Hulk Hogan Discusses the Early Development of His Character, Reveals the Biggest Moments of His Career

– CBS Philly and Howard Eskin recently interviewed former WWE Superstar Hulk Hogan, who discussed some of the biggest moments of his career. Below are some highlights (transcript via WrestlingInc.com).

Hulk Hogan on not having any idea that Hulkamania would happen: “I had no idea [Hulkamania] was going to happen. When I got into the [pro] wrestling business, I loved the business. I was a fan, number one. But I just wanted to get into the business and be good enough, earn a good living, and be very supportive of the art form of [pro] wrestling. Now, I’d guess you’d call it sports entertainment. But the thing that was really crazy was I’ve always had a good heart, I’ve always been a good person, and I just was trying to find a character that would be that ultimate American, positive character. And, actually, Vince McMahon, Sr. helped me with the name, ‘Hulk Hogan’. I already had the name ‘Hulk’, but he gave me the ‘Hogan’ part to represent the Irish community. Yeah, I was looking for this All-American character that would be supportive of the red, white, and blue, and the purple mountains majesty. And it just so happened, at the time, I had a full head of hair. I was at the beach all the time. It was kind of like the perfect storm of the blonde-haired American guy from Venice Beach, California, and I hit on all eight cylinders. I had no idea the character was going to take off like it did. I had no idea that the character Hulk Hogan with the training, vitamins, saying your prayers, believe in yourself would become etched in stone as the words that would attract kids to the character and make the character a role model. So all the stuff started happening all at once. And with the perfect timing, when I went back to WWE, I had been fired many years before for doing a Rocky movie because back then, the mindset was, ‘no movies, no commercials – if you’re a wrassler, you’re a wrassler,’ but things have changed. But when I came back, it was the perfect storm because I had already figured out how to be Hulk Hogan. I’d already figured out how to make Hulkamania run wild and rip the shirt off. I started shaking the ring ropes before the comeback, so when I did come out at Madison Square Garden, I was ready to be the All-American good guy.”

Hogan on the three biggest moments of his career: “The first one, of course, was WrestleMania 1 where we pulled out all of the stops. We had Mr. T. We had Billy Martin there. We had Mary Hart. We had everybody there. The Rockettes, Alice Cooper, Cyndi Lauper, I mean, we had the whole gambit there for WrestleMania 1. Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon bet the farm that this was going to make or break the pro wrestling business and this is where we did the transition. This is where we shifted gears into an international phenom, the wrestling business, instead of just a local scenario, so WrestleMania 1 was so important and it put wrestling on the map. … Then we go to WrestleMania 3 where we set the largest indoor attendance record and I wrestled André The Giant. That really cemented my career in stone when André The Giant passed the torch to me because nobody had ever beaten The Giant before.”

Hogan on how memorable WrestleMania 18 was for him: “And then, fast forward to WrestleMania 18 where I came back to WWE after working for Ted Turner for about eight years. I came back. Everybody thought that Hulk Hogan was washed up, he was too old, maybe he was out of gas, maybe he couldn’t keep up. And I went out to the ring with The Rock and basically took The Rock to school at WrestleMania 18. And that match, from what a lot of the wrestling fans talk about, was the biggest WrestleMania moment ever because the whole building was cheering for Hulk Hogan and the whole building was cheering for Rock off and on, and it was the craziest go against the grain cheer the bad guy because nobody expected it. It was just something that changed the landscape of how the wrestling fans view the heroes and villains.”