“What is the legacy of Hulk Hogan?”
It’s the question so many have attempted to answer this week, and there is no succinct way to answer.
The life of a 71-year-old, who spent most of it as a public figure and speaking to a mass audience, becomes impossible to untangle when so much fiction is baked into the facts.
Somewhere along the way, Terry Bollea morphed into Hulk Hogan, and few were able to decipher, including Bollea.
For some, he was their gateway into professional wrestling, a real-life comic book hero, a literal cartoon on CBS television, wrapped in the American flag. He epitomized the overused “larger than life” label. An individual who took the WWF to immense heights and became one of the greatest draws in the industry’s history, leading both WWF and WCW to boom periods.
For others, a political shark in an industry built on paranoia and distrust, using his sizable leverage at every turn.
Outside of professional wrestling, he was marred by controversies for over a decade from the leaking of conversations with his son in prison that were disturbing, a sex tape, and the subsequent racist audio it contained, a Peter Thiel-funded lawsuit that brought down Gawker, and wrapping himself around the Republican party and Donald Trump.
It’s all part of the story of Hulk Hogan.
That story begins on August 11, 1953, when the second of two boys to Peter and Ruth Bollea, arrives in Augusta, Georgia. The family had arrived in Aiken County one year before when Peter accepted a construction job in the area.
It was less than two years after Bollea’s birth that they uprooted and migrated to Tampa, the city where Bollea was most affiliated. It’s a thought exercise if Bollea doesn’t learn about his local wrestling outfit, Championship Wrestling from Florida, becoming influenced by Superstar Billy Graham and Dusty Rhodes, instead staying in Georgia and discovering Mr. Wrestling II and Thunderbolt Patterson.
Bollea was a Little League pitcher, generally considered big for his age, and was mentioned multiple times for being chastised for having a large head during his adolescence. After an elbow injury, he switched passions and fell in love with music, playing bass guitar, and from all accounts, leading to a chance meeting.
While playing a gig at The OP (The Other Place), it’s believed that Bollea met Jack Brisco and the former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion shared with The Wrestling Perspective in 1996, he saw the potential right away:
It was about midnight. I walked into this place and standing there was Hogan playing guitar in a band. God damn, if I had that boy, I could become rich (laughs). So they went on break. During the break, I came over to him at the table for a beer. He was just so impressive. He was only like 21 years old at the time. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I asked him, “Did you ever think about being a wrestler?” “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’m a big fan of yours and I’ve been watching you for years. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.” “Well, be at the Sportatorium at nine o’clock in the morning and we’ll get you going.
Championship Wrestling from Florida was under the control of Eddie Graham with Johnny Valentine serving as booker. It was no surprise that Brisco’s eyes widened when he saw the raw material of the future Hulk Hogan and indoctrinated into the fraternity.
The popular tale Hogan would espouse was being trained by Hiro Matsuda, who took advantage of the trainee but snapping his leg in half, but showing the fortitude to come back once healed and pursue this career. The notion of a trainee being abused in the Florida system is hardly a tough one to believe, given the reputation of that geographic location and Graham housing the territorial “policeman” Bob Roop to weed out pretenders with explicit force.
However, there is no verification that Hogan’s leg was broken or suffering anything worse than a sprain, and never a story Matsuda was known to share, and one that Jerry Brisco outright denied. But a great origin story doesn’t begin with a sprain and end with a Tylenol, and Hogan became the greatest author of his own mythology, where the blurred lines became either an eye roll or a distinct charm of Hogan’s retelling.
His career kicked off in 1977 wrestling as the forgotten Super Destroyer for a cup of coffee in Florida, and he was quickly sent off to Tennessee as Terry Boulder.
Joining him would be career-long sidekick Ed Leslie, a friend from Florida, whose sister attended Robinson High School with Bollea. Together as The Boulder Brothers, they performed as babyfaces in Memphis. Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler essentially had the opportunity to take the first stab at moulding this piece of clay, utilizing music videos and other ways to market the super green Bollea.
He would team with Leslie, as well as Tommy Gilbert (the father of Doug & Eddie Gilbert), and work main events with Southern Heavyweight Champion Don Bass at the Mid-South Coliseum in the infancy stages of his career.
Boulder would have stops in Southeast Championship Wrestling and made his way to Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he was rechristened as “Sterling Golden”.
The Georgia stint is a brief one, but it opened the door for Bollea to work with Stan Hansen, Austin Idol, Andre the Giant, and a 22-year-old Canadian export named Bret Hart.
Between the strength of Memphis’ local television on WMC and Georgia Championship Wrestling’s penetration, Bollea was earning more of a spotlight. But in 1979, he also got his first break in the massive media market of New York and was booked by Vince McMahon Sr.
After a few squash matches on television at Ag Hall in Allentown, and his latest rebranding to “Hulk Hogan”, he wrestles Ted DiBiase at Madison Square Garden, entering the company as the latest heel protégé of Classy Freddie Blassie.
The arena that Hogan would become forever linked with, making over fifty appearances in, began on December 17, 1979. Top billing that evening was reserved for a Texas Deathmatch involving Bob Backlund and Bobby Duncum, with support from a rare NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship match between Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes, and Antonio Inoki wrestling The Great Hossein (The Iron Sheik).
Hogan defeated DiBiase by stoppage in front of the sold-out crowd, opening the door for eight additional appearances at The Garden in 1980 against Dominic DeNucci, Tito Santana, Rene Goulet, Gorilla Monsoon, and Andre the Giant.
Despite McMahon’s best promotional efforts in 1987 to market Hogan and Andre’s WrestleMania 3 contest as a “first-time” ever meeting, it was not only false, but the two wrestled in stadiums ranging from Shea Stadium to the Louisiana Superdome, and Andre was one of Hogan’s most consistent foes during his first run in New York.
A major door opened in May 1980 as Hogan went to New Japan Pro Wrestling for the time, where he would become one of the top foreigners the promotion ever had. For Hogan’s purposes, it was a great-paying gig and furthered his understanding of working by seeing the adulation exhibited by the fanbase toward Antonio Inoki. In Japan, Inoki was not the top babyface; he was an idol and a God among his supporters, and a level of popularity that is hard to convey for those outside of Japan during this era.
Hogan teamed with Stan Hansen in that year’s MSG Tag League tournament, going to the final and losing to Inoki & Bob Backlund. Two years later, it was Hogan teaming with Inoki as the pair won the same tournament, and Hogan had risen to grand heights in Japan.
Hogan’s biggest match to this point in his career occurred on August 9, 1980, when he worked with Andre in the mid-card at Shea Stadium in front of 36,295, headlined by Bruno Sammartino and Larry Zbyszko in a steel cage match. In the summer of 1980, it was Andre with his arm raised but few understood how important this program would be over the next decade as the WWF expanded on network television and pay-per-view.
The aura of Hogan was growing exponentially, and after a recommendation by Terry Funk, he was cast in the pivotal role of “Thunderlips” in the 1982 release, Rocky 3. The big screen exposure and ties to the Rocky Balboa franchise helped usher in the industry’s next crossover star as Bollea would adopt “Eye of the Tiger” and later work with Mr. T for one of the biggest events in the WWF’s history.
But before the riches of New York came Hogan’s move from the WWWF to Verne Gagne’s AWA, beginning in August 1981.
Minnesota was a thriving territory built on a combination of excellent technical wrestling, big brooding brawlers, and some of the best talkers in the industry. The travel was heavy, the weather was rough, but it was an education for Bollea as well as the blossoming of what would become “Hulkamania”.
Like New York, Gagne saw Hogan as a heel given the size and demeanor, but the audience saw it differently, and quickly, Hogan ascended as a babyface in Minnesota chasing after AWA Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel.
He rose the ranks working opposite Jerry Blackwell in multiple “Bodyslam Challenges” to promote the size and strength of Hogan, who was netting fictitious prizes of $5,000 for each slam of the big man. After Blackwell, he engaged in a feud with Jesse Ventura, a man who would forever disenchanted by Hogan when the latter squashed Ventura’s unionization efforts in the WWF.
Hogan first challenged Bockwinkel for the AWA championship in February 1982 in Chicago, and the two routinely ran their matches through the St. Paul Civic Center and constantly coming up with ways for Bockwinkel to narrowly escape with his title, often losing by disqualification.
Many have looked back at Hogan’s handling in the AWA as evidence that Gagne had no clue what he had on his hands, no placing the belt on the force of nature, and allowing McMahon to harvest the fruits that Gagne had planted. It’s missing a major point that, as sizable a territory AWA claimed, Hogan’s primary obligation was to New Japan Pro Wrestling during this early ‘80s period.
After 1981, the notion of Hogan losing matches was just about nil. He was protected to such a degree that if it wasn’t Inoki or Hansen, there was no way of getting any championship off Hogan had Gagne pulled the trigger. The AWA was quick to merchandise Hogan, which would breed contempt between the two as Hogan astutely understood his leverage and drawing power, and knew the differences Hogan made on their live event business.
The rubber hit the road on April 24, 1983, when AWA staged “Super Sunday” and built around the latest presentation of Bockwinkel vs. Hogan and thought to be the long-awaited coronation.
With a sold-out Civic Center and adjacent St. Paul Auditorium producing a $300,000 gate, the audience experienced the 1-2-3 as Hogan pinned Bockwinkel and a new champion was crowned…or was he? Authority Stanley Blackburn invoked the instant replay to reveal that Hogan had thrown the champion over the top rope and thus causing a disqualification and yanking the rug out and eliminating the elation of the crowd. It was the closest Hogan would come to holding the championship and began the countdown to Hogan’s eventual exit from the promotion.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Hogan’s star continued to reach new heights after engaging in one of the biggest matches of his career on June 2, defeating Antonio Inoki by knockout. It was a legendary ending where Hogan struck the icon with the Ax Bomber and sent Inoki flying off the apron, and the match was stopped with the idea of Inoki legitimately being hurt and keeping the work under wraps. Hogan became the first to hold the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which was not like the modern version, but a championship defended annually.
Hogan was splitting time between the AWA and New Japan Pro Wrestling when a career-altering event occurred. On November 4 in Chicago, Hogan was teaming with The High Flyers when he had a chance meeting with WWF photographer Steve Taylor. He was there to take photos for the upstart Victory Magazine that WWF was producing and would feature stars from outside of its territory. Taylor conveyed to Hogan that Vince McMahon Jr., who had recently completed a purchase of the promotion from his father, wanted to meet.
Hogan was off for the year-end tour with New Japan and would give his notice to Gagne before the big Christmas Night show, which he was booked for in an eight-man tag. Gagne either didn’t take it seriously or didn’t care because he continued to promote Hogan up until show time but there was no Hogan and something was up as “Dr. D” David Shults also skipped the show.
The pieces fell into place days later as Vince McMahon put his vision into “execution mode” with several key maneuvers. On December 26, The Iron Sheik ended the nearly six-year title reign of Bob Backlund (save for a brief transitional switch with Inoki) and followed with a historically significant show on December 27 at The Chase Plaza in St. Louis featuring the arrivals of Hogan, Shults, and AWA announcer Gene Okerlund.
McMahon had his soldier to stand at the frontline of his plan for national domination, and as the calendar turned to 1984, it was going to be an all-out assault by the younger McMahon to disrupt the industry with Hogan leading the way. The year kicked off on January 23 as Hogan ended The Iron Sheik’s quick reign and a new face of the company was crowned, doing what Gagne was hesitant about. The difference was that McMahon had no plans of taking the belt off Hogan and would ride this championship wave for the next four years.
While many promotions were caught with their pants down as McMahon broke down barriers, raided talent, and outspent for television clearances, there was no one targeted more than the AWA. It became McMahon’s mission to strip the Minneapolis-based group to its core, going after its top attraction, its lead salesman in Okerlund, down to production and broadcasters, and attempting to strip the AWA of its home broadcaster, KMSP, by offering the outlet six figures, and being turned down. Instead, McMahon settled for the AWA’s previous home at WTCN to launch Superstars of Wrestling and staged shows to directly compete with the AWA. WWF also went after their TV broadcaster in San Francisco, who were paying nothing for the product and rubberstamped McMahon’s offer of $2,000 per week to air his promotion instead and hurting AWA’s ability to run at the Cow Palace with weaker television.
Also jumping to the WWF were AWA stalwarts Jesse Ventura, Adrian Adonis, Bobby Heenan, and Mad Dog Vachon. WWF would run counter to the AWA throughout 1984, but the incumbent held firm in its market despite the growing success of the national expanding entity. McMahon pulled out all the stops, going so far as putting Okerlund in the ring to team with Hogan, later promoting a team of Hogan & Mad Dog Vachon, and Hogan squaring off with Ventura to appeal to the AWA loyalists.
Gagne didn’t surrender without a fight, allegedly offering up $100,000 for his trainee, The Iron Sheik, to break Hogan’s leg during their Madison Square Garden match. Instead, Sheik sounded the alarm and alerted his promoter and Hogan rather than perform the “hit”.
It was a war of attrition, and WWF could absorb the counterstrikes while the AWA would weaken over time and would limp into the ‘90s, where it met its demise.
The world was changing by 1984, and Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan were the catalysts in growing beyond the industry and into the mainstream through gambles, trials, tribulations, and eventual domination.
Part 2 will cover the national expansion of the WWF, the origin of WrestleMania, and Hogan’s integral role
