Hulk Hogan has posthumously headlined the last two Mondays.
The wrestling giant was laid to rest last Monday near his home in Clearwater, FL, at the Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park & Funeral Home. Wrestling luminaries such as Hall of Famer Ric Flair, WWE COO Triple H, his wife Stephanie McMahon, and her dad, legendary company visionary Vince McMahon, were among those who attended — along the likes of Kid Rock and Dennis Rodman.
The ceremony for Hogan, who died of a heart attack on July 24 after a years-long, private battle with leukemia, was closed to the public. There was no large cathedral where throngs of fans could attend, no livestream for the legion of fans to view and say their goodbyes at home or wherever they were watching on their mobile devices. Just news reports and Instagram posts from those who were invited by the family.
Today is a lighter fare but a marker, nonetheless — Hogan’s birthday. I find it hard to genuflect to the man I once idolized because he wasn’t fond of African Americans. That’s an understatement as the self-proclaimed real American admitted to being racist. And so there will be no cake and ice-cream in honor of the sour champion.
Hulk was my hero when I was growing up. But the last time I saw him in person, on January 6 (It's not lost on me that this is the date of the insurrection), I did everything but give him the gasface. I snarled, grimaced, and shook my head in disgust.
“Not this bozo!” I yelled, and proceeded to join close to 20,000 other wrestling fans in booing Hogan out of the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, CA.
For the majority of his career, Cali had been Hogan Country. He was billed as being 6’8”, around 300 pounds, and from nearby Venice Beach, CA. In his prime, Hogan’s in-ring entrance was a spectacle that shook arenas. There were no handheld distractions back then other than the giant yellow and red Hulk Hogan foam hand that was balled into a fist with one finger pointing north.
The marquee moment of every Hogan match when he was a good guy would take place right at the zenith of his opponent beating him down. The referee would slowly count to two and Hogan would kick out of a pin just as the official was nearing the third count. Hogan always mounted a comeback. It was wonderfully scripted. He’d tremble, then shake uncontrollably as his opponent pummeled him. Finally, Hogan would stop and point a finger at whoever he was facing. A three-count victory for The Hulkster would follow more often than not.
THE ADVENT OF HULKAMANIA
I remember January 23, 1984, like it was last night. My mother, aunt, older cousin, and some of their friends used to hit Madison Square Garden every month as the WWF (as it was called back then) had monthly, sold-out house shows. While some women went to bars, discos or Chippendales as a girls’ night out, my mother went to see WWF Wrestling.
I was barely past being a toddler, and had just latched onto the sport. My sitter, who was also an older cousin, let me stay up past my bedtime and we stumbled onto WWF late-night programming. The first wrestler I ever saw was the “Ugandan Headhunter” Kamala. This was a 6’5” bald, bearded Black man with war paint on his face. He was shirtless, barefoot, with a huge beer belly. Despite his rotund frame, he was graceful, climbing to the top rope with speed and ease and pouncing on his laid-out opponent with his signature splash!
Kamala would become one of Hogan’s biggest foils in the mid-80s, but not before that fateful 1984 night where Hogan pinned The Iron Sheik in the middle of the ring at MSG to win the heavyweight championship. Whoever was scripting the WWF at the time had a jones for politics because it would often make its way into the organization’s storylines. My mother came home that night so excited, she woke me up like it was Christmas morning.
“The Hulk won! The Hulk won!” she screamed. I was tired, disoriented and didn’t know if she was talking about Lou Ferrigno’s green monster or Hulk Hogan, but if Mom Dukes was with happy, I was happy. The next morning she gave me the rundown of the match as I got ready for school.
For kids growing up in the 80s, Hogan was a preferred hero than any of the Superfriends, Thundercats,” or Masters of the Universe characters. He was real. He was champion years before Iron Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan, and unlike Magic and Bird, Hogan ended his rivalries by dropping his leg on his opponents’ throats. We loved Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone, but we would see them infrequently in theaters.
We could see The Hulkster on TV a couple of times a week and go to the arena and experience his greatness in person.
I almost came to tears when he lost the heavyweight championship to Andre The Giant on “The Main Event” in the greatest swerve of all time. The Million Dollar Man paid off the evil doppelgänger of the official in the match (yes, the ref’s real-life twin) to cheat and cost Hogan the title. If Macho Man would have showed up to any public school in America on the Monday after he betrayed Hogan and shoved Elizabeth to the ground on “Saturday Night’s Main Event,” he would have gotten assaulted by the entire playground.
Hogan was one of the most beloved celebrities—not just for our family, but for countless others across the globe in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s—for more than just his physique and charisma. He was a symbol of strength, resilience, and hope. He literally told us kids to train, say our prayers, and eat vitamins. He was heroic, standing up for himself and others. His theme music, “Real American,” features the lyrics: “If you hurt my friends, then you hurt my pride / I gotta be a man, I can’t let it slide.”
His yellow and red colors were signature and stood out in a wrestling universe that featured many over-the-top, colorful characters like Kamala, Macho Man Randy Savage, The Birdman Koko B. Ware, and Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Hogan had swag, cutting his tee shirt with strategically placed holes in the back and no sleeves. He’d flex his muscles after every match, with the aforementioned theme music playing, making the crowd bid with who had the loudest cheers as to which side he would face and pose to.
The highlight of his exhibition? Showing off his “24-inch pythons”—so unforgettably popular that Nas referenced his gun in “My President Is Black.”
WrestleMania (42 and counting) is still the biggest event in wrestling today, and Hogan main-evented 8 of the first 9, just about every one of his matches being historic and legendary—including bouts against Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man Randy Savage, of course Andre The Giant, and his groundbreaking tag team match with Mr. T vs. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff. There is no Cardi B hosting SummerSlam last weekend without Cyndi Lauper being involved in the Hogan and T vs. Piper and Orndorff storyline in 1985.
There is no WrestleMania being expanded into two nights and selling out football stadiums every year without Hogan vs. Andre selling out 90,000+ at Mania 3.
When the mid-90s came and Hogan’s character got stale, he made the greatest “heel turn” in wrestling history. At “Bash at the Beach” 1996, Hogan shocked the world by joining the New World Order (nWo), aligning with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Hogan went from beloved hero to villain overnight, delivering some of the most memorable promos and matches of his career. Hogan was darker, edgier, cooler—and fans loved it.
Even as a bad guy and in another company (WCW), Hogan and the NWO were dominant, changing the face of wrestling to a more reality-based motif.
The harsh real reality of Hogan, though? He didn’t love us like we loved him. He was a bad guy in real life who privately admitted to being racist and used a very hard “ER” when saying the word “nigger.” He articulated the slur as easily as the word “brother,” which he called just about every male in his on-screen wrestling career, friend or foe.
In 2007, Hulk Hogan was secretly recorded during a private encounter with Heather Clem, who was married at the time to his close friend, media personality Bubba the Love Sponge. Although the footage remained out of public view for years, portions of it were leaked in 2012 and eventually played a central role in Hogan’s high-profile $100 million lawsuit against Gawker Media. Three years later, in July 2015 — just about 10 years before the day of his death — The National Enquirer released excerpts from the tape’s transcript, which revealed Hogan making multiple racist remarks — including repeated use of the N-word — while discussing his daughter Brooke’s romantic involvement with a Black man. Video and audio of his rant eventually surfaced.