RIP Hulk Hogan

[Phantom Lord]

I have so many conflicted feelings about Hulk Hogan. On the one hand, yes he was a bad person. But on the other he was a huge part of my childhood and I have admiration for that.

All I know is if you go deep enough down the iceberg (or is it up from the bottom) basically if Hulkamania failed, the WWE would not exist in the form it does today if at all. Debate among yourselves if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. 

I'm sad he died and all. But like I said there's a lot of conflicted feelings about him.

[odessasteps]

One of my friends asked if he did more harm than good for the business. I think both answers are arguable.

Since I didnt start watching until I was a teenager, I have no childhood fondness or nostalgia for his 80s run. I never liked him as a character in that time. I liked some wwf faces but mostly liked heels from when I started watching.

[username]

I'm just glad that both him and Ozzy each got to have one last time to go out in front of a live crowd this year...

[Cobra Commander]

I think a certain amount of harm that people would attribute to Hogan can be blamed on Vince or Bischoff. Some of the rest of it depends on how much you give credit to someone for the highs when the lows also happened with him around.

In the scheme of things, it would be more time-efficient if bad people just made it obvious quickly instead of having people figure it out later.. but obviously Hogan wouldn't have gotten to the top if he didn't have some sort of personal political skills.

[The Unholy Dragon]

One of the rare figures where the news of his death was met with a resounding "Fuck yeah! Finally!" from me. 

Get to eating dirt you decrepit sack of racist filth.

[Shartnado]

There have been times when I have felt so bad when a huge part of my (wrestling fan) childhood has died before their time. For a wrestler, 71 is pretty much old age, so this guy lived longer than expected, in my opinion at least. 

This makes me feel kinda numb, because of what kind of a person he was and turned out to be. 

I'll refrain from doing any of the jokes that some of these responses made me come up with and just settle with saying that he seems to have been a complicated person that was way more entertaining than I gave him credit for, for the most of the time.

Actually, so much time has passed since the mid 90's (and up until 2000) that it's probably not "most of the time" anymore, so I will change that to "for a good long while there". But yeah, certainly not shedding any tears for this one. 

[Cobra Commander]

"Eye of the Tiger" was also a better theme than "Real American" and I think I joked on here months ago that Jimmy Hart should have just ripped off Eye of the Tiger for Hogan's WCW theme.

Also, was listening to a radio station where a listener requested "Eye of the Tiger" because of Hogan dying, so there are some people in the vicinity of Fairleigh Dickinson who are old enough to remember that theme

[DreamBroken]

Hulk bringing back Eye of the Tiger for his final ever matches on the 2012 TNA UK tour house shows was the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05tPOGemauc 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK2V1H3g_8M&

Hogan, Sting, & James Storm vs. Bully Ray, Robert Roode, & Kurt Angle

[The Natural]

I read FHH died on the tenth anniversary of the racist recordings released.

Edited July 25 by The Natural

[RandomAct]

I wish the only Hulk Hogan that existed was the one that was my hero as a kid. Unfortunately Terry Bollea also existed, and wasn't a good man. I'll always cherish those memories as a kid, and remain disappointed in the person he actually was.

From a strictly in-ring perspective, I think his work holds up shocking well, if you are looking at his peak years.  I always hated the "Hogan in Japan was different" narrative. No, he just knew how to work.

[zendragon]

"Hey Hulk how is Heaven? Oh... your in the other place? and you're saving me a place?"

[Cobra Commander]

Remembering a simpler time when the worst thing people could say about Hogan is that he has bad vision

Bryan and Vinny on “That’s the Wall, brother”: https://youtu.be/ao4QkmCbK9A?si=cPQoTpU4XkCdwJmP

The Wall has been dead for over 20 years just to remind you of how far away 2003 is from today

[zendragon]

Hogan approaches St. Peter at the pearly gates, Bobby Heenan "BUT WHICH SIDE IS HE ON?"

[The Natural]

1 hour ago, zendragon said:

Hogan approaches St. Peter at the pearly gates, Bobby Heenan "BUT WHICH SIDE IS HE ON?"

Bobby Heenan was called The Brain for a reason!

[Gorman]

12 hours ago, Log said:

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

Yeah, Hogan was No. 1 in the category of "best name for opponents to call out."

Just think about Ric Flair, Andre the Giant, Slick, and Zeus saying his name in promos.

[NikoBaltimore]

I think the Helms tweet Cobra posted might be one of the better responses to this.  It's at least something a lot better than I can try and say.

I made it a point even to my wife to not say anything disparaging about Hogan and I know I mentioned that intention recently on here.  So if you're sad for his loss then my sympathies.  If you still think back to what he meant to your childhood and how it kinda sucks then I'm kinda with you on that.  Like it or not he was a real life cartoon and seeing him, Savage and Warrior in an old game or WWF promo picture gives me the nostalgic feels.  Yesterday had me thinking that it might be easier than I thought to separate that part of my life from what Hogan truly was.

I saw Random's point and he's not wrong about Hogan's time in Japan.  But I still fondly remember this board I was on before here had a watch-along of random matches.  They showed his match against Mutoh and we all were perplexed and amazed by what we saw.  It was a fun time to discover shit like that in 2003.

[SovietShooter]

What is the most high profile program that Hogan had with a POC outside of Japan?  

Looking thru Cagematch, he only had the one WM match against The Rock. Aside from a couple matches against Meng, and a single match against Kamala, he didn't wrestle any POC in North America after his original WWF run ended in 1993.  

Going back thru his original WWF run, he finished up with the program against Yoko, and he had a handful of matches with Bad News, Butch Reed, and Haku. in '87 he did work a ton of house shows against both Killer Khan and Kamala, and in '84 he worked the Iron Sheik quite often. His most high profile match against a POC in his first run was probably his PPV tag match against fucking Zeus.  

[Technico Support]

2 hours ago, zendragon said:

Hogan approaches St. Peter at the pearly gates, Bobby Heenan "BUT WHICH SIDE IS HE ON?"

After Theo and Ozzy, Hogan was the third man again!

[hammerva]

Well the good news is that for people saying that there isn't enough black representation on WWE programming you probably won't have to worry about that in the next two shows.  Gotta control that narrative.  Somewhere Booker T is grateful that the passing wasn't on a Monday 

[MORELOCK]

16 hours ago, RazorbladeKiss87 said:

And if you support the things he said or don't think they're that bad or exaggerated,  fuck you. 

 

Feel like it's worth mentioning that no one in this thread has done that. It's all been muted praise of his contributions to the wrestling business. Which, despite the best efforts of some, are undeniable.

[Shartnado]

4 hours ago, zendragon said:

"Hey Hulk how is Heaven? Oh... your in the other place? and you're saving me a place?"

Oh, Goddammit @zendragon Now I can't help myself and have to be the horrible person that I am and say that joke I thought up due to @Black Angel 's hilarious but obviously in bad taste cremation joke!

It just made me think that being cremated is just a nice, ahem, warm-up for where he's going!

Shit, I wish I would have not written that, but here I am, pushing the "Submit Reply" button. I guess I'll join the guy eventually?

[The Natural]

He's gone from the Immortal to the Immoral.

Edited July 25 by The Natural

[The Natural]

Heenan: (on Hogan’s theme music) “That’s my second favorite song.”

Monsoon: “I’m almost afraid to ask…what’s your favorite?”

Heenan: “All the rest are tied.”

God bless Bobby The Brain Heenan.

[supremebve]

8 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

"Eye of the Tiger" was also a better theme than "Real American" and I think I joked on here months ago that Jimmy Hart should have just ripped off Eye of the Tiger for Hogan's WCW theme.

 

This is just plain false.  Eye of the Tiger is dope, but I don't think Hogan was big enough to make it his own.  Real American will always be synonymous with Hulk Hogan.  Eye of the Tiger was a #1 song and is part of a humongous movie series.  

As far as people whether or not people should talk about the bad things about a person when they die, I have a story.  My Uncle Nate died a while back after retiring to Las Vegas.  So a few months after he passed there was a memorial service for him in Ohio where he lived most of his life.  My Uncle Nate is the type of person who known and respected by almost everyone in our small to midsized city.  He was part of a bunch of community organizations, he promoted concerts, boxing events, and all types of other shit that brought business and culture to a small industrial town.  At this memorial service, which was absolutely packed, a woman got up to speak and instead of talking about all of the positive things he did, she started by calling him a world class womanizer.  Not a single person blinked.  We all just sat there and listened to her talk about a man we all loved and respected about him not being able to keep it in his pants.  At the end of the speech, she asked all of his children to stand up, and the amount of total strangers who stood up was insane.  This was my grandmother's brother, and my mom and her brothers regard his children with his first wife like siblings, he was the only relative to travel from Ohio to come to my high school graduation.  We knew he had "outside" kids, but no one seemed to know how many he had.  He might be the Genghis Khan of North Eastern Ohio.  Basically, if you don't want people pointing out this type of shit when you die, you probably shouldn't be doing the shit.  You make the choices you make while you're alive, but when you die, people might stand up and tell the world about all your bullshit.  If you want to be talked about lovingly, be someone who people love.  If you don't want people calling you a womanizer, don't be a womanizer.  If you don't want people calling you a racist piece of shit, then do not be a racist piece of shit.  It's kind of that easy.  

[The Natural]

Bischoff: "When Flair walked by he held up 4 fingers. That was the sign of the 4 Horsemen."

Heenan: "When Hogan walked by I held up one finger."

Edited July 25 by The Natural