July 28, 2025 • 54 mins
In shocking news, Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea passed away at the age of 71 this past week. But do we honor his work in the world of pro wrestling or should we shame Hulk post-mortem for some of the notoriously dispicable moments out of the ring? Kory David and guest host Justin Greenberg decide to split the baby on that.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This production is brought to you by the Recess Bell.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm better than you and you know it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I believe in Joe here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh yeah, you've got nothing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You get what you have earned, and what you have
earned is nothing.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
You got the cool music, you got, the lights, you
got the fog machine, you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Got the girl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You know what they do to make out of cold
feels special.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
They bring the.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Freaking bell a real.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Side the rights of every man. I am a real American,
fight fool, what's right?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Fight for your life.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Welcome to another edition of When the Bell Rings. I'm
the old Cory David alongside me with my co host
Justin Greenberg. Today's a special episode as we look back
at the life of the late Hulk Hogan, the highs,
blows and everything in between.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We give it to you real, unlike no other. Let's
get it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Hulk Hogan was the face of pro wrestling. He's the
Babe Ruth of pro wrestling, and if you haven't heard,
he passed away earlier this week at the age of
seventy one. I would have thought he's older. I could
have sworn he was in his mid seventies, but only
seventy one years old, and I know he was dealing
with health issues, and people around him were saying the
(02:01):
health issues were fabricated, but I tend to believe that
he was not in the best of health. I mean,
there's been rumors that he had a neck fusion surgery
and pretty much hasn't been able to speak since that surgery,
and he died of a heart attack earlier in the week.
But there would be no modern wrestling that we know
(02:22):
of without Hulk Hogan. And that's just a fact. With
Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan taking pro wrestling from pretty
much like Smoky filed Anas, you were rarely gonna find
kids at wrestling events in the sixties and seventies and
or early eighties. I'm not saying kids didn't go to wrestling,
(02:45):
but for the most part, if you look at the
crowds of these events, you know, with Pedro Morales and
Bruno San Martino, and if you want to go to
the NWA, people like Harley Race and the Funk Brothers,
you rarely saw him young kids in the arenas. And
what Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon did is they took
(03:07):
pro wrestling from sort of a niche thing and They
made it a global phenomenon and made it acceptable for kids, teenagers, adults,
grandparents to all go to pro wrestling and not be
ashamed of going to a pro wrestling event. Now, Hogan
started his career in the late seventies and joined the AWA.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
He initially had a run in the then WWWF and
feuded with the likes of Andre the Giant and the
famously had a match at Chase Stadium against Andrea the
Giant and basically Vince McMahon senior, Vince's dad. He didn't
like the idea of Hogan going into Hollywood because Hogan
(03:53):
was offered a role in Rocky three as Thunderlips, one
of my favorite movies of all time, and Vince Senior
was very old school and he didn't want to, you know,
let Hogan do that. So Hogan left the WWF and
joined the AWA, which is a company run by verne Gania.
(04:14):
And that's really when Hulkamania started to run wild. That's
when you got a lot of the Hulk Hogan. You know,
sort of things that you would know later on in life,
like the ripping of the shirt and let me tell
you something, brother, and you know, doing the interviews with
me and Gene Oakerland because me and Gene was a
part of the AWA. Now, Hogan was influenced by a
(04:35):
lot of people, particularly Superstar Billy Graham. He's pretty much
the prototype for what Hulk Hogan became. Those phrases, the
tie die, the muscles, talking in that sort of lingo
that Hogan would do, and Superstar was way ahead of
his time. Really also influenced many others, including Jesse the
Body Ventorra. But Hogan's in the AWA and Vern never
(05:00):
goes in with Hogan like he's the biggest attraction in
the company, but they never gave him the world title.
He had matches versus Nick Bockwinkle and he'd win, and
then you think he was winning the title, and lo
and behold, they would do like a screw job sort
of finish and the title would be taken away from him.
And Hogan's pretty much just like, when are you gonna
(05:20):
strap the rocket to me? Fully, because I'm clearly the
biggest name in this business right now. I was just
in Rocky three, one of the biggest movies of all time.
Give me the title. But he knew that Vern was
not going to be able to capitalize on the success
of what Hogan was doing, and he knew the real
money was back in New York. And at this time,
(05:43):
Vince McMahon Senior sold his company to his son, Vince
McMahon Junior, the one that most of you guys know,
and Vince Junior was going to do everything different that
his father was doing and pretty much was going to
allow for show business to be involved with pro wrestling.
(06:03):
And Hogan decided to go back to the WWF and
pretty much in a month or so won the championship
from the Iron Chic January twenty third, nineteen eighty four,
And that's when a lot of people say that's when
hulk Emania started, but really, if you go back to
his a WA days, you'll see just hulk Comania was
(06:25):
running wild in the Minneapolis, Era area also. But yeah,
so Vince and Hogan pretty much changed the landscape of
pro wrestling. Hulk Hogan became the face of pro wrestling,
the Babe Ruth of pro wrestling. And I've heard people
say very few, but I've heard people say, oh, Vince
(06:47):
could have gave that spot to anybody and there would
have been the same success of the WWF which is
now the WWE, and I don't agree with that at all.
I really don't. You give it to someone like Randy
Savage who's completely paranoid and doesn't have, I think, the
(07:08):
ability to play the political stance. You know, there's a
lot of politics in pro wrestling. I'm not talking about
Donald Trump politics. I'm talking about playing it right and
knowing what to say and what not to say, and
how to present themselves on different talk shows and play
that game. And I don't think Macho Man would have
done that. A guy like Roddy Piper completely unhinged. And
(07:31):
I love those guys, and I love those guys actually
more than Hulk Hogan. I think they're better wrestlers and
more entertaining than the Hulkster. But Hogan was the right guy,
the only guy at that time the size. Hogan was
also like a foot bigger than both of those guys.
He was a mammoth. The guy was gigantic, six foot seven,
close to three hundred pounds of giant, oily tanned muscle,
(07:54):
with that iconic mustache and the bandanna and the yellow
trunks and the big boot in the leg drop. It
was all combining with the success of Rocky three, and
Vince McMahon basically put all of his eggs in one basket.
In that basket was going to be WrestleMania. If the
(08:14):
initial WrestleMania was not a success, the WWF definitely would
have not been around any longer, and he decided to
pair up Hulk Hogan with mister t who was also
in Rocky three. He's one of the bigger TV stars
at around this time with the A Team, and he
has his own Breakfast Cereal, he has his own cartoon
(08:37):
show like He's gigantic, and they do various programs on MTV,
which is pretty much in its infancy, but everyone and
their mother that has cable is watching MTV is must
watch television. And that whole rock and wrestling connection with
Sidney Lauper and you know Roddy Piper attacking her and
her manager and starting this gigantic feud leading up to WrestleMania,
(09:02):
but you know, the war to Settle to score all
these great events on television leading up to that initial
WrestleMania where it would be Rowdy Roddy Piper teaming up
with mister Wonderful Paul Orndorf to take on mister T
and hul Cogan that was must watch, and it wasn't
on pay per view. Pay per view really wasn't a
thing at this point. It was on closed circuit television.
(09:23):
So essentially, if you wanted to watch this event, you
would either a have to go to Madison Square Garden
and watch it live or b go to an arena
that's showing the event. So you'd basically pay money to
go to an area to watch it on just a
big screen TV or you know, some sort of projector
I'm not sure exactly what the size of these screens were,
(09:46):
but you couldn't just order it at home. Really, pay
per view didn't become truly big until a few years
later and they got rid of the whole closed circuit concept.
So Hogan teams up with mister T and it's a
gigantic success. WrestleMania is huge, and then they start having
events on NBC, things like the Main Event and Saturday
(10:06):
Night's Main Event, and these things were watched by millions
of people. I'm gonna look up right now, most watched
wrestling program of all time, and I believe it was
something called the Main Event, which is when, yes, this
was the main event there on NBC on February fifth,
(10:28):
nineteen eighty eight. This event drew a record thirty three
million viewers, and this led to Andre the Giant winning
the title from Hogan but then giving it to the
million dollar man, Ted Dbasse. But there was a swerve
because the referee, Dave Hebner, his twin brother, showed up
(10:52):
and Earl Hebner, who became a very famous or infamous
referee in his own right. But that thing was watched
by thirty three million viewers. So let's just go, I
just I'm curious. What was the most watched regular season
football game last year? Most watched regular season NFL game
(11:15):
twenty twenty four. Let's see googling, googling, googling. So the
most watched game last year was the Giants.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Really it was a Thanksgiving Day game the Giants and
the Cowboys, which drew thirty eight million viewers, so just
a little bit more than a pro wrestling event, but
majority of NFL games don't get anywhere near this. This
is pretty much like tripling what your average NFL game gets,
usually around ten million or so on like a CBS
(11:50):
or Fox sort of game. So wrestling was gigantic, and
there was very few channels. Also, that is why many
people were watching this because they pretty much either didn't
have cable and really only had five things to watch.
So he prebaty went to stuck watching what was ever
on CBS or NBC or you know the other channels
that you would get with basic cable. So Hulk Hogan
(12:15):
is rising right now. He's hosting Saturday Night Live, He's
on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He's doing really bad movies,
Like he was great as Thunderlips, but then when he
became like the leading man in movies like Noel Holds
Barred and Mister Nanny and Suburban Command a terrible movies
but also like a guilty pleasure of mind. I really
(12:36):
actually like the movie no Holds Bard he had a
really funny cameo. And Gremlins two, and you know, wrestling
just kept on getting bigger and bigger. As I mentioned,
Hogan got his own cartoon show. He had a workout set,
he had all the action figures in video games, the
LJN rubber figures. That's something that's always been in my household.
(12:58):
I can't remember a time in my life when Hulk
Hogan wasn't a part of my life. Even before I
watched pro wrestling. We had the Giant Wrestling Buddy, there's
like giant stuffed animals in the shape of wrestlers. We
had the Hogan one. We still have the Hogan one.
I have the LJN one, which is like this big
rubber figure, and it's just it was just always there
(13:19):
before even watching wrestling. Like I said, Hogan was a
part of my life, and wrestling kept on continuing to
get bigger and pretty much the peak I would say
for this early era of wrestling would be WrestleMania three,
when Andrea the Giant officially passed the torch to Hulk
Hogan in front of When they say ninety three thousand,
(13:41):
I've heard that. You know, number is exaggerated like most
things in pro wrestling, but a crapload of people at
the Pontiac Silver Dob witnessed this amazing match between Andre
the Giant when he got body slammed by the Hulkster
and I had this a few times this week. Actually,
if there was to be a logo for professional wrestling,
(14:05):
just how the NBA has their logo with Jerry West
the Silhouette of Jerry West. I would say the logo
of pro Wrestling would be a silhouette of Andre being
slammed by Hulk Hogan. Then Hogan would have feuds with
Macho Man Randy Savage, you know, leading up to a
(14:26):
formation of their tag team, the Megapowers. Then they imploded
by WrestleMania five. Then Hogan himself tried to pass the
torch to the Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania six. That really
didn't go too well. A warrior couldn't lead like Hogan led.
Hogan was. He knew how to represent the company to
(14:47):
perfection at this point, and there was really no flaws
in what he did. There was one minor hiccup in
the mid eighties, pretty much right before WrestleMania, the initial one.
He choked out television host Richard Belzer. And it's this
funny moment. At this time, a lot of news stations
were trying to say, oh, wrestling's fake, No crap, it's fake.
(15:08):
I mean, how dumb do you have to be? Did
people actually think this was real? I gets so funny
reading these books and these hearing these stories from the
old old timers. Yeah, these fans tried to stab me
because of a match, Like, did people actually think wrestling
was real? Like how dumb did you have to be
to think what you were watching wasn't a staged event.
(15:28):
I would love for somebody that grew up in like
the sixties and seventies that actually watched wrestling to let
me know if they were grown up, then did they
actually think it was real? Because pretty much by the
age of seven, what I knew what I was watching
was staged. I still loved it, you know, just like
I like watching the Ninja Turtles and Captain America and
(15:49):
all these Marvel movies and all these you know, comic
book movies. I just saw it as something like that.
But yeah, he choked out Richard Bellser live on television
and for real, and there was a big lawsuit. Belzer
won a couple million dollars actually from it. But then
a big hiccup took place in the early nineties. The
(16:10):
government start to go after Vince McMahon, one for sexual
allegations between some of the people that worked for the
company against some of these young men that worked for
the company. But for Hogan's sake, they were also going
after McMahon because of steroids, and they were saying that
McMahon was pushing steroids onto his wrestlers, and with Hogan
(16:33):
being the face of pro wrestling and being a gigantic
man who clearly was on steroids, the world was pretty
much waiting to see how we would handle this situation.
And he did go on the Arsenio Hall Show and
really dropped the ball there because he pretty much denied
ever taking steroids besides one time due to an injury.
(16:56):
And that's just the first lie that we've heard from
Hulk Hogan over the years. The guy's infamous for just
telling these fabricated stories anything from Andre to Giant was
seven hundred pounds when I slammed him and then he
died a week later. I was the original pick to
be the bassist for Metallica. Darren Aronofsky wanted me to
(17:19):
play Mickey Rourik's role in the Wrestler. Like pretty much
all things that have been debunked from talking to members
of Metallica or Darren Aronofsky or just you know, looking
at facts like, yeah, Andre didn't die for another five
years or six years. He just lied. There's montages of
videos online of the hulkster lying. But this was the
(17:41):
first one that the masses really saw and they started
to turn on Hogan. Around this time, ninety two to
ninety three, the WWF was going in a different direction.
He was starting to not get the reactions that he
was once getting, and eventually he did leave the WWF
to join a rival company called WCW, which was run
(18:03):
by Ted Turner, and in nineteen ninety four he faced
off against Rick Flair and in his first match, he
won the WCW Championship, And eventually that started to get
old and they thought, okay, Wolka Mania truly is dead.
At this time, WCW was a down south sort of organization.
They didn't really like the Northeast territory of the WWF,
(18:26):
so he wasn't really being accepted. And eventually, in nineteen
ninety six, Hogan did the truly unthinkable, and he turned heel,
meaning Hogan, who was a good guy for fifteen years
or so, turned his back on WCW, turned his back
on the fans, and became a bad guy by joining
forces with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to form the nWo.
(18:49):
And this was the resurgence that pro wrestling needed after
that steroid trial took place. Wrestling was doing its worst
numbers in decades, and this rejuvenate the business. It lit
a spark under the WWF to get their product in shape,
and then we started to see stars like Stone Cold,
Steve Austin and The Rock and all these young people
(19:11):
in WWF sort of step up their game, all because
of what Hogan was able to do in the nWo.
With the WCW brand, and you know, he had a
second run of being the biggest bad guy in the business.
He was the biggest good guy of all time, and
you can make an argument he was the biggest bad
guy of all time in pro wrestling. Eventually, WCW goes
(19:34):
out of business and Hogan returns home to the WWF,
and with this so many dream matchups people were waiting
to see. I think the big one everyone wanted to
see was Stone Cold Steve Austin versus Hulk Hogan. Unfortunately
that never happened in the singles match in the WWF. Now,
(19:55):
Hogan did come into the WWF as a heel, meaning
he was maintaining that Hollywood Hogan nWo character, but the
audience didn't want any of that. They wanted to cheer him.
He was finally back home, and he eventually faced The
Rock at WrestleMania eighteen. And this was supposed to be
(20:17):
The Rock as the good guy and Hulk Hogan as
the bad guy, but that Toronto crowd was going nuts
for the Hulkster. It's my favorite pro wrestling match of
all time, and the audience truly makes that match something special.
The loud noises being made constantly through this match, and
(20:37):
the fact that this one wasn't the main event is insane.
How do you not have this match go on?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
List?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It completely stole the show. It took the wind out
of the Souths for the remainder of the event, and
Hogan truly showed that he was the master of pro wrestling,
the biggest name in all of pro wrestling when he
lost to Hulk Hogan. I mean, excuse me when he
lost to The Rock at WrestleMania eighteen, but all the
eyes were on the Hulkster. He's the one that everyone
(21:05):
was talking about. Eventually, he fully turned into a good guy,
won the WWF Championship one more time. He was actually
the last image on TV for the WWF was Hogan
holding the World Championship. And then the next day they
had to change to the WWE because of a lawsuit
involving the World Wildlife Fun So Hogan eventually his run
(21:27):
in WWE comes to an end. He has a match
with Vince McMahon at WrestleMania nineteen. It's absolutely insanity and
it actually is another guilty pleasure of mine. I actually
really enjoy his match with McMahon at WrestleMania nineteen. But
around this time, he starts a reality show on VH one,
(21:48):
Hogan Knows Best. And this is really like the downfall
of that whole family because they put their kids in
the spotlight and it really broke up their family pretty much.
Their family has been a disaster since the creation of
this show. Brooke Hogan, the daughter, she pretty much wanted
(22:11):
nothing to do with Hulk Hogan for the last five, six,
seven years of his life. She didn't invite him to
her wedding. He never saw her, you know, his grandkids.
Nick Hogan, the son, he got into a horrific car accident,
(22:33):
pretty much leaving his best friend braindead, and he went
to prison for that. And then also Linda Hogan divorced
Hulk Hogan and took pretty much all of his money
and Hogan was really on hard times, and another you
know tragedy happened with Nick Hogan going to prison. Audio
(22:58):
was leaked about Hogan and pretty much saying the guy
that got into the accident, that's you know, brain dead.
He sort of deserved it and we're gonna, you know,
make a reality show about this. And I know a
lot of people are crapping on him for that, and
I can understand why. But he's also like talking to
his son and he you know, maybe he was just
(23:20):
saying whatever to cheer him up, So I'm not going
to hold him to that. Hogan eventually joined a company
called TNA Wrestling and pretty much led that company underground
and really destroyed any momentum that they were gaining in
the years prior to Hogan joining. And eventually he was
(23:44):
privately filmed having sex with a radio personality's wife. There's
a guy named Bubba the Love Sponge who was Hogan's
best friend, and he pretty much allowed his wife to
have sex with Hogan at any point, but he filmed
or it was filmed, and then that film got leaked,
(24:04):
and this is really like the true downfall of Hulk
Hogan was this sex tape because with the sex tape
being leaked, audio eventually got leaked of Hogan saying horrific
racist things. It's an interesting thing because you hear from
(24:24):
a lot of black wrestlers today and I've read from
Teddy Long, from Devon Dudley, from Mark Henry, and they
were all praising Hulk Hogan. So I don't know how
he handled this situation to the masses, but it seems
like to a lot of wrestlers he handled this post
(24:48):
racism a like you know, outing well with some wrestlers,
but for a lot of people, he didn't handle it well.
He didn't show any remorse, he didn't do what he
to be done to gain the love and support of
a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people
did not forgive Hulk Hogan for these racist rants. And
(25:12):
then he doubled down on not being liked by people
by supporting Donald Trump, who was a very polarizing figure
in the world. I don't know if you haven't heard
about that, but a lot of people don't like Donald
Trump apparently, and Hogan doubled down and was there during
you know, the election run and was you know, fully
(25:36):
supporting Donald Trump. So he had a lot of negativity
in the last decade of his life, from his marriage
and family falling apart to the racist leak that came
out to aligning himself with Trump. And his last public
appearance on television was at Monday Night Raw's debut on
(25:58):
Netflix earlier this year, and Hogan was booed out of
the building. That's the last image that majority of the
people that watch pro wrestling saw of the Hulkster was
that image of him being boed out of the arena.
And it's actually really said, in my mind, it is
sad that that's the legacy for a lot of people
(26:21):
of Hulk Hogan is those last couple of years. And
I can understand, like I said at the beginning of
this long winded rant, that I can understand why people
haven't forgave Hulk Hogan. And if you want to live
that way, by all means do it. I'm not going
to tell you who to like and who to not like,
but I like to look at the good things that
(26:42):
he's done, the good things that he did for the
wrestling business, the amount of money these performers are getting
right now, you have to thank Hulk Hogan. Anytime Hogan
was on the card. Everyone want to be on the
card with Hulk Hogan because they were going to get
paid the most amount of money. All the merchandise that
these guys are selling right now in this business, you
have to thank Hulk Hogan. All the iconic moments and
(27:04):
rivalries and promos that the Hulkster put out through all
these years, those stuff, those images and moments are going
to be timeless. And was he the best in ring wrestler. No,
was he the best person from a lot of wrestler's perspectives. No,
But he's certainly the biggest name in the history of
(27:27):
the business of pro wrestling, and he is immortal in
the sense that he will always be remembered. So I
like to remember the good in people. You hear a
lot of good charitable deeds that Hogan did, you know
with the Make a Wish Foundation. So even though Terry
Bulea was a flawed man, I'd like to still give
(27:48):
tribute to the great Hulk Hogan, who passed away this
past week at seventy one years old.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Justin thank you for giving us that perspective on his
earlier career and the things that he's done.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
But now that the fluff piece is over.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Let's get into the side of Houk Hogan that he's
been most known for in these last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
As I would put it, the real Hokgan. We'll Hogan
in TNA.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Oh, we'll get to that. We'll get to we'll get
to Hogan's debacle with TNA. But but it is interesting
you brought up that that reality show really did destroy Hogan.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It really opened up their marriage and put their kids
in the spotlight and gave their kids even bigger egos.
And eventually his son Nick crashed a vehicle.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
We'll get into that. We'll get into it. I'll tell
you right now, I kind of I know what I know.
It doesn't feel like it. I feel like we're building
him up, going to just we're gonna break it down.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
We're gonna have to break it down. So let's get
into it. Hogan, Hogan's kid goes to prison. His friend,
who I believe was a marine or some sort of
military member, uh, pretty much is brain dead after this,
and Hogan uh tries to cheer up his son, and
I think says something awful about the marine or the
(29:37):
military guy basically being a bad person, and that was
sort of another thing like, Okay, Hogan's like bashing this
guy who doesn't have a brain right now and his
son pretty much ruined his life.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
But uh, I believe he said a certain I believe
he made a certain certain comments about what he felt
like karma would be for him and his family.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Oh yeah, what what he scared of? I don't know,
do we get that audio?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
It's kind of it's kind of a little distorted, but uh,
what is he saying along the lines of He's like
he's scared that basically his family would come back as niggas.
Basically he'd be scared if they would his family would
come back as black folks.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So yeah, that was that was definitely.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Uh, basically more for a year than he had. But
like if you just if you go, if you can
find you can find all.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
This audio, Yeah, this is the audio I believe of
him talking about Brook's boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Okay, yeah, what he said about Brook, what he alluded
to Brook, I'm trying to remember, Uh, alluded to something
that basically like that's uh, basically sense of like you
as long as you don't deal, you could find anybody long.
It's like an eight foot tall nigga, what yo like?
Why are you even put Why is that word evening
(31:06):
your vocabulary?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
My god?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So let's get to the to the downfall of Hault Cogain.
His son goes to prison for you know, the vehicular incident,
and then eventually he does film a sex tape that
he doesn't even know is being filmed with his then
friend Bubba the Love Sponge, and eventually that sex tape
does get released illegally through Gawker, and there's a whole
(31:27):
lawsuit that takes place. But there's audio that is released
from the sex tape which has Hogan saying these derogatory
things towards black people. In the meantime, he has joined
TNA Wrestling, and that's a whole clusterfuck of a thing
right there, with a lot of creative control. But let's
get to the downfall of Hogan where he says these
racist things. And he does win the lawsuit versus Gawker,
(31:49):
but I think he would have traded all that money
in the world for his legacy being tarnished because he's
caught saying these racist things. He gets fired by the WWE,
because he gets rehired back by them, and he's pretty
much been hated for the last ten years.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
And then when they ask him, when when he finally
does come back and they ask him apologize, basically he
gave He gave a nope. He basically gave a non apologies,
basically said uh. He basically said to a certain degree, well,
you know, you gotta be careful of these cameras.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And I'm like, bro, what the fuck? What the what?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's not
a fucking apology, Hogan.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I'm always of the mindset if you make a mistake,
you are allowed to redeem yourself, unless you're raping somebody
or murdering somebody or doing something really unthinkable like that.
But I think if you say really bad words or
even do something really bad, I'm always of the mindset
that you could change, even if you're old, even if
you're fifty six years old. I've seen it before in
real life. I've seen it in the documentary. I've seen
(32:47):
people legitimately want to become better. Where I think I
agree with you, Corey is he never showed that he
wanted to actually change. He didn't take any steps to
prove that he's a change man, because you know, like
you said. When he spoke to the wrestlers, he was
more cautious with telling them to avoid being caught on
(33:10):
camera saying racist things instead of saying, I fucked up.
I'm sorry. Let me prove it to you that I'm
a good guy. Let me do some charitable work. Let
me talk to you guys one on one. Let me
find out why you're bad. You always hear about this
when people say anti Semitic things. Julian Edelman, who's a
famous Jewish athlete, he'll say something along the lines of,
why don't you come over, We'll have a nice dinner,
we'll discuss why you're what you're saying is wrong, and
(33:32):
he offers up that sort of redemption with these people.
But Hogan never went out of his way to find redemption.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Just I just want to help people out.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Just understand some of the things he said, because I'm
trying to get some statements, because I know if you
didn't hear this quote from Hogan. So gets to the
point where I don't know if Brooke was fucking a
black guy, a black guy's son, or they've been hanging out,
hanging out and I'll quote them holding hands together on tour,
they were getting close con of fucking. I'm not a
(34:03):
double stand this type of guy. I'm a racist, to
a point, a self admitted racist. He admitted, I am racist.
You know, fucking niggers, he said to er. He said that,
But then when it comes I'm like, bro, what the
fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yes, yes, I mean again. Well it's also to say that,
not that that makes it right, but he was did
not know he was being filmed. I'm not saying that
makes it right, but he did not know he was
being filmed. So that's just a weird situation.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
To me, that makes it worse because guess what. So
what that tells you is he's putting up a front
to everybody else. It's like, you see who this person
he want you to be, But behind closed doors, he
don't give a fuck about you. And mind you, black
folks were some of his biggest fans force, We were
some of his biggest supporters. But once you show us
(34:56):
you don't fuck with us, after a while, we stopped
fucking with you.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And I still think he could have redeemed himself. I
think even though he said all those dead things, I
think if he if he genuinely felt sorry and and
showed people like Mark Henry and Shelton Benjamin and MVP,
all these wrestlers that are black that he wanted to
change and he felt bad, but he never took those steps.
He never took any accountability for what those words were said.
(35:22):
And I think that's part of his downfall for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
And that's been a stain on him.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
A lot of black wrestlers to this day, including like
you said, Shelton MVP, lost tons of respect for him,
and I think he got to I think it gets
to a point where now like he goes out to Raw,
he's getting booed like he like his last Raw appearance,
he got booed out of the fucking and you had
most people go back on social media and say, I'm
(35:48):
glad I was the fucking person that boot him.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I was a part of that.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Like they claim to fame that night, on that night,
that Netflix night, was the fact that they said I
got the boo hoole code I got. I got to
boot that motherfucker basically. And you notice some people, like
there's some people who with his pass, and you know
there's some people who really don't don't give a fuck
(36:12):
about it. Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I see it all over social media the last day.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
People are either heartbroken for this thing, uh, for for
Terry Blea hul Cogan's passing, or they're celebrating the passing.
And I think hul Cogan is such an interesting human being,
an interesting character, a very flawed individual for sure, to
say the least.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And I think that's where we could separate Terry buleya
in hul Cogan. Now, Terry Belaya also did do some
good things. Whenever you hear about the Make a Wish
kids like hul Hogan, Terry Blea was always so good
with them. And now you've also seen a lot of
wrestlers come out and say how much they helped them,
Guys like Goldberg and Nash and DDP and Mick Foley
(36:56):
and Triple H and all these people. Undertaker even with
a know a salute to hulkkin So's it's he's such
a complicated character. But I can understand why people hate him.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Honestly, I can UNDERSTANOK.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
My thing is, I can understand how people, you know,
praise him for what he's done in the in the
in the wrestling industry, but at the same time, I'm
not gonna bash those those black folks who you know
feel a certain way because you gotta write to feel
that way about that person because he said things that
like to you, to you as a person will be like, okay,
(37:29):
I'm trying remember what's the clippers on the clippers? Donald
Donald Donald Sterling. When he said those things that he said,
it was fuck him too. I'm like, I'm give a
fuck that you lost your team when you say when
you say crazy out of pocket ship like you're not
gonna get celebrated. Like and now, mind you, these people
(37:50):
in the industry that we know is super conservative, we
don't really give a fuck that they're super conservative. That
that that that's the way you live. Like under we
don't undertake a super conservative blue lives mad and everything.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We never heard a racist thing from him, and.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
People fuck with the Undertaker Rick Flick. There's been stories
about him making Rachel marks towards certain people, but you
know what he did. He had a fucking rebrand. He
didn't get caught saying it out loud. He had a
fucking rebrand. And it's like, okay, people fucking Oh. There's
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
There's also a lot of people that don't fuck with
Rick Flair, and I'm also one of them. I think
Rick Flair, I think Rick Fleer, you know his real birthday.
I think he's a scumback.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I think people.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I think people, uh they they know about his sexual
escapade and his sexual I don't want to say, I
can't allegations of sexual assault, allegations of sexual assault.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Showing his penis when people don't want to see it.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Most famously, like I'm trying to remember this from Hell
playing Roight from Hell, and then his multiple WWE stories
like like they made a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, they're joking about it like flash. People like, Okay,
well you can't do that, Rick Flair.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
And it's like but then you you look at like
the like the history in the culture of WWE, like
you have guys like Swerve strictly who called out these
things about like Vince McMahon, Vince McMahon saying niggative Booker
t like just flat out and and Vince mc man Josh, Josh,
(39:18):
you got that audio listen man in the Great Woods.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Of gold Bird. Guess what.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
You're next.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
We will be putting something on a grill that day.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm sorry, Yes, I think, uh vincechmick Man has already
hated enough at this point that there will be celebrations
for sure when he passes away.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
But this was just the pre as most people say,
this is, this was just the pre game today that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
So this is where we differentiate. I think Hulk Hogan
the character and and Terry Belay are the human being
because his impact as far as a pro wrestler to
give all these people money, there would be no wrestlemaning.
People wouldn't be getting these giant contracts, there would be
no action figures, and maybe eventually a along the line
something would develop. And I'm not saying it definitely wouldn't
(40:03):
have happened without Hogan, but it wouldn't have happened that quick,
with that amount of success. Without Hulk Hogan. All these
guys oh a giant face, a giant debt to that
character of Hulk Hogan. Guys like the Rock that we
saw his social media posts, there would be no Rock,
there would be no Miss. I'm not saying the Miss
is on the Rocks level, but so many of these
people were so influenced by Hull comania to start wrestling
(40:25):
by watching him edge edge was a giant whole comania.
I can appeared that wrestling.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Like basically to me, if you if you're over forty
and white, you comania. Yeah, you're probably gonna deny, but
most likely see him Punk. Yeah, even seeing Punk probably
was a whole comania.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I'm sure at some point he cheered Hogan on.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You got most got l A.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Knight, You got multiple guys, Matt Cardona, you got multiple
guys who came out and you know, basically showed up.
You know how they looked. They had to fake mustache
and everything like that. I mean, like I said, he
there was a lot of there was there was a
lot of impact things that he's done in the industry.
There's a lot of negative things as far as not
even just talking about the racism and ship like.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That, holding back to creative control, all that stuff, the steroids,
a lying on our Citney Hall Show, choking out Richard Belger.
There's a throw.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
He's not single handedly, but he had a big part
in the destruction of TNA, because people forget that. Going
before he came to TNA, him and Ry Pischel, they
were on a good run. You had, you had your
young superstars, you had the X division, You had everything
set in place, and then they come they they say,
you know what, this ring doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
For me for foresights, We're gonna go for size.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
It was believe with six sides, the sixth SyES go
go to four.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
If you can't I forgot.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
There's a famous quote that if you can't draw, if
if everybody's changing, the channel's brother, we don't want you.
I'm like, basically he shipped on a lot of people
in the DNA, and I think that like people had
that mindset after after he left it, that m Bischoff
and Dixie Carter they totally destroyed TNA.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
And you could make the argument also without him helping
the younger talent and starting to push the younger talent
in wc W, they ruined that company. Even though he
gave w CW the biggest rub that they've ever had.
There would have been no booming w c W, but
they might not have gone out of business because they
would have started pushing younger talent.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
Well to that point, I would I would I would
push back because I would say that he kind of
leached off of a situation because you had Kevin n
Ash Scott hole an X Pop, I mean six or
six bringing in that cool factor who they say, you know,
we influenced by We're influenced.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
By rap music and West Coast West.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Coast rap and everything like that, And he said, you
know what, these guys are cool, I'm going to hitch
my bandwagon to them, and then you know, you get the.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Instances with uh.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
But that's just smart.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
With Dennis Rodman, He's like, you know, you're gonna have
one of the biggest bad boys with one of the
biggest bad boys in wrestling right now.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
But again I look at that as being a smart businessman.
He knew he wasn't hip, so he had to align
himself with Hall and Nash. He knew Rodman was the
biggest story in the NBA around that time with Michael
Jordan and the Utah Jazz going up against and.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Then those guys permanently became a stood Just like outside
of Kevin Nash, Scott Hall never was able to progress
to being a World championshabag well.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
That's to his own problems with his substance abuse issues.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
And it was like even with the finger polk of doom,
even in that instant, Kevin Nash got little Bro, like
he won the title, he won the Big one and
then got Little Bro.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well let's go over this though,
you know, Hogan Terry Blair did die of cardiac arrest
at his home in Clearwader, Florida, yesterday of this recording,
July twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, at the age of
seventy one, and his death came a month after he
underwent major spinal fusion surgery, and there was denial for
a number of weeks that he was in bad health.
(44:01):
Jimmy Hard just like the day before karaoke Brother Jimmy,
was he doing it from his deathbad?
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Jimmy Hart was like, He's like, he's perfectly funreaky fine brother,
perfectly fun. And it was like this, he couldn't kick out.
He couldn't kick out.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So it's been interesting for sure. So in final finality,
what do you think his legacy is Corey? Is it Hulkemania,
is it the nWo or is it the last ten
years of him being an out cast for a lot
of people.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
It depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
And we haven't even got into I know we're running
out of time. But also he aligned himself with Donald
Trump and that was a big thing.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Maga brother, and don't forget real American beer. Yeah, it's
like just the it depends on who. It depends on who.
It depends on who you ask, because if you acts
most I want to say, if you asks like down
WWE fans like gives something that like I'll put like
this three categories. Right, you asked the regular the regular
(45:01):
white wrestling fan, they'll probably say one of the greatest
wrestlers of all time.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
He helped, he helped wrestling too what it is today.
Then you have.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
You have the the WWE fan, the guy that no
matter if he's black, white, or whatever, WW is is
thinking he's going to defend ww no matter what.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And whole Cogan even though he said that ship can.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Do no wrong in their eyes, Like I said, black
or white, that WW fan will defend him to the end.
And stuff's like if you say anything negative about who
Coogan say, why are you doing this?
Speaker 3 (45:38):
And why are you saying? Is let that man rest
is like?
Speaker 5 (45:41):
And then you have the guy you have black folks
and most most people who view him as why the
funk should all give a fuck about this racist? Yeah,
like just you did what you did, like as far
as in the industry, kudos, but I could give two fucks.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Where do I sit that?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Where do I sit? I fall into a weird category.
I'll wear it.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
I fall I personally fall into the I really could
give to fuck, I really could give to fucks. And
I was like this, I know what you did. I
can I can acknowledge what you did for wrestling, like,
I don't have no problem. I don't have no problem
doing that. I have no problem given giving him you
give him his praise. But at the same time, I
(46:32):
know what the fuck you are. I know what the
fuck you did. And I'm just like I personally because
people look at me crazy if I'm like Dick riding
for a whole cold. He was like damn. He was like,
we wonder who you voted for. They would look at
they would look at me very coolish.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
I can't have that on my I can't have that
on my stripe. So you would not.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I know you are a big fan of wearing jerseys
and whatnot, And somebody questioned some of the attire that
you wear for time to time in Eagles jersey here
and there, would you not be rocking a hul Comania shirt.
At any point in your life, you would wear an
nw OH shirt.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
I bet I would wear.
Speaker 5 (47:10):
In Wiosha, yeah, because that was a collective. I would
wear in the Wosha because that's.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
A hul Comania.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Though. I don't know if I could do the full
hul Comania.
Speaker 5 (47:20):
I couldn't beat James. I couldn't beat James Harden. You
seen James Harden at Fanatics.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
No, was he rocking it.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
James Harden came out in a full hulk Hogan. He said,
you know he was called James Hogan.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh what's wild?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
I mean yeah, And it was like he had the
beard he had and Dan had to he ripped his shirt.
He did everything. I couldn't do.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
That to quote young thug, just to chime in here,
James Harden don't have internet. That that that's what happened,
that James Harden don't have internet. To stick up from
my bearded brother. That's my quick one.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
They didn't know Hogan was saying all these things.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Josh, cool question because Josh, since you hear we really.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, outsider, what do you think of Hogan?
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Yeah? What do you think of Hogan? What do you
fall in this line? Because you're not the biggest wrestling.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
No, I'm not, but I will say I think a
balance has been struck between you two of Yes, as
far as the legacy, you know, I had a thought
as y'all were going and just making an NBA comparison
because basketball is my sport, like that's my interest. The
Kobe Bryant legacy is an interesting parallel to me Jean
off the Dome because like great legacy, multiple time champion.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
When you think of the NBA.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
You might think of a couple names here and there
before you get to Kobe, like Lebron and Jordan, but
he's probably in the top three of the names, like
people in our age group think of. But at the
same time, he did have to pay a settlement because
he raped the woman in Colorado, among other things like
treating teammates like trash and all that. But you talk
to me, I'm like, yo, Kobe was that guy?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yo?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Like yeah, I love Kobe. So it's interesting separating the
art from the artists in a way, gift flaws is
gonna get shown.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Like they said, like flow, like most of us ain't perfect,
but we don't do shit like that. Were in public
where we can get like where we can get our
own selves crucified.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I just want to double down on this statement. I
think everyone is flawed, like you said, and everyone makes mistakes.
It's what you do when you make the mistake and
how you handle that mistake that really shows what your characters.
There's been plenty of people that have done really bad
things that have ended their lives being beloved, and I
think that's the big thing where Hogan truly fucked up.
(49:34):
He fucked up, and he could have saved himself. He
could have been the last ten years. He could have
spent the last ten years hanging out at YMCA's, hanging
out at fundraisers for the black community. He could have
learned to be a better person and showed the dedication.
But he never did that. I would say majority of
these wrestlers that grew up in the seventies and eighties,
we're probably saying ten times worse things than Hogan.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 5 (49:57):
But he always said was instead apologize, he said defences
watching watch it. Hey, look when you have all these
you have these you have some conservatives, and you have
people going like Charlie Kirk and only people, why are
you doing this I feel like, oh my god, you
got the audio. You got the audio. Oh man, That's
(50:18):
how I feel when when when he was like, come on,
have some compassion, see have some decency. I don't got
to do none of that.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
It's an amazing fall from grace. It's several falls from graces.
It's a guy who fell, picked himself up, fell again,
picked himself up, and now he's falling. And it's gonna
be interesting what the next five ten years brings to
his legacy. It's gonna be interesting even tonight as we
record this Friday night SmackDown is gonna be later tonighting.
How is he gonna be handled? How's the audience gonna
be handling?
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Well are they gonna cheer? They gonna boo?
Speaker 3 (50:46):
They already had.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
I believe that is a report already out saying that
WW has halted everything and told everybody shift your focus
to whole Colgan. Basically, it's like this, most likely you
know you're gonna get Tim bel salu At start go
and get a couple of packages throughout it, through throughout
the show.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I believe they're gonna have Cody. They're gonna have Cody.
Speaker 5 (51:08):
Now, they're gonna have Cody come out give like a
speech and talked about how IMPACTU Hulk Cogan was to
the industry. Now, I wonder who's gonna be that guy
that comes out in the colors.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Who's gonna come out in the colors.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
The red and yellow?
Speaker 5 (51:22):
Yes, who's Montes Carmelo? Hey Carmelo Hayes. You bet now?
You bet now?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Don't don't let them set you up like this black man.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
You know. It's it's also just bizarre because you know
his name, the immortal Hulkgan when you were a kid,
when I was a kid. He just never expected a
guy like this to die. It's sort of I always
thought of like Rick Flair as Megatron and Optimist Prime
being Hulk Cogan, and she's never thought Optimist Prime would die. Eventually,
he did die in the Transformers movie nineteen eighty six,
(51:54):
But you just always thought Hogan was always going to
be around he because he never really aged. He always
kind of looked the same as like, there's no way
Hogan is dying.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
This is my last one. This is my last one.
When when he you know, he you know, he got
a tattoo on.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
His back, right or does it say some religious thing no,
it says immortal, oh, immortal.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
Grim Reap was like like Lebron too we eazy, to eazy,
too we eazy.
Speaker 5 (52:18):
I was like, come on man, he was like the
grim Reap became I was like, are you read.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Basically I forgot that. I forgot that. That's that's that's what. Wait,
actually cute that other audio up.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
And then it was like before we go because he
does have one final actual legacy move that he does
have and what is that real wrestling with Eric Bischoff.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Yeah, well, I believe that's going to continue. I'm hearing
that's going to be airing on Fox News, which is
an interesting place to have a sport being aired on.
But I hope we did a good job of at
least going over the history of Hulk Hogan and short
of painting a picture of what his life and career was.
Speaker 5 (53:14):
So I felt as though we gave a fear and
balanced perspective of Hulk Hogan, his highs, his highs, his
super high, his lows, and everything in between. Because I
felt like we did, like I'm like, as much as
I was kind of like kind of going crazy at
the end on him, you got to give me credit.
(53:34):
I gave him his praise at the start.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, no, I mean you're you did a fair balanced job,
like you said, I was. Regardless of everything, he's going
to be remembered. He is on that Mount Rushmore Pro Wrestling.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
I didn't I didn't dance on I didn't dance on
his grave or anything.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
He did a good job for I think we did both.
All three of us did a great job with this,
you know, tribute episode in the sense to.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
But to sign off, this is the this is the
whin the bell rings.
Speaker 5 (54:01):
With Corey David, Justin Greenberg and the great words in
the in the words of Hulk Hogan, each vitamins, say
your praise and don't do a second. Don't do Royd's
when he says, when I say when I say each vitamins,
I mean actually eat vitamins, don't do roids. Don't take
the easy way out, and say your prays because the
(54:22):
way world, the world is right there. You're gonna need them.
This production is brought to you by the Recess Bell.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm better than you and you know it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I believe in Joe here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh yeah, you've got nothing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You get what you have earned, and what you have
earned is nothing.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
You got the cool music, you got, the lights, you
got the fog machine, you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Got the girl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You know what they do to make out of cold
feels special.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
They bring the.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Freaking bell a real.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Side the rights of every man. I am a real American,
fight fool, what's right?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Fight for your life.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Welcome to another edition of When the Bell Rings. I'm
the old Cory David alongside me with my co host
Justin Greenberg. Today's a special episode as we look back
at the life of the late Hulk Hogan, the highs,
blows and everything in between.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We give it to you real, unlike no other. Let's
get it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Hulk Hogan was the face of pro wrestling. He's the
Babe Ruth of pro wrestling, and if you haven't heard,
he passed away earlier this week at the age of
seventy one. I would have thought he's older. I could
have sworn he was in his mid seventies, but only
seventy one years old, and I know he was dealing
with health issues, and people around him were saying the
(02:01):
health issues were fabricated, but I tend to believe that
he was not in the best of health. I mean,
there's been rumors that he had a neck fusion surgery
and pretty much hasn't been able to speak since that surgery,
and he died of a heart attack earlier in the week.
But there would be no modern wrestling that we know
(02:22):
of without Hulk Hogan. And that's just a fact. With
Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan taking pro wrestling from pretty
much like Smoky filed Anas, you were rarely gonna find
kids at wrestling events in the sixties and seventies and
or early eighties. I'm not saying kids didn't go to wrestling,
(02:45):
but for the most part, if you look at the
crowds of these events, you know, with Pedro Morales and
Bruno San Martino, and if you want to go to
the NWA, people like Harley Race and the Funk Brothers,
you rarely saw him young kids in the arenas. And
what Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon did is they took
(03:07):
pro wrestling from sort of a niche thing and They
made it a global phenomenon and made it acceptable for kids, teenagers, adults,
grandparents to all go to pro wrestling and not be
ashamed of going to a pro wrestling event. Now, Hogan
started his career in the late seventies and joined the AWA.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
He initially had a run in the then WWWF and
feuded with the likes of Andre the Giant and the
famously had a match at Chase Stadium against Andrea the
Giant and basically Vince McMahon senior, Vince's dad. He didn't
like the idea of Hogan going into Hollywood because Hogan
(03:53):
was offered a role in Rocky three as Thunderlips, one
of my favorite movies of all time, and Vince Senior
was very old school and he didn't want to, you know,
let Hogan do that. So Hogan left the WWF and
joined the AWA, which is a company run by verne Gania.
(04:14):
And that's really when Hulkamania started to run wild. That's
when you got a lot of the Hulk Hogan. You know,
sort of things that you would know later on in life,
like the ripping of the shirt and let me tell
you something, brother, and you know, doing the interviews with
me and Gene Oakerland because me and Gene was a
part of the AWA. Now, Hogan was influenced by a
(04:35):
lot of people, particularly Superstar Billy Graham. He's pretty much
the prototype for what Hulk Hogan became. Those phrases, the
tie die, the muscles, talking in that sort of lingo
that Hogan would do, and Superstar was way ahead of
his time. Really also influenced many others, including Jesse the
Body Ventorra. But Hogan's in the AWA and Vern never
(05:00):
goes in with Hogan like he's the biggest attraction in
the company, but they never gave him the world title.
He had matches versus Nick Bockwinkle and he'd win, and
then you think he was winning the title, and lo
and behold, they would do like a screw job sort
of finish and the title would be taken away from him.
And Hogan's pretty much just like, when are you gonna
(05:20):
strap the rocket to me? Fully, because I'm clearly the
biggest name in this business right now. I was just
in Rocky three, one of the biggest movies of all time.
Give me the title. But he knew that Vern was
not going to be able to capitalize on the success
of what Hogan was doing, and he knew the real
money was back in New York. And at this time,
(05:43):
Vince McMahon Senior sold his company to his son, Vince
McMahon Junior, the one that most of you guys know,
and Vince Junior was going to do everything different that
his father was doing and pretty much was going to
allow for show business to be involved with pro wrestling.
(06:03):
And Hogan decided to go back to the WWF and
pretty much in a month or so won the championship
from the Iron Chic January twenty third, nineteen eighty four,
And that's when a lot of people say that's when
hulk Emania started, but really, if you go back to
his a WA days, you'll see just hulk Comania was
(06:25):
running wild in the Minneapolis, Era area also. But yeah,
so Vince and Hogan pretty much changed the landscape of
pro wrestling. Hulk Hogan became the face of pro wrestling,
the Babe Ruth of pro wrestling. And I've heard people
say very few, but I've heard people say, oh, Vince
(06:47):
could have gave that spot to anybody and there would
have been the same success of the WWF which is
now the WWE, and I don't agree with that at all.
I really don't. You give it to someone like Randy
Savage who's completely paranoid and doesn't have, I think, the
(07:08):
ability to play the political stance. You know, there's a
lot of politics in pro wrestling. I'm not talking about
Donald Trump politics. I'm talking about playing it right and
knowing what to say and what not to say, and
how to present themselves on different talk shows and play
that game. And I don't think Macho Man would have
done that. A guy like Roddy Piper completely unhinged. And
(07:31):
I love those guys, and I love those guys actually
more than Hulk Hogan. I think they're better wrestlers and
more entertaining than the Hulkster. But Hogan was the right guy,
the only guy at that time the size. Hogan was
also like a foot bigger than both of those guys.
He was a mammoth. The guy was gigantic, six foot seven,
close to three hundred pounds of giant, oily tanned muscle,
(07:54):
with that iconic mustache and the bandanna and the yellow
trunks and the big boot in the leg drop. It
was all combining with the success of Rocky three, and
Vince McMahon basically put all of his eggs in one basket.
In that basket was going to be WrestleMania. If the
(08:14):
initial WrestleMania was not a success, the WWF definitely would
have not been around any longer, and he decided to
pair up Hulk Hogan with mister t who was also
in Rocky three. He's one of the bigger TV stars
at around this time with the A Team, and he
has his own Breakfast Cereal, he has his own cartoon
(08:37):
show like He's gigantic, and they do various programs on MTV,
which is pretty much in its infancy, but everyone and
their mother that has cable is watching MTV is must
watch television. And that whole rock and wrestling connection with
Sidney Lauper and you know Roddy Piper attacking her and
her manager and starting this gigantic feud leading up to WrestleMania,
(09:02):
but you know, the war to Settle to score all
these great events on television leading up to that initial
WrestleMania where it would be Rowdy Roddy Piper teaming up
with mister Wonderful Paul Orndorf to take on mister T
and hul Cogan that was must watch, and it wasn't
on pay per view. Pay per view really wasn't a
thing at this point. It was on closed circuit television.
(09:23):
So essentially, if you wanted to watch this event, you
would either a have to go to Madison Square Garden
and watch it live or b go to an arena
that's showing the event. So you'd basically pay money to
go to an area to watch it on just a
big screen TV or you know, some sort of projector
I'm not sure exactly what the size of these screens were,
(09:46):
but you couldn't just order it at home. Really, pay
per view didn't become truly big until a few years
later and they got rid of the whole closed circuit concept.
So Hogan teams up with mister T and it's a
gigantic success. WrestleMania is huge, and then they start having
events on NBC, things like the Main Event and Saturday
(10:06):
Night's Main Event, and these things were watched by millions
of people. I'm gonna look up right now, most watched
wrestling program of all time, and I believe it was
something called the Main Event, which is when, yes, this
was the main event there on NBC on February fifth,
(10:28):
nineteen eighty eight. This event drew a record thirty three
million viewers, and this led to Andre the Giant winning
the title from Hogan but then giving it to the
million dollar man, Ted Dbasse. But there was a swerve
because the referee, Dave Hebner, his twin brother, showed up
(10:52):
and Earl Hebner, who became a very famous or infamous
referee in his own right. But that thing was watched
by thirty three million viewers. So let's just go, I
just I'm curious. What was the most watched regular season
football game last year? Most watched regular season NFL game
(11:15):
twenty twenty four. Let's see googling, googling, googling. So the
most watched game last year was the Giants.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Really it was a Thanksgiving Day game the Giants and
the Cowboys, which drew thirty eight million viewers, so just
a little bit more than a pro wrestling event, but
majority of NFL games don't get anywhere near this. This
is pretty much like tripling what your average NFL game gets,
usually around ten million or so on like a CBS
(11:50):
or Fox sort of game. So wrestling was gigantic, and
there was very few channels. Also, that is why many
people were watching this because they pretty much either didn't
have cable and really only had five things to watch.
So he prebaty went to stuck watching what was ever
on CBS or NBC or you know the other channels
that you would get with basic cable. So Hulk Hogan
(12:15):
is rising right now. He's hosting Saturday Night Live, He's
on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He's doing really bad movies,
Like he was great as Thunderlips, but then when he
became like the leading man in movies like Noel Holds
Barred and Mister Nanny and Suburban Command a terrible movies
but also like a guilty pleasure of mind. I really
(12:36):
actually like the movie no Holds Bard he had a
really funny cameo. And Gremlins two, and you know, wrestling
just kept on getting bigger and bigger. As I mentioned,
Hogan got his own cartoon show. He had a workout set,
he had all the action figures in video games, the
LJN rubber figures. That's something that's always been in my household.
(12:58):
I can't remember a time in my life when Hulk
Hogan wasn't a part of my life. Even before I
watched pro wrestling. We had the Giant Wrestling Buddy, there's
like giant stuffed animals in the shape of wrestlers. We
had the Hogan one. We still have the Hogan one.
I have the LJN one, which is like this big
rubber figure, and it's just it was just always there
(13:19):
before even watching wrestling. Like I said, Hogan was a
part of my life, and wrestling kept on continuing to
get bigger and pretty much the peak I would say
for this early era of wrestling would be WrestleMania three,
when Andrea the Giant officially passed the torch to Hulk
Hogan in front of When they say ninety three thousand,
(13:41):
I've heard that. You know, number is exaggerated like most
things in pro wrestling, but a crapload of people at
the Pontiac Silver Dob witnessed this amazing match between Andre
the Giant when he got body slammed by the Hulkster
and I had this a few times this week. Actually,
if there was to be a logo for professional wrestling,
(14:05):
just how the NBA has their logo with Jerry West
the Silhouette of Jerry West. I would say the logo
of pro Wrestling would be a silhouette of Andre being
slammed by Hulk Hogan. Then Hogan would have feuds with
Macho Man Randy Savage, you know, leading up to a
(14:26):
formation of their tag team, the Megapowers. Then they imploded
by WrestleMania five. Then Hogan himself tried to pass the
torch to the Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania six. That really
didn't go too well. A warrior couldn't lead like Hogan led.
Hogan was. He knew how to represent the company to
(14:47):
perfection at this point, and there was really no flaws
in what he did. There was one minor hiccup in
the mid eighties, pretty much right before WrestleMania, the initial one.
He choked out television host Richard Belzer. And it's this
funny moment. At this time, a lot of news stations
were trying to say, oh, wrestling's fake, No crap, it's fake.
(15:08):
I mean, how dumb do you have to be? Did
people actually think this was real? I gets so funny
reading these books and these hearing these stories from the
old old timers. Yeah, these fans tried to stab me
because of a match, Like, did people actually think wrestling
was real? Like how dumb did you have to be
to think what you were watching wasn't a staged event.
(15:28):
I would love for somebody that grew up in like
the sixties and seventies that actually watched wrestling to let
me know if they were grown up, then did they
actually think it was real? Because pretty much by the
age of seven, what I knew what I was watching
was staged. I still loved it, you know, just like
I like watching the Ninja Turtles and Captain America and
(15:49):
all these Marvel movies and all these you know, comic
book movies. I just saw it as something like that.
But yeah, he choked out Richard Bellser live on television
and for real, and there was a big lawsuit. Belzer
won a couple million dollars actually from it. But then
a big hiccup took place in the early nineties. The
(16:10):
government start to go after Vince McMahon, one for sexual
allegations between some of the people that worked for the
company against some of these young men that worked for
the company. But for Hogan's sake, they were also going
after McMahon because of steroids, and they were saying that
McMahon was pushing steroids onto his wrestlers, and with Hogan
(16:33):
being the face of pro wrestling and being a gigantic
man who clearly was on steroids, the world was pretty
much waiting to see how we would handle this situation.
And he did go on the Arsenio Hall Show and
really dropped the ball there because he pretty much denied
ever taking steroids besides one time due to an injury.
(16:56):
And that's just the first lie that we've heard from
Hulk Hogan over the years. The guy's infamous for just
telling these fabricated stories anything from Andre to Giant was
seven hundred pounds when I slammed him and then he
died a week later. I was the original pick to
be the bassist for Metallica. Darren Aronofsky wanted me to
(17:19):
play Mickey Rourik's role in the Wrestler. Like pretty much
all things that have been debunked from talking to members
of Metallica or Darren Aronofsky or just you know, looking
at facts like, yeah, Andre didn't die for another five
years or six years. He just lied. There's montages of
videos online of the hulkster lying. But this was the
(17:41):
first one that the masses really saw and they started
to turn on Hogan. Around this time, ninety two to
ninety three, the WWF was going in a different direction.
He was starting to not get the reactions that he
was once getting, and eventually he did leave the WWF
to join a rival company called WCW, which was run
(18:03):
by Ted Turner, and in nineteen ninety four he faced
off against Rick Flair and in his first match, he
won the WCW Championship, And eventually that started to get
old and they thought, okay, Wolka Mania truly is dead.
At this time, WCW was a down south sort of organization.
They didn't really like the Northeast territory of the WWF,
(18:26):
so he wasn't really being accepted. And eventually, in nineteen
ninety six, Hogan did the truly unthinkable, and he turned heel,
meaning Hogan, who was a good guy for fifteen years
or so, turned his back on WCW, turned his back
on the fans, and became a bad guy by joining
forces with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to form the nWo.
(18:49):
And this was the resurgence that pro wrestling needed after
that steroid trial took place. Wrestling was doing its worst
numbers in decades, and this rejuvenate the business. It lit
a spark under the WWF to get their product in shape,
and then we started to see stars like Stone Cold,
Steve Austin and The Rock and all these young people
(19:11):
in WWF sort of step up their game, all because
of what Hogan was able to do in the nWo.
With the WCW brand, and you know, he had a
second run of being the biggest bad guy in the business.
He was the biggest good guy of all time, and
you can make an argument he was the biggest bad
guy of all time in pro wrestling. Eventually, WCW goes
(19:34):
out of business and Hogan returns home to the WWF,
and with this so many dream matchups people were waiting
to see. I think the big one everyone wanted to
see was Stone Cold Steve Austin versus Hulk Hogan. Unfortunately
that never happened in the singles match in the WWF. Now,
(19:55):
Hogan did come into the WWF as a heel, meaning
he was maintaining that Hollywood Hogan nWo character, but the
audience didn't want any of that. They wanted to cheer him.
He was finally back home, and he eventually faced The
Rock at WrestleMania eighteen. And this was supposed to be
(20:17):
The Rock as the good guy and Hulk Hogan as
the bad guy, but that Toronto crowd was going nuts
for the Hulkster. It's my favorite pro wrestling match of
all time, and the audience truly makes that match something special.
The loud noises being made constantly through this match, and
(20:37):
the fact that this one wasn't the main event is insane.
How do you not have this match go on?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
List?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It completely stole the show. It took the wind out
of the Souths for the remainder of the event, and
Hogan truly showed that he was the master of pro wrestling,
the biggest name in all of pro wrestling when he
lost to Hulk Hogan. I mean, excuse me when he
lost to The Rock at WrestleMania eighteen, but all the
eyes were on the Hulkster. He's the one that everyone
(21:05):
was talking about. Eventually, he fully turned into a good guy,
won the WWF Championship one more time. He was actually
the last image on TV for the WWF was Hogan
holding the World Championship. And then the next day they
had to change to the WWE because of a lawsuit
involving the World Wildlife Fun So Hogan eventually his run
(21:27):
in WWE comes to an end. He has a match
with Vince McMahon at WrestleMania nineteen. It's absolutely insanity and
it actually is another guilty pleasure of mine. I actually
really enjoy his match with McMahon at WrestleMania nineteen. But
around this time, he starts a reality show on VH one,
(21:48):
Hogan Knows Best. And this is really like the downfall
of that whole family because they put their kids in
the spotlight and it really broke up their family pretty much.
Their family has been a disaster since the creation of
this show. Brooke Hogan, the daughter, she pretty much wanted
(22:11):
nothing to do with Hulk Hogan for the last five, six,
seven years of his life. She didn't invite him to
her wedding. He never saw her, you know, his grandkids.
Nick Hogan, the son, he got into a horrific car accident,
(22:33):
pretty much leaving his best friend braindead, and he went
to prison for that. And then also Linda Hogan divorced
Hulk Hogan and took pretty much all of his money
and Hogan was really on hard times, and another you
know tragedy happened with Nick Hogan going to prison. Audio
(22:58):
was leaked about Hogan and pretty much saying the guy
that got into the accident, that's you know, brain dead.
He sort of deserved it and we're gonna, you know,
make a reality show about this. And I know a
lot of people are crapping on him for that, and
I can understand why. But he's also like talking to
his son and he you know, maybe he was just
(23:20):
saying whatever to cheer him up, So I'm not going
to hold him to that. Hogan eventually joined a company
called TNA Wrestling and pretty much led that company underground
and really destroyed any momentum that they were gaining in
the years prior to Hogan joining. And eventually he was
(23:44):
privately filmed having sex with a radio personality's wife. There's
a guy named Bubba the Love Sponge who was Hogan's
best friend, and he pretty much allowed his wife to
have sex with Hogan at any point, but he filmed
or it was filmed, and then that film got leaked,
(24:04):
and this is really like the true downfall of Hulk
Hogan was this sex tape because with the sex tape
being leaked, audio eventually got leaked of Hogan saying horrific
racist things. It's an interesting thing because you hear from
(24:24):
a lot of black wrestlers today and I've read from
Teddy Long, from Devon Dudley, from Mark Henry, and they
were all praising Hulk Hogan. So I don't know how
he handled this situation to the masses, but it seems
like to a lot of wrestlers he handled this post
(24:48):
racism a like you know, outing well with some wrestlers,
but for a lot of people, he didn't handle it well.
He didn't show any remorse, he didn't do what he
to be done to gain the love and support of
a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people
did not forgive Hulk Hogan for these racist rants. And
(25:12):
then he doubled down on not being liked by people
by supporting Donald Trump, who was a very polarizing figure
in the world. I don't know if you haven't heard
about that, but a lot of people don't like Donald
Trump apparently, and Hogan doubled down and was there during
you know, the election run and was you know, fully
(25:36):
supporting Donald Trump. So he had a lot of negativity
in the last decade of his life, from his marriage
and family falling apart to the racist leak that came
out to aligning himself with Trump. And his last public
appearance on television was at Monday Night Raw's debut on
(25:58):
Netflix earlier this year, and Hogan was booed out of
the building. That's the last image that majority of the
people that watch pro wrestling saw of the Hulkster was
that image of him being boed out of the arena.
And it's actually really said, in my mind, it is
sad that that's the legacy for a lot of people
(26:21):
of Hulk Hogan is those last couple of years. And
I can understand, like I said at the beginning of
this long winded rant, that I can understand why people
haven't forgave Hulk Hogan. And if you want to live
that way, by all means do it. I'm not going
to tell you who to like and who to not like,
but I like to look at the good things that
(26:42):
he's done, the good things that he did for the
wrestling business, the amount of money these performers are getting
right now, you have to thank Hulk Hogan. Anytime Hogan
was on the card. Everyone want to be on the
card with Hulk Hogan because they were going to get
paid the most amount of money. All the merchandise that
these guys are selling right now in this business, you
have to thank Hulk Hogan. All the iconic moments and
(27:04):
rivalries and promos that the Hulkster put out through all
these years, those stuff, those images and moments are going
to be timeless. And was he the best in ring wrestler. No,
was he the best person from a lot of wrestler's perspectives. No,
But he's certainly the biggest name in the history of
(27:27):
the business of pro wrestling, and he is immortal in
the sense that he will always be remembered. So I
like to remember the good in people. You hear a
lot of good charitable deeds that Hogan did, you know
with the Make a Wish Foundation. So even though Terry
Bulea was a flawed man, I'd like to still give
(27:48):
tribute to the great Hulk Hogan, who passed away this
past week at seventy one years old.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Justin thank you for giving us that perspective on his
earlier career and the things that he's done.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
But now that the fluff piece is over.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Let's get into the side of Houk Hogan that he's
been most known for in these last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
As I would put it, the real Hokgan. We'll Hogan
in TNA.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Oh, we'll get to that. We'll get to we'll get
to Hogan's debacle with TNA. But but it is interesting
you brought up that that reality show really did destroy Hogan.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It really opened up their marriage and put their kids
in the spotlight and gave their kids even bigger egos.
And eventually his son Nick crashed a vehicle.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
We'll get into that. We'll get into it. I'll tell
you right now, I kind of I know what I know.
It doesn't feel like it. I feel like we're building
him up, going to just we're gonna break it down.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
We're gonna have to break it down. So let's get
into it. Hogan, Hogan's kid goes to prison. His friend,
who I believe was a marine or some sort of
military member, uh, pretty much is brain dead after this,
and Hogan uh tries to cheer up his son, and
I think says something awful about the marine or the
(29:37):
military guy basically being a bad person, and that was
sort of another thing like, Okay, Hogan's like bashing this
guy who doesn't have a brain right now and his
son pretty much ruined his life.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
But uh, I believe he said a certain I believe
he made a certain certain comments about what he felt
like karma would be for him and his family.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Oh yeah, what what he scared of? I don't know,
do we get that audio?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
It's kind of it's kind of a little distorted, but uh,
what is he saying along the lines of He's like
he's scared that basically his family would come back as niggas.
Basically he'd be scared if they would his family would
come back as black folks.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So yeah, that was that was definitely.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Uh, basically more for a year than he had. But
like if you just if you go, if you can
find you can find all.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
This audio, Yeah, this is the audio I believe of
him talking about Brook's boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Okay, yeah, what he said about Brook, what he alluded
to Brook, I'm trying to remember, Uh, alluded to something
that basically like that's uh, basically sense of like you
as long as you don't deal, you could find anybody long.
It's like an eight foot tall nigga, what yo like?
Why are you even put Why is that word evening
(31:06):
your vocabulary?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
My god?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So let's get to the to the downfall of Hault Cogain.
His son goes to prison for you know, the vehicular incident,
and then eventually he does film a sex tape that
he doesn't even know is being filmed with his then
friend Bubba the Love Sponge, and eventually that sex tape
does get released illegally through Gawker, and there's a whole
(31:27):
lawsuit that takes place. But there's audio that is released
from the sex tape which has Hogan saying these derogatory
things towards black people. In the meantime, he has joined
TNA Wrestling, and that's a whole clusterfuck of a thing
right there, with a lot of creative control. But let's
get to the downfall of Hogan where he says these
racist things. And he does win the lawsuit versus Gawker,
(31:49):
but I think he would have traded all that money
in the world for his legacy being tarnished because he's
caught saying these racist things. He gets fired by the WWE,
because he gets rehired back by them, and he's pretty
much been hated for the last ten years.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
And then when they ask him, when when he finally
does come back and they ask him apologize, basically he
gave He gave a nope. He basically gave a non apologies,
basically said uh. He basically said to a certain degree, well,
you know, you gotta be careful of these cameras.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And I'm like, bro, what the fuck? What the what?
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's not
a fucking apology, Hogan.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I'm always of the mindset if you make a mistake,
you are allowed to redeem yourself, unless you're raping somebody
or murdering somebody or doing something really unthinkable like that.
But I think if you say really bad words or
even do something really bad, I'm always of the mindset
that you could change, even if you're old, even if
you're fifty six years old. I've seen it before in
real life. I've seen it in the documentary. I've seen
(32:47):
people legitimately want to become better. Where I think I
agree with you, Corey is he never showed that he
wanted to actually change. He didn't take any steps to
prove that he's a change man, because you know, like
you said. When he spoke to the wrestlers, he was
more cautious with telling them to avoid being caught on
(33:10):
camera saying racist things instead of saying, I fucked up.
I'm sorry. Let me prove it to you that I'm
a good guy. Let me do some charitable work. Let
me talk to you guys one on one. Let me
find out why you're bad. You always hear about this
when people say anti Semitic things. Julian Edelman, who's a
famous Jewish athlete, he'll say something along the lines of,
why don't you come over, We'll have a nice dinner,
we'll discuss why you're what you're saying is wrong, and
(33:32):
he offers up that sort of redemption with these people.
But Hogan never went out of his way to find redemption.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Just I just want to help people out.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Just understand some of the things he said, because I'm
trying to get some statements, because I know if you
didn't hear this quote from Hogan. So gets to the
point where I don't know if Brooke was fucking a
black guy, a black guy's son, or they've been hanging out,
hanging out and I'll quote them holding hands together on tour,
they were getting close con of fucking. I'm not a
(34:03):
double stand this type of guy. I'm a racist, to
a point, a self admitted racist. He admitted, I am racist.
You know, fucking niggers, he said to er. He said that,
But then when it comes I'm like, bro, what the
fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yes, yes, I mean again. Well it's also to say that,
not that that makes it right, but he was did
not know he was being filmed. I'm not saying that
makes it right, but he did not know he was
being filmed. So that's just a weird situation.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
To me, that makes it worse because guess what. So
what that tells you is he's putting up a front
to everybody else. It's like, you see who this person
he want you to be, But behind closed doors, he
don't give a fuck about you. And mind you, black
folks were some of his biggest fans force, We were
some of his biggest supporters. But once you show us
(34:56):
you don't fuck with us, after a while, we stopped
fucking with you.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And I still think he could have redeemed himself. I
think even though he said all those dead things, I
think if he if he genuinely felt sorry and and
showed people like Mark Henry and Shelton Benjamin and MVP,
all these wrestlers that are black that he wanted to
change and he felt bad, but he never took those steps.
He never took any accountability for what those words were said.
(35:22):
And I think that's part of his downfall for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
And that's been a stain on him.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
A lot of black wrestlers to this day, including like
you said, Shelton MVP, lost tons of respect for him,
and I think he got to I think it gets
to a point where now like he goes out to Raw,
he's getting booed like he like his last Raw appearance,
he got booed out of the fucking and you had
most people go back on social media and say, I'm
(35:48):
glad I was the fucking person that boot him.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I was a part of that.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Like they claim to fame that night, on that night,
that Netflix night, was the fact that they said I
got the boo hoole code I got. I got to
boot that motherfucker basically. And you notice some people, like
there's some people who with his pass, and you know
there's some people who really don't don't give a fuck
(36:12):
about it. Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I see it all over social media the last day.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
People are either heartbroken for this thing, uh, for for
Terry Blea hul Cogan's passing, or they're celebrating the passing.
And I think hul Cogan is such an interesting human being,
an interesting character, a very flawed individual for sure, to
say the least.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And I think that's where we could separate Terry buleya
in hul Cogan. Now, Terry Belaya also did do some
good things. Whenever you hear about the Make a Wish
kids like hul Hogan, Terry Blea was always so good
with them. And now you've also seen a lot of
wrestlers come out and say how much they helped them,
Guys like Goldberg and Nash and DDP and Mick Foley
(36:56):
and Triple H and all these people. Undertaker even with
a know a salute to hulkkin So's it's he's such
a complicated character. But I can understand why people hate him.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Honestly, I can UNDERSTANOK.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
My thing is, I can understand how people, you know,
praise him for what he's done in the in the
in the wrestling industry, but at the same time, I'm
not gonna bash those those black folks who you know
feel a certain way because you gotta write to feel
that way about that person because he said things that
like to you, to you as a person will be like, okay,
(37:29):
I'm trying remember what's the clippers on the clippers? Donald
Donald Donald Sterling. When he said those things that he said,
it was fuck him too. I'm like, I'm give a
fuck that you lost your team when you say when
you say crazy out of pocket ship like you're not
gonna get celebrated. Like and now, mind you, these people
(37:50):
in the industry that we know is super conservative, we
don't really give a fuck that they're super conservative. That
that that that's the way you live. Like under we
don't undertake a super conservative blue lives mad and everything.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We never heard a racist thing from him, and.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
People fuck with the Undertaker Rick Flick. There's been stories
about him making Rachel marks towards certain people, but you
know what he did. He had a fucking rebrand. He
didn't get caught saying it out loud. He had a
fucking rebrand. And it's like, okay, people fucking Oh. There's
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
There's also a lot of people that don't fuck with
Rick Flair, and I'm also one of them. I think
Rick Flair, I think Rick Fleer, you know his real birthday.
I think he's a scumback.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I think people.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I think people, uh they they know about his sexual
escapade and his sexual I don't want to say, I
can't allegations of sexual assault, allegations of sexual assault.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Showing his penis when people don't want to see it.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Most famously, like I'm trying to remember this from Hell
playing Roight from Hell, and then his multiple WWE stories
like like they made a cartoon.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, they're joking about it like flash. People like, Okay,
well you can't do that, Rick Flair.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
And it's like but then you you look at like
the like the history in the culture of WWE, like
you have guys like Swerve strictly who called out these
things about like Vince McMahon, Vince McMahon saying niggative Booker
t like just flat out and and Vince mc man Josh, Josh,
(39:18):
you got that audio listen man in the Great Woods.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Of gold Bird. Guess what.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
You're next.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
We will be putting something on a grill that day.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm sorry, Yes, I think, uh vincechmick Man has already
hated enough at this point that there will be celebrations
for sure when he passes away.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
But this was just the pre as most people say,
this is, this was just the pre game today that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
So this is where we differentiate. I think Hulk Hogan
the character and and Terry Belay are the human being
because his impact as far as a pro wrestler to
give all these people money, there would be no wrestlemaning.
People wouldn't be getting these giant contracts, there would be
no action figures, and maybe eventually a along the line
something would develop. And I'm not saying it definitely wouldn't
(40:03):
have happened without Hogan, but it wouldn't have happened that quick,
with that amount of success. Without Hulk Hogan. All these
guys oh a giant face, a giant debt to that
character of Hulk Hogan. Guys like the Rock that we
saw his social media posts, there would be no Rock,
there would be no Miss. I'm not saying the Miss
is on the Rocks level, but so many of these
people were so influenced by Hull comania to start wrestling
(40:25):
by watching him edge edge was a giant whole comania.
I can appeared that wrestling.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Like basically to me, if you if you're over forty
and white, you comania. Yeah, you're probably gonna deny, but
most likely see him Punk. Yeah, even seeing Punk probably
was a whole comania.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I'm sure at some point he cheered Hogan on.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You got most got l A.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Knight, You got multiple guys, Matt Cardona, you got multiple
guys who came out and you know, basically showed up.
You know how they looked. They had to fake mustache
and everything like that. I mean, like I said, he
there was a lot of there was there was a
lot of impact things that he's done in the industry.
There's a lot of negative things as far as not
even just talking about the racism and ship like.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That, holding back to creative control, all that stuff, the steroids,
a lying on our Citney Hall Show, choking out Richard Belger.
There's a throw.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
He's not single handedly, but he had a big part
in the destruction of TNA, because people forget that. Going
before he came to TNA, him and Ry Pischel, they
were on a good run. You had, you had your
young superstars, you had the X division, You had everything
set in place, and then they come they they say,
you know what, this ring doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
For me for foresights, We're gonna go for size.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
It was believe with six sides, the sixth SyES go
go to four.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
If you can't I forgot.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
There's a famous quote that if you can't draw, if
if everybody's changing, the channel's brother, we don't want you.
I'm like, basically he shipped on a lot of people
in the DNA, and I think that like people had
that mindset after after he left it, that m Bischoff
and Dixie Carter they totally destroyed TNA.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
And you could make the argument also without him helping
the younger talent and starting to push the younger talent
in wc W, they ruined that company. Even though he
gave w CW the biggest rub that they've ever had.
There would have been no booming w c W, but
they might not have gone out of business because they
would have started pushing younger talent.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
Well to that point, I would I would I would
push back because I would say that he kind of
leached off of a situation because you had Kevin n
Ash Scott hole an X Pop, I mean six or
six bringing in that cool factor who they say, you know,
we influenced by We're influenced.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
By rap music and West Coast West.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Coast rap and everything like that, And he said, you
know what, these guys are cool, I'm going to hitch
my bandwagon to them, and then you know, you get the.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Instances with uh.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
But that's just smart.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
With Dennis Rodman, He's like, you know, you're gonna have
one of the biggest bad boys with one of the
biggest bad boys in wrestling right now.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
But again I look at that as being a smart businessman.
He knew he wasn't hip, so he had to align
himself with Hall and Nash. He knew Rodman was the
biggest story in the NBA around that time with Michael
Jordan and the Utah Jazz going up against and.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Then those guys permanently became a stood Just like outside
of Kevin Nash, Scott Hall never was able to progress
to being a World championshabag well.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
That's to his own problems with his substance abuse issues.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
And it was like even with the finger polk of doom,
even in that instant, Kevin Nash got little Bro, like
he won the title, he won the Big one and
then got Little Bro.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well let's go over this though,
you know, Hogan Terry Blair did die of cardiac arrest
at his home in Clearwader, Florida, yesterday of this recording,
July twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, at the age of
seventy one, and his death came a month after he
underwent major spinal fusion surgery, and there was denial for
a number of weeks that he was in bad health.
(44:01):
Jimmy Hard just like the day before karaoke Brother Jimmy,
was he doing it from his deathbad?
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Jimmy Hart was like, He's like, he's perfectly funreaky fine brother,
perfectly fun. And it was like this, he couldn't kick out.
He couldn't kick out.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So it's been interesting for sure. So in final finality,
what do you think his legacy is Corey? Is it Hulkemania,
is it the nWo or is it the last ten
years of him being an out cast for a lot
of people.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
It depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
And we haven't even got into I know we're running
out of time. But also he aligned himself with Donald
Trump and that was a big thing.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Maga brother, and don't forget real American beer. Yeah, it's
like just the it depends on who. It depends on who.
It depends on who you ask, because if you acts
most I want to say, if you asks like down
WWE fans like gives something that like I'll put like
this three categories. Right, you asked the regular the regular
(45:01):
white wrestling fan, they'll probably say one of the greatest
wrestlers of all time.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
He helped, he helped wrestling too what it is today.
Then you have.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
You have the the WWE fan, the guy that no
matter if he's black, white, or whatever, WW is is
thinking he's going to defend ww no matter what.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And whole Cogan even though he said that ship can.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Do no wrong in their eyes, Like I said, black
or white, that WW fan will defend him to the end.
And stuff's like if you say anything negative about who
Coogan say, why are you doing this?
Speaker 3 (45:38):
And why are you saying? Is let that man rest
is like?
Speaker 5 (45:41):
And then you have the guy you have black folks
and most most people who view him as why the
funk should all give a fuck about this racist? Yeah,
like just you did what you did, like as far
as in the industry, kudos, but I could give two fucks.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Where do I sit that?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Where do I sit? I fall into a weird category.
I'll wear it.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
I fall I personally fall into the I really could
give to fuck, I really could give to fucks. And
I was like this, I know what you did. I
can I can acknowledge what you did for wrestling, like,
I don't have no problem. I don't have no problem
doing that. I have no problem given giving him you
give him his praise. But at the same time, I
(46:32):
know what the fuck you are. I know what the
fuck you did. And I'm just like I personally because
people look at me crazy if I'm like Dick riding
for a whole cold. He was like damn. He was like,
we wonder who you voted for. They would look at
they would look at me very coolish.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
I can't have that on my I can't have that
on my stripe. So you would not.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I know you are a big fan of wearing jerseys
and whatnot, And somebody questioned some of the attire that
you wear for time to time in Eagles jersey here
and there, would you not be rocking a hul Comania shirt.
At any point in your life, you would wear an
nw OH shirt.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
I bet I would wear.
Speaker 5 (47:10):
In Wiosha, yeah, because that was a collective. I would
wear in the Wosha because that's.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
A hul Comania.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Though. I don't know if I could do the full
hul Comania.
Speaker 5 (47:20):
I couldn't beat James. I couldn't beat James Harden. You
seen James Harden at Fanatics.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
No, was he rocking it.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
James Harden came out in a full hulk Hogan. He said,
you know he was called James Hogan.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh what's wild?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
I mean yeah, And it was like he had the
beard he had and Dan had to he ripped his shirt.
He did everything. I couldn't do.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
That to quote young thug, just to chime in here,
James Harden don't have internet. That that that's what happened,
that James Harden don't have internet. To stick up from
my bearded brother. That's my quick one.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
They didn't know Hogan was saying all these things.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Josh, cool question because Josh, since you hear we really.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, outsider, what do you think of Hogan?
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Yeah? What do you think of Hogan? What do you
fall in this line? Because you're not the biggest wrestling.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
No, I'm not, but I will say I think a
balance has been struck between you two of Yes, as
far as the legacy, you know, I had a thought
as y'all were going and just making an NBA comparison
because basketball is my sport, like that's my interest. The
Kobe Bryant legacy is an interesting parallel to me Jean
off the Dome because like great legacy, multiple time champion.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
When you think of the NBA.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
You might think of a couple names here and there
before you get to Kobe, like Lebron and Jordan, but
he's probably in the top three of the names, like
people in our age group think of. But at the
same time, he did have to pay a settlement because
he raped the woman in Colorado, among other things like
treating teammates like trash and all that. But you talk
to me, I'm like, yo, Kobe was that guy?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yo?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Like yeah, I love Kobe. So it's interesting separating the
art from the artists in a way, gift flaws is
gonna get shown.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Like they said, like flow, like most of us ain't perfect,
but we don't do shit like that. Were in public
where we can get like where we can get our
own selves crucified.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I just want to double down on this statement. I
think everyone is flawed, like you said, and everyone makes mistakes.
It's what you do when you make the mistake and
how you handle that mistake that really shows what your characters.
There's been plenty of people that have done really bad
things that have ended their lives being beloved, and I
think that's the big thing where Hogan truly fucked up.
(49:34):
He fucked up, and he could have saved himself. He
could have been the last ten years. He could have
spent the last ten years hanging out at YMCA's, hanging
out at fundraisers for the black community. He could have
learned to be a better person and showed the dedication.
But he never did that. I would say majority of
these wrestlers that grew up in the seventies and eighties,
we're probably saying ten times worse things than Hogan.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 5 (49:57):
But he always said was instead apologize, he said defences
watching watch it. Hey, look when you have all these
you have these you have some conservatives, and you have
people going like Charlie Kirk and only people, why are
you doing this I feel like, oh my god, you
got the audio. You got the audio. Oh man, That's
(50:18):
how I feel when when when he was like, come on,
have some compassion, see have some decency. I don't got
to do none of that.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
It's an amazing fall from grace. It's several falls from graces.
It's a guy who fell, picked himself up, fell again,
picked himself up, and now he's falling. And it's gonna
be interesting what the next five ten years brings to
his legacy. It's gonna be interesting even tonight as we
record this Friday night SmackDown is gonna be later tonighting.
How is he gonna be handled? How's the audience gonna
be handling?
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Well are they gonna cheer? They gonna boo?
Speaker 3 (50:46):
They already had.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
I believe that is a report already out saying that
WW has halted everything and told everybody shift your focus
to whole Colgan. Basically, it's like this, most likely you
know you're gonna get Tim bel salu At start go
and get a couple of packages throughout it, through throughout
the show.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I believe they're gonna have Cody. They're gonna have Cody.
Speaker 5 (51:08):
Now, they're gonna have Cody come out give like a
speech and talked about how IMPACTU Hulk Cogan was to
the industry. Now, I wonder who's gonna be that guy
that comes out in the colors.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Who's gonna come out in the colors.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
The red and yellow?
Speaker 5 (51:22):
Yes, who's Montes Carmelo? Hey Carmelo Hayes. You bet now?
You bet now?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Don't don't let them set you up like this black man.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
You know. It's it's also just bizarre because you know
his name, the immortal Hulkgan when you were a kid,
when I was a kid. He just never expected a
guy like this to die. It's sort of I always
thought of like Rick Flair as Megatron and Optimist Prime
being Hulk Cogan, and she's never thought Optimist Prime would die. Eventually,
he did die in the Transformers movie nineteen eighty six,
(51:54):
But you just always thought Hogan was always going to
be around he because he never really aged. He always
kind of looked the same as like, there's no way
Hogan is dying.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
This is my last one. This is my last one.
When when he you know, he you know, he got
a tattoo on.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
His back, right or does it say some religious thing no,
it says immortal, oh, immortal.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
Grim Reap was like like Lebron too we eazy, to eazy,
too we eazy.
Speaker 5 (52:18):
I was like, come on man, he was like the
grim Reap became I was like, are you read.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Basically I forgot that. I forgot that. That's that's that's what. Wait,
actually cute that other audio up.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
And then it was like before we go because he
does have one final actual legacy move that he does
have and what is that real wrestling with Eric Bischoff.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
Yeah, well, I believe that's going to continue. I'm hearing
that's going to be airing on Fox News, which is
an interesting place to have a sport being aired on.
But I hope we did a good job of at
least going over the history of Hulk Hogan and short
of painting a picture of what his life and career was.
Speaker 5 (53:14):
So I felt as though we gave a fear and
balanced perspective of Hulk Hogan, his highs, his highs, his
super high, his lows, and everything in between. Because I
felt like we did, like I'm like, as much as
I was kind of like kind of going crazy at
the end on him, you got to give me credit.
(53:34):
I gave him his praise at the start.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, no, I mean you're you did a fair balanced job,
like you said, I was. Regardless of everything, he's going
to be remembered. He is on that Mount Rushmore Pro Wrestling.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
I didn't I didn't dance on I didn't dance on
his grave or anything.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
He did a good job for I think we did both.
All three of us did a great job with this,
you know, tribute episode in the sense to.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
But to sign off, this is the this is the
whin the bell rings.
Speaker 5 (54:01):
With Corey David, Justin Greenberg and the great words in
the in the words of Hulk Hogan, each vitamins, say
your praise and don't do a second. Don't do Royd's
when he says, when I say when I say each vitamins,
I mean actually eat vitamins, don't do roids. Don't take
the easy way out, and say your prays because the
(54:22):
way world, the world is right there. You're gonna need them.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.