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#7. Limitations in the Ring

One of the great contradictions that wrestling historians will always have to contend with is the fact that Hulk Hogan—the most famous wrestler of all time, probably still considered by the general public to be the greatest pro wrestler of all time, actually wasn't all that remarkable in the ring.

Hogan focused on a basic move set that was limited to high impact brawling—punches to face, chest chops, kicks to the mid-section, and the big boot—and unspectacular power moves—primarily, just the bodyslam. And none of this offense was delivered particularly crisply or realistically. Comparably, on the defensive side, Hogan tended to vacillate between dramatically overselling his opponents' attacks, and completely no-selling as he hulked up and brushed off some of wrestling's otherwise most devastating maneuvers.

To put it frankly, watch Hogan in a vacuum and mute the crowd reaction, and he seems like a pretty bad professional wrestler.

But most of us don't watch wrestling on mute. We watch it live from the arena, or broadcasted into our television screens and with that context, Hogan's performances become legitimately legendary. And that's where the kernel of truth about Hogan as an in-ring performer becomes most evident. He wasn't highly technical or innovative, but he performed with an intangible brand of charisma that connected with the fans, maintained an arsenal of recognizable moves that made it easy for fans to know what was coming, chant along, and cheer accordingly—perfect for an era in which predictability was acceptable, and in the decades to follow, perfect for a nostalgia act that brought fans back to their youths.


#6. Limited Appearances

I became a mark for Bret Hart in 1993 amidst his first world title run. I wasn't overly upset when Hulk Hogan won the strap back at Wrestlemania 9, but my interest quickly flagged when, in addition to his in-ring limitations, I noticed Hogan wasn't appearing in the ring at all.

Whereas Hart worked his way into the hearts of wrestling fans by living up to his fighting champion gimmick, Hogan didn't wrestle on Monday Night Raw or Superstars. Nor did he even offer the shows the dignity of live interview appearances; instead, we only received Hogan via pre-recorded backstage promos.

Again, this demonstrates Hogan as a product of his time. In the 1980s, when all TV was pre-recorded aside from the occasional Saturday Night's Main Event, and there were only four PPVs on the calendar, it was perfectly acceptable to not see the WWF's biggest star for a period of months. As WWE progressed toward the modern era, Hogan's absences stuck out like a sore thumb. While Hogan adapted and appeared much more regularly for his WCW run, he still had his share of extended absences to be followed by dramatic returns—great for the nights when he did come back, but ultimately sending fans the clear message that The Hulkster was not a personality you could reliably expect to see on your television screen.

It's easy to blast Hogan as lazy or selfish for his limited appearances, but the funny thing is that he may well have stumbled on a winning formula before it became in vogue. Before The Undertaker limited himself to WrestleMania appearances, guys like Chris Jericho and RVD began taking sabbaticals, and The Rock became the part-timiest of part-timers, Hulk Hogan was the star who felt special for under exposure—a personality fans waited to see again, and for whom they exploded when they did catch sight of him.


#5. Heelish Antics

I realize I'm not exactly breaking new ground when I write this, but long after his initial heel run and long before the NWO it's remarkable to watch old footage of Hogan see just how high a proportion of his offense is unadulterated cheating—often unprovoked by his adversary. Sure, there are the closed-fist punches that are technically illegal but that most everyone gets away with; beyond that, though, Hogan openly embraced gouging his opponents' eyes, dragging their eyes across the ring ropes, choking them with wrist tape, and whipping them with belts.

And there's one of Hogan's most transparent heel moments—the first instance when I remember consciously questioning his heroism—when Sid Justice eliminated him from the 1992 Royal Rumble, and rather than accept defeat graciously, Hogan manipulated the big man into a handshake, then held onto him and pulled, facilitating the only actual heel in the situation, Ric Flair, dumping Justice from behind. Not very sportsmanlike.

As Gorilla Monsoon tended to rationalize on commentary, Hogan's heelish moves were often a demonstration of how heated his rivalries had become or the actions were alternately retributive or preemptory to the heel's own illegal activities. For better or worse, I can't escape the sense that the gestalt of this style of wrestling was to communicate Hogan and his matches were above the conventional pro wrestling rulebook, not dissimilar from the way in which no DQ matches came into vogue in the decades to follow Hogan's heyday, with the implicit message that wrestling's highest stakes encounters couldn't be bound by traditional rules, but rather demanded that the main event players involved be permitted to fight.


#4. Disloyalty to WWE

From 1985 to 1992, Hulk Hogan was more or less synonymous with the WWF. But then things changed. Hogan tried to go Hollywood, to less than stellar results. He testified in the steroid trial, not as against the WWF as he could have (he denied that he was ever pressured to take steroids or that Vince McMahon had, directly, given them to him), but also copping to steroids being a part of his fitness regimen at the time. From there, he moved on to WCW where his name power and backstage influence contributed to the company nearly putting the WWF out of business. And while Hogan did come back home for a year and a half in the early 2000s and made scattered appearances thereafter, he rounded out that decade as an authority figure, on and off camera, for TNA, including the brief spell when the company tried to go head to head with WWE on Monday night television programming.

So why does WWE keep welcoming back Hogan with open arms? There's an inescapable nostalgia factor for the man who was arguably most key to building and preserving WWE over the Vince McMahon Jr. years. A desire to make bank on the Hogan persona, because, let's face it, people will still pay to see The Hulkster. But above all that, I think there's a very real sense that Hulk Hogan is an inextricable part of the WWE family. WWE could more or less whitewash Chris Benoit from its history; it could spend the better part of a decade forgetting Bret Hart existed; it could blackball Vince Russo from ever setting foot in a WWE writers' room again; heck, Randy Savage is still somehow missing from the Hall of Fame. But both in front of and behind the cameras, Hogan is a part of the fabric of WWE, existing in the very same rarefied air as Steve Austin, The Rock, John Cena, and McMahon himself as figures that will always have a home in the E.


#3. Dubious Claims

The word is out—Hulk Hogan is full of shit.

Take the most iconic moment of his storied career: bodyslamming Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania 3.
A cool moment? No doubt. But much the mystique around that moment is up for debate.

Brother, I slammed him in front of 100,000 people at the Silverdome. The high end estimates had the crowd at 93,173, with conflicting reports estimating the attendance closer to 72,000.

He weighed 700 pounds, jack! Andre was billed at 520 at the time, which may, itself have been an overestimate.

I pressed the Giant over my head. It was a bodyslam—to his credit, a fully realized slam, but certainly not a press slam.

No one thought it could be done, brother, brother, brother. Actually, Hogan himself had slammed Andre at least twice on record in 1980.

Yes, it's easy to call Hogan a liar, and wrap it up at that. But in listening to him recount his greatest moments, it's more fun to listen to him not like he's a historian, but rather a crazy grandfather telling you about how he walked ten miles to school, uphill both ways in the snow when he was a kid. You know there's a lot of hyperbole and bending of the truth, but you also don't care because you know it makes a better story the way he's telling it, and besides, he's a harmless old man.


#2. Reality Woes

When VH1 rolled out the Hogan Knows Best reality series, I thought we were getting as close to a real look at Hulk Hogan's life as we'd ever get. Uninspired and sanitized, the show still offered a handful of memorable peeks behind the scenes and insights into who Terry Bollea and his family really were. Just the same, in the aftermath of the show, the gloves came off. His son, Nick, got in a car wreck for which he was held responsible for drinking and driving and reckless driving. Hogan and his wife, Linda, underwent an ugly divorce. And then there was the Hulk Hogan sex tape which, to be frank,I did not and have no interest in watching, and won't write about any further.

The sum of these incidents could easily be enough to destroy Hogan's legacy and, indeed, mass media seems to view Hogan as more of a punchline than an A-list celebrity at this point. Just the same, in a case of life imitating art, Terry Bollea has hulked up, opening a new club, returning to WWE TV, and generally re-establishing his name to the point that, if by no other means than absence making the heart grow fonder, by the time he made his return for WrestleMania 30, the snarky IWC fans who had always hated Hogan seemed to be the only ones really decrying his comeback—the rest of us were happy to see him back on our TVs (in the appropriate doses).


#1. Bad for Business

The most unsettling and ugly revelation of Hogan's TNA run was that he might actually not be good for business. Consider the facts: he became an on-air character, and he failed to move the needle on TNA ratings. He and Eric Bischoff teamed up to reshape the creative direction of the product. Not only did business not pick up, but temporarily moving Impact to Monday nights and scheduling more shows on the road seemed to actively hurt the company's financial status.

So what good, exactly, did Hogan do for TNA?

Taking matters a step further, despite his very successful run as a heel champion with the NWO, Hogan's time in WCW was bookended by disappointment—first a face run that felt like a retread of his already-tired WWF schtick, then extending the NWO well past the point of fans getting tired of it before settling into forgettable programs with Kidman and Mike Awesome that did nothing to benefit anyone involved.

Then let's look at Hogan's work with WWE. For seven or eight years, he was the single biggest star wrestling has ever seen and ushered in a level of success the company and wrestling in general had never seen before and has hardly flirted with since (aside from the Attitude Era). But what about the coda to his first WWF run—when he stole the spotlight from Bret Hart and Yokozuna for a forgettable run that derailed what little momentum the new generation had gathered and set the company back in 1993. And yes, Hogan put on an enjoyable program with Shawn Michaels leading up to SummerSlam 2005. But what about his follow up performance opposite Randy Orton at SummerSlam 2006? Reportedly, Hogan dickered over not wanting to put over Orton and about money and about dubious injuries, all of which utterly sabotaged the booking of the angle.

The lesson to be derived from all of this is that Hogan, like most of us, is human, and his body of work is not immaculate or one hundred percent consistent. His politicking, tendency to rely on the same old tricks, and limitations as a creative mind mean that he's not someone to trust with absolute power over a wrestling company.

Thus we arrive at the perfect pairing of Hulk Hogan with Vince McMahon. McMahon, who recognized when it was time to pull the plug on Hulk Hogan as the top face in 1993, and then found a way to get the most of him again in 2002, again in 2005, and yet again in 2013. Hogan, left to his own devices, is not so different from Vince Russo as a creative force—potentially brilliant, but in need of a driver with two hands on the steering wheel and a foot hovering over the brake to keep the car on the road, and to know when it's time to pull over for a rest stop. Hogan isn't, objectively, to be blamed for that—it's just part of his legacy that he's only as good as a master facilitator like McMahon sets him up to be.

Read more at http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/columns/330740#2acbOsSAWL9FvVZs.99

#7 and #1 are spot on. I'm not gonna get into how Hogan is the biggest piece of shit to ever grace the sport, even though he refused to put people over and went into business for himself a majority of the time. So glad WWE isnt putting him in the spotlight now, the gloryhog is probably pissed about that.

You can go on and on, yes a lot of this is true. But without Vince and Hogan, WWE and wrestling all together wouldn't have made it to the big times. backstage politics, glory hogging. Welcome to the world of pro-wrestling brother, it's not the fairest business. Dog eat dog. Step on people or get stepped on.

7: He's bad at his job

6: He's too lazy to come in to work

5: He doesn't do his job right

4: He hates his employer

3: He lies like a rug

2: He's an attention whore

1: He tried another job and was still bad at it


Why do people like this fucker?

7. Made WWE millions and millions of dollars...how is that being bad at his job? Also go watch his matches in japan, the man could work.

6. Lazy to come into work? The dude has been dying to get back to work even tho he would fall apart.

5. 7 and 5 are pretty much the same thing

4. He hates his employer yet he praises Vince every chance he gets...

3.Welcome to the world of wrestling TJ

2. #3

1. Everyone knows No Holds Barred Should have won him an Oscar. But seriously so has a lot of other wrestlers.


Why I like? Because he is one of the reasons why I am a wrestling fan. He was a childhood favorite right next to Macho Man and Mick Foley. Being a Hogan and wrestling fan is the only thing me and my older brother share in common. Everytime I see him it brings back the only good memories I have had with my brother. So if you dislike him I could give a flying fuck, but no matter what you or any other fucker said I will never stop being a Hogan fan.

Noone cares if you're a Hogan fan, people give you shit because you ignore 90% of the stupid shit he's done since 1993 and act like he's this perfect guy because OMG HE PUT WRESTLING ON THE MAP IN 1985

Have I ever denied the stupid shit Hogan has done? No. I know he is the king of backstage politics, I know the shit he has pulled. I am pissed off at him for what he and Eric did to the Renegade. But The good Hogan has done for WWE and in Wrestling as a whole. Hogan help bring Wrestling to the main stream in the 80's and in the 90's he helped save it. The Good Hogan has done will always out weigh the bad.

Every single bit of it is true.

I'd actually say #6 isn't that bad in this case. Being mysterious can be a good thing. Just like Undertaker doesn't tweet or have a Facebook account, Hogan not being on every single show made him look bigger, although it was very selfish.

Thats because Undertaker lives out his gimmick when he isnt on the road

Bigger stars should have more limited appearances, makes them feel more special when they do show up. Tho I dislike Brock, you know shit is about to go down when he come around

No. 7: The best (professional) wrestler is the one who makes the most money. That's what Hulk Hogan told Ric Flair ... and it's true. It's a profession. Many of the world's best actors in a technical sense aren't the biggest movie stars. There have been better workers, but not better wrestlers. Because Hogan connected with the crowd and got them involved where workratz guys did not.

He also wrestled a specific way due to WWE being in big-arena settings. Less is sometimes more. Look at his work in Japan if you haven't and you may be amazed at his moveset and versatility.

No. 6: Being on TV less is not the same as working less. You had to pay to see the champ, or the big attractions. While some keyboard warrior looks back and says he was lazy, it's kind of lazy not to look up your facts and note that he was main eventing pretty much every house show -- 200 to 300 dates a year.

No. 5: Hulk did unto others as they did unto them. It's silly to put babyfaces in a "you can't break the rules" box while their opponents are breaking the rules. He gave those filthy animal heels what they deserved and the crowd loved him for it.

And you left out my favorite, the back rake.

No. 4: It's called the Golden Rule -- he who makes the gold makes the rules. Hogan was an attraction, one of the few people during much of his prime who could actually shop around and cut a better deal.

Hulk's jumping promotions for bigger money opened the door for others to do the same. He was best for business from the wrestlers' point of view because he did open those doors, and wherever he landed there were bigger purses because guys got paid based on a percentage of the gate ... and Hogan created bigger gates.

No. 3: If you weren't at the Silverdome for WM 30, you wouldn't understand.

No. 2: People actually watched his reality TV show? Obviously they must have to be able to tell us what happened on it.



Same for TNA.

No. 1: You should have been at the Silverdome for WM 30 like I was. Guy's old and broken down and been away for years and he's there basically to cut a promo with two other legends and his merch was selling like hotcakes. Next to Cena there was probably more HH merch worn to that show than anyone else.

Be jealous.

^ every thing he said

"No. 7: The best (professional) wrestler is the one who makes the most money. That's what Hulk Hogan told Ric Flair ... and it's true."

No it's not.

Joe Flacco isn't a better Quarterback than Johnny Unitas because he made more money. When you CAN measure performance, performance is what matters. Hogan was a poor wrestler, even giving him the benefit of the fact he worked the "hero" style in WWF. Hogan is an act. It works now because you almost never see it. It's nostalgic. But if you were trying to establish Hogan in this day of age you wouldn't stand a fucking chance.

Hogan was established as a superstar when the majority of fans still thought it was real. He was smashed over everyone with writing that in the long-term made him the only star, because "his friends" kept turning on him. That's how Hogan "connected" with the audience.

Could just anyone have been Hulk Hogan with the same booking? No, Lex Luger proved that to be false. Hogan is a great act. I'm not disputing that.

But he's a crappy worker that benefited from circumstances in terms of being established, and he's a fucking asshole as far as holding down talents. He's also one of the most selfish performers in the history of the business.

Dead wrote:

#7 and #1 are spot on. I'm not gonna get into how Hogan is the biggest piece of shit to ever grace the sport, even though he refused to put people over and went into business for himself a majority of the time. So glad WWE isnt putting him in the spotlight now, the gloryhog is probably pissed about that.

Hogan and Jarrett feuded in TNA in 2010 and Hogan called Jarrett a fame whore POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK!

7. Giant Silva

6. George "The Animal" Steele

5. Golga

4. Sable

3. Luna Vachon

2. The Jackyl

1. Kurrgan

^ how has no one seen what he did thar

Hogan is obviously an Irish last name, but the Hulkster has had orange skin and blonde hair for thirty years. Explain THAT oddity.

All those vitamins

MFiSG wrote:

Hogan is obviously an Irish last name, but the Hulkster has had orange skin and blonde hair for thirty years. Explain THAT oddity.

I read somewhere that when he was first given the gimmick, they gave him a bottle of red hair dye, to make him look Irish. However, as his hairline was already starting to recede at like 25 or however old he was at the tine, he dumped the bottle in the toilet and showed up to work the next show still blonde.