RIP Hulk Hogan

[Nice Guy Eddie]

18 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

I have a hard time balancing "bigoted selfish asshole Hulk Hogan" with "endlessly charitable Hulk Hogan visiting hundreds of children's hospitals" in my head, because both existed within the same body. A cynical side of me says "well he did it for the publicity", but sick kids feeling something other than misery about their condition kind of beats out whatever I might have been thinking about the whys of the action.

Bad wrestler? Subjective. Who cares in the end. We'll all become dust someday, what does it matter how well someone can do an armlock?

I wish he had been a better person. I wish a lot of my heroes were better people though, so at least he's not alone in that respect.

I don't know.

I couldn't have said it better myself. This basically sums up my feelings on Hulk Hogan.  

[Curt McGirt]

2 hours ago, Zimbra said:

I do have to give Hogan one flower: he was pretty funny doing the voice of the dean on China, IL.

Oh absolutely. If I have to give him one anything, it's that. (Miss that show to death)

Sure enough, he topped the nightly news. So much for those starving kids in Gaza, right? BTW, I had forgot that he shuck-and-jove for the current monster-in-chief during the last election, so who cares about hospital visits and China, IL: he can burn in the deepest of the pits. 

It's just wrestling, folks. There's a standard of morality, when you're given a certain amount of amount of power or prestige, that mean more than your profession.

Here's another lovely meme from FB 

Spoiler

 

[Log]

Random-ass thought, but I always loved it when dudes pronounced his name “Hoke Hogan”. 

[colonial]

(93) Hulk Hogan - Ichiban EP - YouTube

Hogan releasing an album in Japan was not what I was expecting. 

[driver]

7 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

So the three this time was Malcom Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osborne, and Hulk Hogan? What a weird combination.

The 80's were a different time. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, zendragon said:

I'd say v Harley Race on SNME, with the title win over Sheiky baby his second best 80's match, Him dropping the title to Luger might be his best 90's match and him v Rock best of the 2000s

I recently watched Hogan vs. Muta.  That has to be up there 

[Log]

He has a shockingly awesome match with Nikolai Volkoff on an early SNME, too. 
 

Really, a ton of his stuff in WWF pre-87 is good. It’s crazy to see how much he pressed the action in his matches.

[Curt McGirt]

18 minutes ago, Log said:

Random-ass thought, but I always loved it when dudes pronounced his name “Hoke Hogan”. 

HO KOGAN

Warrior was a god at that, at least. 

[Big Fresh]

5 hours ago, Lawful Metal said:

So what was Hogan’s best match?

I hate to say it because it's 2 of the biggest scumbags of all-time, but the WM19 match with Vince was nuts.

[Hamhock]

A couple of meh thoughts:

- I was 11 in 1984 and living in the northeast when the WWF/Hogan thing went national;  needless to say, I was hooked from the start. My dad took me to a Hogan signing at a “Lionel Kiddie City” store in our Pennsylvania suburb, and then we went to the August ‘84 Spectrum show with Hogan vs. Valentine, which was terrific, especially because Hogan wasn’t doing his standard formula match yet.

- at my current employer, there’s a department that handles the camera transmissions/feeds of the broadcasts between the various stadiums and our headquarters. After a broadcast concludes, they put up a graphic for internal use to indicate whether or not to keep those transmission ports/lines open for more use. For years, if everything was supposed to be shut down for the night, they’d use an enormous photo of Hogan posing with the words “GOODNIGHT, BROTHER” underneath it.

(and if they needed to keep the lines open, they’d use a photo of polka-dot Dusty with “KEEP LINES OPEN, BABY!”)

[Niners Fan in CT]

I think it was mentioned in the article but there's a house show match from 1986 against Macho.  Might be the one at the Boston Garden.  I discussed it on here about a year ago.  Hogan was busted open,  bleeding like crazy. That was a really good match. 

[Cobra Commander]

21 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

HO KOGAN

Warrior was a god at that, at least. 

a few months ago, I was hoping for a WWE Vault video of just Hogan/Warrior dueling videos pre-WM6

[porksweats]

Hulk was a great chickenshit heel, but he was also a racist so there's that.

[Cobra Commander]

my YouTube algorithm just showed me this, uploaded by RHINO five hours ago

"Hulk Hogan - Ichiban EP": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trrExsjt4fA

The video claims this is funk, but I'm gonna make the joke that Disco was alive in Japan in 1982 because this is very Disco-sounding

[Nineteen]

As I think about it I get that it's hard to balance that he's probably done more to make wrestling what it is than anyone else but I saw a post on bluesky bringing up yeah, he did do something that really affected wrestling when he stooged on Ventura trying to unionize. Part of it would have been health benefits and retirement pay and who knows how many lives that would have changed or even saved.

He's one more to my "well I used to enjoy Woody Allen" movies pile. I can ironically watch his promos... like this one where the shrooms just kicked in

https://youtu.be/rDWalFmERhY?si=UPAT0YoCkCmC-OB7

But..... okay he did a lot for Brutus after his face injury and other things for people but someone once said there's a difference between being nice to people and being a kind person and a good person. He was not a kind or good person.

[WebConn89]

51 minutes ago, Big Fresh said:

I hate to say it because it's 2 of the biggest scumbags of all-time, but the WM19 match with Vince was nuts.

I was there live I was 13 and I marked the fuck out for Roddy Piper. That’s what I remember about that match Roddy Piper.

[The Green Meanie]

44 minutes ago, porksweats said:

Hulk was a great chickenshit face, but he was also a racist so there's that.

Fixed that for you

[Cobra Commander]

saw a Beau post mentioning Hogan/Savage in Bristol, TN in 1987 and here's the card locations/attendances/main events for 7/25/1987

• MSG, 18100, Steamboat/HTM and Harts/Bulldogs
• Baltimore, 4197, Patera/Orndorff and Steele/Davis
• Bristol TN, 3948, Hogan vs Savage

The next day Hogan/Savage was in Wichita in their debut in that city and Wichita outdrew the LA Sports Arena. They were running these matches at the same time that they were running Savage/HTM in some markets and Savage was either about to turn face or was turning face.. but what a show of 1987 WWF business that they were using Hogan in some mid-major markets. In 1984/85, they would open up markets with Andre vs Big John Studd in year 2/3 of their eternafeud and then by 1987, it was Hogan/Savage.

there's an argument for Hogan/Savage being the greatest feud that also went for a long time purely for national spotlight. Flair/Steamboat went just as long and had better matches. Flair/Sting also went on for a long time but all in one promotion (unless you insist JCP and WCW were different)

[Greggulator]

Here are my thoughts on Hogan:

1) I grew up in WWF territory. But I for some reason was never into Hogan to the same degree as other kids in my town. Always others I liked more. 

2) Early cable had a plethora of wrestling. So I had NWA, random 80s southern stuff, WCCW, AWA, etc. So much of that was just better than the WWF and Hogan. Show a kid the LOD from that era and then put them against Hulk.

3) I at some point became a fan of heels. Heels are just naturally funnier than babyfaces and Hogan was also the least cool babyface. All that stuff just got so boring, especially if you had the ability to watch Sting as a babyface. 

4) Then Hogan went to WCW and it was a neverending dreck of terrible stuff and neverending feuds with the Dungeon of Doom and the like. I love wrestling camp and stupidity so much. Kevin Sullivan is right in my wheelhouse. But man even that stuff with Hulk was so lame I could find nothing to even pretend to like about it. I can’t even like it in the “so bad it’s sublime” stuff. All the great stuff with the Warrior feud is from The Warrior’s insanity.

5) His heel turn was fun for like six weeks and then it just became the same repetitive thing for like three years. 

6) Easy enough to avoid his WWE appearances and the like.

7) He was just a gross scumbag.

I never really liked Hogan as a performer. I can’t even really like his stuff in an ironic manner. He’s just one of the most boring performers ever to me. 

This probably sounds terrible since he just died. But man that guy sucked up so much oxygen when there was so much better wrestling to find and care about.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

How have we gotten this far without mentioning Shawn Michaels and his match against Hogan at Summerslam '05? I don't like Shawn Michaels either, but I thought his overselling was hilarious. 

[Cobra Commander]

Summer 2005 HBK made me hope that he was just going to stay as a heel, then he didn't... so...

although 1997-98 heel HBK was built on some things that they weren't doing on TV in 2005, and HBK was cleaned up compared to the 90s

[The Natural]

18 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

How have we gotten this far without mentioning Shawn Michaels and his match against Hogan at Summerslam '05? I don't like Shawn Michaels either, but I thought his overselling was hilarious. 

Still remember the Oversellous video. Enjoy:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1bw2g

Edited July 25 by The Natural

[Nice Guy Eddie]

6 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Still remember the Oversellous video. Enjoy:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1bw2g

Good work, mate. You're doing the Lord's work. 

[Cobra Commander]

Shane Helms tweet: https://x.com/ShaneHelmsCom/status/1948581133005795703

Quote

I hate this shit. I can’t ignore the way Hulk made some of my friends feel. I also can’t ignore the fact that he was incredibly good to me and was a part of the puzzle that is my life. The only thing I’m sure of is that hate is only defeated by love, not more hate. I wish everyone had the same experiences with Hulk that I did. I’m also aware that many didn’t. I hate this shit. RIP Hulk, may you find in your passing what you missed in your journey here.

there is a certain amount of being nice to people who aren't really threats to him that probably went on there.. but probably also no shortage of guys who worked for WCW for 6 years who never really got to interact much with Hogan at all due to how that company was laid out. On the other hand, Silver King, El Dandy, and Lizmark Jr did get a photo with Hulk once so..

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GupJqwEWAAAeWtF.jpg

[odessasteps]

If a bad person is nice to you, what can you do? You can say "i know he's a bad person, but my own individual experience was not bad." People are complicated.