ Lion-O.

I don’t think McMahon ever stopped chasing that demographic and its issue. Wrestling boomed as McMahon aged the product to speak to rebellious teens and young adults with The Rock and Steve Austin as protagonists (and Hogan as an occasional novelty act); scaled it back for Gen-Xers kids during the John Cena years; and by the time McMahon left, WWE started creeping it back up with Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes.

Along the way, McMahon learned how to bifurcate his product to sell it effectively to different parts of his audience — keeping the kids on board while appealing to older fans with more nuanced characters, occasional nostalgia acts and better in-ring action.

Ten years ago, this gave us John Cena alongside CM Punk (and later Daniel Bryan). Today we have Cody Rhodes as do-gooder and an assortment of more complex characters including Reigns, Drew McIntyre and Rollins (and Punk again, when he’s healthy) plus Gunther for wrestling purists.

Hogan’s superhero act made him rich. It also made him a mainstream public figure. To this day he is one of few pro wrestling names (perhaps exceeded only by The Rock) recognizable to non-fans.

It also put Hogan on a pedestal which has been eroded by real life events.

In the early 1990s Hogan first denied using performance-enhancing drugs, attributing his massive physique to “training, prayers and vitamins.” At one point Hogan actually sold a line of children’s vitamins. If they’d been available in Canadian drug stores, I would have been an eager consumer. Dragged before a judge, Hogan admitted he lied and that he was an avid steroid user.

There are other infractions which have diminished fans perceptions of him. In 1991, Hogan lost the WWF World championship to The Undertaker at Survivor Series, when ‘Taker very carefully piledrove Hogan onto a steel chair placed by Ric Flair. Undertaker executed the move safely, but Hogan complained to anyone who would listen (especially Vince McMahon) that ‘Taker botched the move and dropped Hogan on his head. Hogan is reported to have stymied many other wrestlers pushes — including champions like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart — or refused to work with them if it meant putting them over. Hogan covered for this by occasionally making lesser talent look good. When it suited Hogan, he would lose to the likes of Billy Kidman or Jacques Rougeau Jr. in one-off matches or inconsequential programs, as token examples of being a team player.

Worse, Hogan was recently revealed to have “stooged” on Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s attempt to organize the WWE locker room and unionize before WrestleMania 2. Catching wind of Ventura’s efforts, Hogan went directly to WWE boss Vince McMahon — perhaps changing the course of pro wrestling history.

More broadly, Hogan has earned a reputation as a fabulist who rewrites history so he can take credit for wrestling’s success while pushing off blame for its downturns.

Hogan’s personal life included a messy divorce from his first wife, Linda, featuring mutual allegations of infidelity. Hulk and Linda made their private relationship issues public by airing them out on their reality TV show Hogan Knows Best. Hogan has also been accused of meddling in other wrestlers personal lives, contributing to the end of Randy “Macho Man” Savage’s marriage to Elizabeth.

In 2012, Hogan was an unknowing participant in a sex tape with his supposed best friend’s wife. I still don’t understand the chain of decisions that led to Hogan’s dalliance; his scene partner’s participation; her husband’s approval; or the fact that the escapade was recorded, then disseminated to the public. I’m not a prude but a lot had to happen for the tape to emerge.

The sex wasn’t the worst part of the tape. In 2016, it was reported that Hogan sued the gossip website Gawker. Hogan alleged that Gawker leaked sealed court documents that quoted Hogan using racial slurs found on the original sex tape. Hogan used terribly racist language against Black people in general, and specifically about an individual who was dating his daughter. He also proudly and directly identified himself as racist. The tapes transcripts were published by the National Enquirer. WWE fired Hogan, who was acting as a judge on a rebooted Tough Enough reality show. WWE re-signed Hogan in 2018, which went over poorly in the locker room and among fans. WWE has since tried to use Hogan before a live audience on several occasions. Reaction has varied — never more than temperate, sometimes as frosty as we saw on the first Raw on Netflix.

Hogan eventually issued a fulsome apology (which, to me, reads as crafted by an experienced crisis communications team) via People Magazine: “It was unacceptable for me to have used that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it… This is not who I am. I believe very strongly that every person in the world is important and should not be treated differently based on race, gender, orientation, religious beliefs or otherwise.” I had to search for this apology, finding it under the fold in a TMZ article about Mark Henry’s reaction to Hogan’s RAW appearance. It attracted far less attention than Hogan’s initial apology to the WWE locker room, which focused more on getting caught and having his personal life shared on social media, than on the substance of his words.

Most recently, Hogan has drawn criticism for politicizing his persona. Hogan appeared on stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Some have cast his embrace of Donald Trump as seeking acceptance among a segment of Trump fans who share his racist views. Trump is already a divisive figure in American politics. At the convention, Hogan went into standard promo mode — ripping off his T-shirt to reveal a printed endorsement underneath. He then spoke about body-slamming and leg-dropping the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Hulk echoed Trump’s remarks about Vice President Harris racial identity: “Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?” He followed his rhetorical question with a stereotypical gesture wrongly associated with Indigenous people. Hogan later said he “was going to get heat for that one,” adding, “That was not me, that was the beer talking…”

Last week Hogan appeared on RAW to sell that beer. As endorsements go, Hulk Hogan branded beer feels like an odd fit. About a year ago, Hogan claimed to have sworn off alcohol in People Magazine. Hogan has lent his name to a variety of ventures, but considering his gimmick was originally based on clean living and bodybuilding, a bloating, carb-based beverage seems off-brand. At this stage, Hogan might be better suited for Viagra, car insurance or legal retainer services.

In any case, Hogan was reportedly disappointed in the reaction he received on RAW. Hogan attributed it to his political involvement rather than his other actions. He is said to be willing to use future reactions for a heel turn like The Rock’s “Final Boss” run at last year’s WrestleMania. Hogan seems unconcerned about his past. He has stated in interviews that wrestling fans are generally forgiving, citing some fans posthumous support of Chris Benoit as evidence.

In the grand scheme of wrestling transgressions, one can argue that Hogan’s private racist remarks are nowhere near as bad as McMahon’s alleged sexual exploitation, Buck Zumhofe’s or Grizzly Smith’s predation or Benoit’s or Jimmy Snuka’s murders. That seems like a weak argument to bring him back.

The internet commentariats condemnation of the RAW crowd was surprisingly strong, especially when most fans understand that when you pay to watch a wrestling show, cheering or booing as you see fit is part of the fun.

Hogan’s defenders argue:

• Enough time has passed since Hogan made his incendiary racist remarks; we should all get over them.
• Whatever Hogan may have said, he said it privately and should not be subject to public scrutiny as a result.
• Regardless of Hogan’s words and/or beliefs, his contributions to professional wrestling outweigh his personal flaws (this argument often includes an appeal to welcome Vince McMahon back as well, despite ongoing sex trafficking and assault allegations).
• Hogan (and McMahon) are old and won’t be around forever. Whatever they may have done, better to celebrate them while they are alive.
• Fans still love Hogan. The hostile reactions he has received are either payback for taking a political stand or reflect a miniscule, “soft, snowflake” portion of audiences “wokeism”.

These superannuated Hulkamaniacs claim that Hogans critics have said offensive things in their own lives — they just haven’t been caught. That’s a speculative and disingenuous argument which presumes racism is acceptable so long as its private, and that bigotry is universal. Maybe that’s true for those who make the argument, but it’s a leap to presume were all racist.

It’s a bigger leap for these commenters to tell the community targeted by Hogan’s speech how they should feel.

Mark Henry made his views clear on news/gossip site TMZ. Henry referenced Hogan’s racist rant and his failure to adequately apologize for it: “With the social climate and the things [Hulk’s] said and done and his lack of effort to try and fix it, people are gonna come down on it… He never wanted to go forward and fix it. That’s what happens when you think everything is gonna go away. It’s not gonna go away.”

In 2018, when WWE re-inducted Hogan into its Hall of Fame, Kofi Kingston wrote on behalf of the New Day: “On a personal level… When someone makes racist and hateful comments about any race or group of people, especially to the degree that Hogan made about our people, we find it difficult to simply forget… regardless of how long ago it was, or the situation in which those comments were made.” Moving forward, Kingston wrote about choosing not to associate with people who “have conveyed this negative and hurtful mindset.”

Titus O’Neil, a WWE goodwill ambassador, echoed the New Day’s frustration. He stated that he’s a “proponent of second and even third chances for individuals that show true remorse… Mr. Bollea’s apology ‘That he didn’t know he was being recorded’ is not remorse for the hateful and violent utterances he made which reprise language that has caused violence against blacks and minorities for centuries.”

Whether Hogan’s words were intended for public consumption or not, they were and are abhorrent. I don’t believe that Hogan owes a personal apology to everyone he might have offended. He probably owes one to the individual who was dating his daughter and should have made concrete attempts at amends. He may have done so privately but some sincere measure of public contrition is still needed.

I understand people not wanting anything to do with Hulk Hogan. I fully get booing the presence of a self-declared racist in their midst — especially one who has no problem taking money from fans of any color, race or creed. Those who boo Hogan are not acting “woke” or like “snowflakes.” They are standing up for themselves as consumers. Booing Hogan hopefully sends a message to WWE and its corporate parent about the relative value of decency and entertainment. If Hogan had been advertised to appear on RAW, Los Angeles fans could have decided whether to attend based on his presence. Hogan was an unwelcome surprise. He got the reception he deserved.

Were still talking about Hulk Hogan, which raises questions about whether and how WWE might use him going forward. Because Hogan and WWE will always look to what’s best for business.

More on that next time.

TOP PHOTO: Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart on the debut of WWE Raw on Netflix on Jan. 6, 2025. WWE photo

RELATED LINKS

• Hulk Hogan story archive
• Previous Wrestlers’ Court columns by Jonathan Schwartz