Tugboat Reflects on His Time as Hulk Hogan’s Cheerleader and Making It to WWE

– WrestlingInc.com recently interviewed former WWE Superstar Fred Ottman (aka Tugboat and The Shockmaster) at Wrestling Con in Freehold, New Jersey. Below are some highlights.

On his time as a cheerleader for Hulk Hogan: “Oh, it was fantastic. I came into the business and they put me in there as Tugboat and at one point I was Hulk Hogan’s cheerleader. When Earthquake hurt him and put him out, it was just a surreal character. It was a great time. I was a wrestling fan before I became a wrestler. Then I became a wrestler and I’m still a wrestling fan today. There’s a lot of new, young talent and new, different companies. There’s a lot of different styles that people can watch today. It’s tremendous.”

Tugboat on making it to WWF: “When I finally made it to the WWF. It was somewhere where I always wanted to be when I got started wrestling. A gentleman by the name of The Great Malenko trained me and I watched him as a kid. When I went to the WWF, I walked through the curtains and my first tryout match was in Niagara Falls. Every champion from every part of the world that I watched wrestle was there. I got so nervous that I almost pulled the curtains out coming through the first time. I almost had a Shockmaster moment in my inception into the WWF.”