Remembering Hulk Hogan, the racist, scab, narcissist king of pro wrestling

Hulk Hogan is dead. Now we await the inevitable WWE memorial that showcases the high points in his career, and conveniently ignores that he was an opportunistic, greedy, narcissistic racist, who was willing to destroy everyone in his path in order to fuel his own stardom. A man who ascended the throne of professional wrestling by scaling a mountain of bones, transforming him from a fascinating, once-brilliant performer into a grotesque, steroid-bloated, spray-tanned mess of flesh.

The positive traits of Hogan’s legacy are short: He made corporations and himself a whole bunch of money. Hogan also caused more damage to the wrestling industry than anyone, save Vince McMahon. So spare me your “don’t speak ill of the dead,” because that’s intentionally whitewashing the past to remember Hogan solely as the Saturday morning hero he’s was portrayed as, and not the monster who he really was.

Hulk Hogan the wrestler

There was a fleeting moment when Hogan was a legitimately brilliant, interesting professional wrestler. You have to go way back and look at his work in the late 1970s, and his early run in New Japan from 1980 onwards — but watch old tapes and we was actually good. His tag work with Antonio Inoki was legendary, and he was one of the first, mammoth western draws inside the normally insular Japanese wrestling scene. Japan was also concerned with the art of wrestling, the technicality of it all that it required Hogan to work a very different style than he became popular for in the United States.

Hogan was a wrestler before becoming popular in WWF. Vince McMahon tutored him on the art of greed, and Hogan was a brilliant student. The wrestler was a backstage extension of McMahon himself, ruthless, take-no-prisoners, and the wrestlers around him weren’t viewed as coworkers, but pawns.

Hulk Hogan the narcissist

Human beings were nothing to Hogan but opportunities, tools to help propel himself forward at their expense. Nothing typifies this better than his relationship with Jesse Ventura. Ventura considered Hogan one of his closest friends, only to find out in 1994 that he was betrayed by the man for over a decade, after Hogan ran to Vince McMahon and leaked all the information about Ventura’s attempt to unionize the then-WWF locker room. Ventura wanted to ensure better working conditions for wrestlers, healthcare, and fair compensation from the company using wrestlers’ names and images in advertising campaigns.

What did Hogan stand to gain from the betrayal? Brownie points. Hogan was already at the top of the heap after headlining WrestleMania I and II, but ensuring lower-paid wrestlers beneath him had no opportunity to improve their working conditions cemented Hogan having the undying trust of McMahon, who held his future in his hands. This wasn’t a case of Hogan simply choosing not to unionize, but see to it that anyone involved in unionization discussion was punished, and their careers ruined for broaching the topic.

It’s certainly fair to question if Hogan directly contributed to the deaths of wrestlers. If the locker room had unionized in 1984, and more equitable working conditions were agreed to, and the schedule hadn’t been so grueling — then would as many wrestlers need to turn to painkillers to keep appearing on the road? Would they need the regimen of uppers and downers just to travel? Would Eddie Guerrero still be alive? Would better health care have recognized Chris Benoit’s traumatic brain injury before it was too late? We don’t know these answers, but without question a union would have helped wrestlers more than it would have hurt them.

McMahon might have taught Hogan the art of greed, but Hogan ran with it further than anyone could imagine. The fame, the money, it all went to his head to such a profound degree that the WWF patriarch could no longer control the monster he created. This was the heart of his defection to WCW in 1994, and this time Hogan’s greed wouldn’t just hurt wrestlers in the locker room, but collapse a company.

Hulk Hogan the mentor and company killer

There’s no shortage of reasons why WCW failed. Entire novels have been written about the company’s collapse, but a common through-line in much of WCW’s struggles was Hogan being at the top and refusing to step aside for anyone. At pivotal moments when WCW needed to modernize or innovate, Hogan was the blocker. This was a company desperate for star power to compete with WWF, and Hogan was the biggest prize in the sport — so, despite not having a direct working relationship with him, they wrote complete creative control into his mammoth contract. This meant that nothing could be done with Hogan without his approval, and when you’re giving that power to a narcissist it’s a recipe for disaster — and it was.

Not only did Hogan get to call all his own shots in WCW, but he extolled the virtues of greed to those around him. Most notable his nWo stable members Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who had enough pull in their own right to make demands of the company. The trio would go on to effectively run WCW into the ground by refusing to let the nWo run its natural course, while also doing absolutely ridiculous things in the ring to make sure nobody “looked bad.”

This was best typified in 1999 with the infamous “Finger Poke of Doom,” in which Hogan won the WCW title for a fifth time by poking Kevin Nash in the chest who took a dive, before being pinned 1-2-3. The pair stood up and embracing, seemingly telling the story that they were in on it all along, but it was met with widespread hatred from fans who knew this was simply a case of two men with too much power, neither of whom wanted to lose a match.

When Hogan left WCW in 2000 the company was already dead. WWF continued to innovate, push young talent, and find the next generation of megastars in Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, while WCW was behind the eight ball with Hogan, Nash, and Hall having too much power. It was akin to an airplane in a tailspin, and nobody could bring it level.

Hulk Hogan the racist

Normal people don’t just have racist outbursts out of the blue. Racists have racist outbursts. It just so happened that in 2015 Hogan was caught. That’s when Hogan was caught on video launching into an n-word laden tirade that showed who he really was, and supported claims of black talent in WWE that during his time at the top of the company Hogan would never, ever lose, or even look weak in the ring against a person of color.

Hogan didn’t just dislike black people, he hated them, he loathed them, he viewed being black as some sort of cosmic curse.

When Hogan returned to WWE after his racism hiatus there was no shortage of talent who were clearly asked by WWE to extol Hogan as “not racist.” Meanwhile numerous others doubted Hogan’s sincerity when he apologized to him, and those who said Hogan wasn’t racist kept their spot in the company, while those who doubted him fell down the card — to the surprise of nobody,

Hulk Hogan the philanderer and domestic abuser

It’s difficult to find many pro wrestlers from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s who managed to have a long-term monogamous relationships. It’s an entirely other thing to consistently cheat on your spouse, and physically assault your wife in the process.

Hogan acknowledged he slept with his daughter’s best friend in 2007, someone the family had known since childhood. This led to Linda Claridge divorcing Hogan, and publicly revealing that she had been abused by her husband for years. In her book Wrestling the Hulk: My Life Against the Ropes she detailed how Hogan would often become angry with her over small things, and then become violent, throwing objects at her, choking her, and pinning her to the ground. Linda says she didn’t come forward with this information sooner because she feared for her life, likening herself to Anna Nicole Smith, the deceased wife of O.J. Simpson. She was legitimately fearful her husband might kill her for trying to leave.

In response Hogan never officially denied the accusations, but instead said his ex-wife was irrelevant, bitter, and had been coasting off his name their entire life.

Hulk Hogan the tool

Trash tends to float together, and that was the unlikely union of Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel in 2012. When the celebrity gossip website Gawker published part of a sex tape between Hogan and Heather Clem, Thiel saw it as his opportunity to get back at a website he hated.

Funded by Thiel, Hogan had endless resources to try and destroy the company. At Thiel’s demand he didn’t just seek damages to his reputation, he sought to dismantle an entire business, asking for $100M in damages. After his lawsuit stalled in New York and federal court, Thiel orchestrated for Hogan and Clem to file jointly, and with both being Florida residents it allowed the duo to file their suit in Florida, and get more-friendly Florida judges.

It worked. Gawker was found liable and Hogan was awarded $115M. The lawsuit destroyed Gawker, and Thiel got his revenge.

Hulk Hogan the grifter

The largely irrelevant leather bag of feces known once as Hulk Hogan made his final, desperate pitch for relevancy in 2024 when he took the time-honored “Born Again” approach.

It was at this time Hogan chose to become overtly political, supporting the second presidential bid of Donald Trump. It’s unclear if he actually supported Trump, or cared about the election — or whether this was just an attempt to virally launch his brand of shitty “Real American Beer,” which he hawked up until his death.

Hulk Hogan the hated

When WWE RAW launched on Netflix in January of this year the company wanted something big to mark the occasion, and immediately following the election of Trump they thought Hogan was the right man for the job. What ensued was one of the most awkward and hilarious moments in years, as Hogan appeared in a “Real American Beer” shirt with Jimmy Hart waving the American flag only to have an entire arena boo Hogan.

Hogan stood for an awkward amount of time, lips pursed, hoping the boos would become cheers. It never happened. Hogan tried to get a cheap pop by praising WWE, it failed. He tried to invoke his legacy, it failed.

Time had come for Hogan, and people saw him for what he was: A sad, tired, racist, abusive, scab of a narcissist who made the world a worse place for his existence.